§ Mr. Brightasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will issue the new general consent governing the voluntary sale of houses and flats by local authorities and new town development corporations.
§ Mr. StanleyNew general consents for such sales, and also for the sale of housing land, have been issued to local authorities and take effect on 12 June. The consents widen the discretion of district and county councils to sell houses and flats on a voluntary basis, thus enabling them to help those who do not have the right to buy their homes as sitting tenants under the 1980 Housing Act. A similar consent will be issued shortly to new town development corporations. The new consents will enable councils to promote low-cost home ownership in the following ways:
- (a) they permit county as well as district councils to sell empty houses and flats at discounts of up to 30 per cent. to priority groups of home-buyers, including first-time buyers, job movers, and the homeless;
- (b) they permit councils to sell dwellings excluded from the right to buy to the sitting tenants with the same discounts as under the right to buy;
- (c) they allow land to be included at less than its current market value in schemes where developers build houses for sale under licence on the council's land;
- (d) they enable dilapidated dwellings to be sold to builders on condition that they improve them for sale to owner-occupiers;
- (e) they include a specific consent for shared ownership sales, which clarifies the ability of councils to sell on the terms of the Government's model scheme.