Right-to-Buy was introduced in 1980 giving council tenants the opportunity to buy their homes at a discount – for some this was as much as 50 per cent of the market value.
The policy became extremely popular, and in 1982/83 167,123 council homes were sold – the most in any single year to date.
Between 1980 and 1995, approximately 2m homes were sold under Right-to-Buy, but controversially councils were banned from using the revenue to replace the homes.
Labour dropped its opposition to the policy in 1985, but when it returned to government it drastically reduced the discount.
This meant that by 2009/10 Right-to-Buy sales were as low as 2,375, but the Coalition Government then increased the discount in 2012, and numbers have since edged up.
