Angela Rayner could rip up Right to Buy scheme that allowed her to buy her own council home amid pressure from local authorities to fix £2.2billion hole in their finances_l
Housing secretary Angela Rayner is preparing to potentially rip up the Right to Buy scheme that allowed her to buy her own council home, as local authorities pile on the pressure to fix a £2.2billion hole in their finances.
Rayner is expected to launch a consultation on whether to axe the landmark scheme brought in by Margaret Thatcher in 1980.
The Telegraph reported that the deputy prime minister attended an ‘urgent meeting’ with local authorities last month to discuss housing reforms, though it was not clear whether particular policies were discussed.
Right to Buy allowed tenants of council houses to buy their homes from their local authorities at heavily discounted rates.
Rayner benefited from the scheme herself, using it to buy her former council house in Stockport, Manchester, for just £79,000 at a 25% discount.
Housing secretary Angela Rayner (pictured) is preparing to potentially rip up the Right to Buy scheme that allowed her to buy her own council home
Rayner benefited from the scheme herself, using it to buy her former council house in Stockport, Manchester, (pictured) for just £79,000 at a 25% discount
She later sold the property for nearly £50,000 more than she paid for it.
The move comes as more than 100 local authorities called for the scheme to be scrapped for new council houses.
The report, commissioned by Southwark Council, said the policy was creating a ‘£2.2 billion hole in local authority accounts and worsening the country’s housing crisis.’
The reported added that Right to Buy massively underestimated that maintenance costs, changing government policy and economic shocks all contributed to the shortfall, and that it was ‘a serious problem for the sustainability of England’s council housing.’
Shadow housing minister Kemi Badenoch told the Telegraph it was ‘no coincidence’ that Labour ‘wants to destroy one of Baroness Thatcher’s most transformative policies’.
She added: ‘If Angela Rayner was serious about improving people’s lives, she would be finding ways to increase housebuilding, rather than cutting a programme that gets people on the housing ladder and gives them a stake in their communities.’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised days into Labour’s ascension to government to tear up planning rules in an effort to ‘rebuild Britain.’
‘Planning reform has become a byword for political timidity in the face of vested interests and a graveyard of economic ambition’, she said in one of her first speeches as Chancellor.
‘Our antiquated planning system leaves too many important projects getting tied up in years and years of red tape before shovels ever get into the ground.’
‘The system needs a new signal. This is that signal.’
