- Privatisation
- Selling a business the state owns to private investors, usually by floating its shares on the stock market, so that it passes out of government control.
- Nationalisation
- Bringing a privately owned business or industry into state ownership, so that the government owns it and answers for how it is run.
Ten sales of state businesses each raised more than £500m while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister
This list counts the sales of state-owned or part-owned businesses completed between 4 May 1979 and 28 November 1990, the span of Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Where a business was sold in stages, every stage within those dates is added together, and stages sold before or after them are left out. A sale is on the list if its total reached £500m, using the proceeds recorded by the House of Commons Library. Smaller sales are left out, among them British Aerospace (£389m), Enterprise Oil (£380m), Royal Ordnance (£189m), Rover (£150m) and Associated British Ports (£97m). The regional electricity companies raised £7,713m, but they were floated on 11 December 1990, after she resigned, so they are not on the list.
Name them all first, then place them period by period.
Anchor an evaluation in a named sale, its year and what it raised
When you evaluate privatisation, cite a named sale, its year and the sum it raised for the government. The regional electricity companies were floated on 11 December 1990, after Thatcher resigned, so they are not an example of a sale made while she was in office; they followed from the electricity privatisation her government legislated for in 1989.
Check yourself
Can you name every state business whose sale raised more than £500m for the government between May 1979 and November 1990?
Ten sales raised more than £500m each, led by British Gas (£7,731m) and BP (£6,331m across four sales): three were completed by 1985, five between December 1986 and October 1987, and steel and water in 1988 and 1989. British Aerospace (£389m) fell below the threshold, and the regional electricity companies were floated on 11 December 1990, after Thatcher resigned.
Check yourself
Can you name the three whose last sale within these dates was completed by December 1985?
Britoil and Cable & Wireless were sold in stages, the last in 1985, and the first British Telecom sale was in November 1984.
Check yourself
Can you name the five sold between December 1986 and October 1987?
Five sales between December 1986 and October 1987, from British Gas to the government's final sale of BP shares.
Check yourself
Can you name the two sold in December 1988 and December 1989?
British Steel in December 1988 and the ten water authorities of England and Wales, sold together, in December 1989.