The Right to Buy? ─ Selling Off Public and Social Housing

The right-to-buy scheme has been a key component of housing policy across the United Kingdom for thirty-five years, and while Scotland and Wales have decided to end it, in 2015 there were proposals to extend right to buy in England. But what exactly is this policy, how has it developed, and what has its impact been? Is there any evidence of wider, unintended consequences, and how might extending the policy affect future housing provisions? What alternatives are there? In this book, Alan Murie provides an authoritative account of the rise and reach of the right-to-buy policy as well as its potential future sway. Presenting up-to-date statistical data,The Right to Buy? both engages with debates about transfers to private renting, the policy’s impact on public expenditure, and on the current housing situation, and assesses the proposals for new legislation.

Alan Murie is professor emeritus of urban and regional studies at the University of Birmingham.