Thatcher's Right to Buy split my estate. Now its days could be numbered

Growing up in a council flat in the 1980s and 1990s, my mum would often point out homes that tenants had bought from the council. You could usually tell just from looking. A plain wooden door had been replaced with something fancier. New windows had appeared.

Sometimes there was a porch or pillars outside the front door. Those houses were bought under the Right to Buy scheme - arguably the most consequential housing policy of my lifetime. It was introduced in 1980, three years before I was born, when Margaret Thatcher's government gave council tenants in England the legal right to purchase their homes at a discounted price. Supporters welcomed the chance for working-class families to own their own home and build wealth.

Critics argue it hollowed out the country's stock of social housing and contributed to today's housing crisis. Some of my neighbours "made a killing" from the policy, in the words of my mum. One bought an almost identical flat to ours in 1989 for £21,200, after receiving a discount of £18,800. Eight years later it sold for £54,500.