By Charlotte Beugge

A new Right to Buy programme will "unleash a new generation of home ownership", the government said this week, by increasing available discounts to a maximum of £50,000. Housing minister Grant Shapps said that the current restrictions on discounts for right to buy meant that few of Britain's two million social tenants could afford to purchase their own homes.

Last year, 3,700 homes were bought by their tenants through the right to buy programme, compared with 84,000 less than ten years ago. The government proposals are that the cap on the discount for social tenants should be increased to £50,000.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said that such a system would mean, for example, that someone in the West Midlands who had been a tenant for eight years on a household income of £20,000 could buy their £90,000 flat with a discount of £50,000, compared with £26,000 currently.

A London social housing tenant who has lived in their flat, now worth £160,000, for five years would get a £50,000 on that price – more than three times the current discount they'd get of £16,000.

Mr Shapps said: "The previous miserly restrictions on discounts meant Right to Buy became, for many tenants, nothing more than an empty promise - a social mobility scheme run by Ebenezer Scrooge."

Paul Smee, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, said: "In principle, we welcome this consultation on changes to Right to Buy, and support the proposal to replace on a one-for-one basis new Right to Buy sales with a newly built affordable home."