Right to Buy

Margaret Thatcher is famous for her policy of right to buy in the 1980s and 1990s. But was it a mistake? Nye Bevin: The most obvious problem with right to buy is that councils were banned from reinvesting the revenue from selling those houses into new council homes. What you had was the council housing stock gets bought up and it doesn't get replaced, he says. So instead of the state building a house and they're getting a revenue stream, a very secure revenue stream from people renting it, the state is sold off houses. That's not sensible. Also because you haven't built more social housing, you're going to have someone who the state has some responsibility