Norfolk Blogger writes about Margaret Thatcher and the Right To Buy. The Credit Crunch is all her fault, he reckons. But the Right to Buy issue is more complex than that - and sales of council houses did not begin under Thatcher...
Most secure tenants of local authority houses in England and Wales gained the Right to Buy their homes at a discount with the enactment of the Housing Act 1980 (in Scotland the relevant legislation was the Tenants' Rights, Etc (Scotland) Act 1980). Local authorities had been able to sell their homes before this; indeed, permission to sell houses with Ministerial consent was granted in the Housing Act 1936 and in the 1950s a general consent was given enabling councils to notify the Minister on completion of a sale.Between 1957 and 1964 some 16,000 council houses were sold in England. In 1968 a circular was issued imposing a limit on the proportion of stock to be sold annually in the major conurbations and the general consent was replaced with a quota system. The restrictions imposed in 1968 were overturned by the incoming Conservative Government in 1970. In the 1970s the issue of council house sales grew in political prominence as theConservative Party was increasingly identified with policies designed to encourage council tenants to purchase their homes. The number of council houses sold in England grew from under 7,000 in 1970 to almost 46,000 in 1972. The February 1974 Conservative Manifesto made a commitment to introduce the Right to Buy, subject to an appeal on specified grounds. In October 1974 the Manifesto promised legislation to give secure tenants of three or more years' standing the Right to Buy at one third less than market values with a five-year pre-emption clause.
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