Cameron Announces Plan to End Lifetime Council Tenancies

An end to lifetime council tenancies was signalled today by David Cameron as he warned the coming public spending cuts will not be restored when the economy recovers. Cameron said he wanted to see fixed terms for all new council and housing association tenancies lasting as little as five years to help increase social mobility. The prime minister admitted that "not everyone will support this and there will be quite a big argument". Speaking in Birmingham, he said: "There is a question mark about whether, in future, we should be asking when you are given a council home, is it for a fixed period? Because maybe in five or 10 years you will be doing a different job and be better paid and you won't need that home, you will be able to go into the private sector."
A consultation paper, due to be published as early as tomorrow (5 August), will say the new short-term tenure would be for local councils to implement, but would involve regular reviews of tenancies to see if the council tenant still needed such a large property or had sufficient income to shift to the private sector. The communities department estimates that it costs each taxpayer £35 a week to keep people in affordable homes, and it is argued the tenancy for life is an inefficient use of scarce resources. Under the government's proposals council tenants could be forced to downsize. A total of 234,000 households in the social tenant sector are overcrowded while 456,000 are under-occupied, meaning people have more than one extra spare room, according to official figures. Read the full story on the Guardian website by clicking on the logo below.