The government has sold assets at rotten prices many times over the decades, but the sale of Annington Homes in the dying days of John Major’s administration in 1996 was one of the very worst deals. Television’s Michael Portillo, the defence secretary at the time, was the man who approved the sale-and-leaseback of 57,400 Ministry of Defence homes to the Japanese bank Nomura for £1.7bn, a sum that a quarter of a century of house-price inflation has made look ridiculous.
The worst part was that the MoD, in exchange for a 25-year discount on rent, took responsibility for maintenance and refurbishment, tasks that would normally fall to the landlord. When the National Audit Office reviewed the whole arrangement in 2018, it concluded that taxpayers were worse off by £2.2bn-£4.2bn during the first 21 years of a set-up intended to last for 200.
