Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’

Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the largest giveaways in UK history'

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.

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