Right-to-buy policy 'has cost taxpayer £194bn since 1980'

Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme has cost taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy's contribution to Britain's housing crisis.

- Richard Partington

In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality.

Describing it as one of the "largest giveaways in UK history", it said the sale of 1.9m council homes in England had contributed to a situation in which one in six private tenants in England now rent a former council home. Local authority tenants have been able to buy their homes since 1936, but changes made under the first Thatcher government in 1980 triggered a boom in sales at steep discounts to market value.

Calculating the "opportunity cost" of the sales, Common Wealth said the former council homes were now worth an estimated £430bn after taking account of inflation and the surge in property prices since 1980.

Of this sum, the thinktank said £194bn represented the value that was in effect given away when the homes were sold at a discount. Between the years 1980-81 and 2023-24, the discount averaged 43% on the prevailing market price.