Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis. The Common Wealth thinktank described the discounted sale of 1.9 million council homes in England since 1980 as one of the “largest giveaways in UK history”.
The report calculates that the former council homes are now worth an estimated £430bn after accounting for inflation and property price rises. Of this, £194bn represents the value effectively given away at the point of sale, with discounts averaging 43% of market value between 1980-81 and 2023-24.
The policy has dramatically reduced social housing stock, contributing to a situation where one in six private tenants in England now rents a former council home. While it helped millions into home ownership, the lack of replacement homes has led to a collapse in home ownership among young adults, with less than a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds now owning their home, down from more than half in 1990.
Chris Hayes, the thinktank’s chief economist, said: “The severe financial straits facing councils should be seen in the context of a decades-long assault on local government, in which right to buy was a central pillar, denying councils discretion over how best to use assets that they had built.” He added that councils now bear the heightened cost of managing the housing crisis.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is pushing to reform the scheme in England, including extending the minimum residency requirement before tenants can buy from three to ten years. The government has pledged a “social rent revolution” with £39bn for social and affordable homes over the next decade, but critics warn it may struggle to meet its target of 1.5 million new homes.
Social housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa said right to buy “gutted council housing and transferred public wealth into private hands”, leaving millions on waiting lists and tens of thousands in temporary accommodation that is “unfit and unsafe”.
