A scheme that will allow renters to buy their homes from housing associations at a discounted price is being put forward by Boris Johnson.
The Prime Minister claims it will help generation rent get on the ladder but who will benefit from right to buy exactly?
There are around 2.5million households, or five million people, in England who rent from housing associations and could, in theory, benefit, although the small print on how it could work is still being reviewed.
Johnson is said to believe that an expanded version of the scheme, initially launched by Margaret Thatcher, would predominantly help renters in his seats in the Midlands and the north.
Under Ms Thatcher's 1980s policy, two million councils transferred their properties over to housing associations.
Around 3million homes were then sold to council tenants at discounted rates of up to 70%, getting them on the housing ladder.
But it also meant the amount of council homes available for those in poverty or facing homelessness took a severe cut.
The scheme won’t include privately rented homes, just those let out by housing associations which have mostly replaced councils as the main provider of social housing in recent decades.
A government source claimed that Johnson "has a fixation on the young not being able to get on the housing ladder".
The proposal for renters to be able to purchase their social homes at a discount also appeared in David Cameron's 2015 Conservative manifesto.
A pilot was launched in the Midlands in 2018 under Theresa May and Johnson said he would consider new pilots in his 2019 manifesto.
But housing experts said the policy amounted to the sell-off of affordable homes during the cost of living crisis and called instead for an increase in house building instead.
Shelter said that in the last three months of 2021 almost 34,000 households in England became homeless, of whom more than 8,000 were families with children.
According to Shelter, more than 1m households are on social housing waiting lists in England.
Polly Neate, chief executive, said at a time when bills were skyrocketing, the government "should be building more social homes, so we have more not less". She said the move risks depleting already limited housing stock.
She said: "There could not be a worse time to sell off what remains of our last truly affordable social homes.
“The living cost crisis means more people are on the brink of homelessness than homeownership ..right to buy has already torn a massive hole in our social housing stock as less than 5% of the homes sold off have ever been replaced. These half-baked plans have been tried before and they've failed."
Lisa Nandy, the shadow housing secretary, said the idea was "desperate" and evidence of a "tired government".
She added: "Millions of families in the private rented sector with low savings and facing sky-high costs and rising bills, need far more ambitious plans to help them buy their own home."
Research by Labour has found the cost of renting has outstripped wages in every region of England since the Conservatives took power.
The average age of Britons buying their own home hit 34 this year, compared to 31 in 2002 and 29 in the 1990s, according to Which?.
A typical home in the UK in 1980 cost £24,000 and went up by an average of 7% a year for nearly four decades.
Labour said average private rents in England increased by 29% between 2010 and last year, while CPI inflation over the period was 19%. In the east of England rent rose by 43%.
Ministers are also considering whether to allow banks to take into account taxpayer money received by those who claim housing benefit when they are seeking a mortgage.
To help increase housing stocks, the government is also considering dropping the requirement that a number of the homes developers build are "affordable".
Instead, developers would pay into an infrastructure fund that councils could then use to fund their own projects.
See our guide on all of the housing schemes for first-time buyers, here.
