Labour To Make Council Housing Ownership Easier - 15 February, 2007

Council and housing association tenants should receive more help to get on the housing ladder, Communities secretary Ruth Kelly has said.

She proposed a new scheme to encourage tenants to buy as little as a 10% stake in their council homes, which they could easily afford with the money they save by leaching off the state for 90% of their lives.

Surprisingly the Tories agreed with the Government but suggested killing two birds with one stone by creating ‘dual-use’ social housing that could also house the UK’s overflowing prison population. “Once these council urchins have offended, as they inevitably will, they can easily be moved to a prison flat within the same estate, which is bigger and has better facilities.”

Bjorn Loser, a council tenant in Cumbernauld, Scotland, said, “I didn’t know people could own houses. In fact, I only found out last week that a lot of people also pay rent. I’m off to sniff some glue and then stab an old lady.”

Ms Kelly said that the mistakes of the past - huge high-rise council estates - can never be made again.

"As a government, we recognise that the sort of people who live in council housing would be better off underground”. She then gave details of a proposal which would see useless tube lines, such as the District and Northern lines, turned into estate housing.

“Tenants could eventually own 2% of their council tube house by regularly using their oyster card, which the government would also provide.”

Shadow housing minister Michael Hartlass called the program "needlessly bureaucratic" but in general supported the Homebuy scheme. "Giving everyone who wants the chance to get on the property ladder is at the heart of the Conservative visions of social mobility - no matter how the shit that property may be.”