More stable communities will be built on the back of the right to buy scheme being scrapped, the Deputy First Minister has claimed.
Nicola Sturgeon announced the move, which will end the opportunity for anyone living in social housing to buy it from the council and said up to 15,000 properties would be protected from sale over the next decade.
The move was welcomed by housing associations but slammed by the Conservative party, who introduced the policy nationwide in 1980.
Ms Sturgeon said: “Given the pressure on both the housing stock and budgets and with 400,000 people on waiting lists for social housing we can no longer afford to see badly-needed homes lost to the social sector.”
Around 455,000 properties have been bought in Scotland using the scheme and the policy led to a shift in home ownership, with 65% of homes now owner-occupied.
The scheme has already been abolished in some areas but social housing tenants who still have the right to buy will have a period of three years to exercise it following the bill, expected in Autumn 2014.
Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government would continue to help people into home ownership through a range of shared equity schemes.
Former Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said she was “deeply disappointed” with the decision.
“This was a policy which arguably was one of the most socially liberating policies we have ever seen in Scotland and across the United Kingdom,” Miss Goldie said.
However, Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland said: “We welcome the news that this outdated policy which for a long time has had no place in Scotland’s housing landscape is to be scrapped.”
Andy Young, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations’ policy and membership manager said: “Right to Buy has had its day and has no place in 21st-Century Scotland.”
And Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland director Alan Ferguson added: “At a time when the right to buy is being actively promoted down south, the Scottish Government is boldly demonstrating a very different approach.”