PM floats end to "council house for life" through Localism Bill

The Prime Minister has suggested that council houses could be allocated on fixed-term deals lasting five or ten years rather than being granted automatically “for life”, the BBC has reported.

It is understood that the proposal will be included in the Localism Bill this autumn, with the legislation also potentially allowing local authorities to remove the right to buy from new tenants that sign up to fixed, short-term tenancies.

David Cameron’s comments came on a visit to the West Midlands, where he said that those tenants who succeed in getting a better-paid job should be encouraged to move into the private housing sector.

He said it was also important that tenants have the opportunity to move for work, which would mean making the system more flexible.

The BBC said the Prime Minister’s comments came in response to a question from a mother of two teenagers, who had had to sleep on a blow-up bed for two years as her council could not find more space.

David Cameron insisted that the government was investing in social housing

“At the moment we have a system very much where, if you get a council house or an affordable house, it is yours forever and in some cases people actually hand them down to their children,” he said.

“And actually it ought to be about need. Your need has got greater….and yet there isn’t really the opportunity to move.”

The Prime Minister acknowledged that he expected a “big argument” about the proposals, although he added that the changes would apply to future tenants, not current ones.

“There is a question mark about whether, in future, should we be asking, actually, when you are given a council home, is it for a fixed period, because maybe in five or ten 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.”

Shadow Housing Minister John Healey said: “What we need is more secure homes, not less. People highly value the affordable cost and long-term stability of secure tenancy.”