I’ve only just started.

[Continues.]—entirely prudent for us to suspend the right to buy.

Mrs Thatcher’s right-to-buy initiative didn’t need to be an unmitigated disaster. If the money that people paid to buy their homes had been reinvested in building more homes, it could’ve introduced a choice and a diversity of approach to home management. I do recall the days when you never were allowed to hang out your washing and when you couldn’t paint your door anything other than the colour designated by the housing manager. So, we’ve definitely moved beyond that, but unfortunately, this right to buy was used as an asset-stripping operation by the Treasury, and local authorities were instead forced to use the right-to-buy receipts to pay off their debts. That is why they were not able to build more homes.

In addition to which, because the tenants were given a 50 per cent discount, it meant that the councils were never in a position to replace the homes they’d lost with new ones, because they were clearly going to cost at least half as much again. Even with lower discounts, less than half the right-to-buy properties have been replaced in the last four years according to the National Housing Federation.