Right to Buy policy could be scrapped for all new council homes

Tenants of new council homes could be prevented from purchasing their properties under the Right to Buy policy, Angela Rayner has signalled.

The Deputy Prime Minister said Labour would put restrictions on new social homes in England 'so that we aren't losing that stock'.

Ms Rayner has vowed to oversee a 'council housing revolution' as part of the Government's target to build 1.5million homes within five years.

She was handed an extra £1billion by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in last week's Budget to help Labour achieve that goal.

But the Deputy PM told the BBC she doesn't want newly-built council homes 'leaving the system'.

'We'll be putting restrictions on them so that we aren't losing those homes… we're not losing that stock,' Ms Rayner said.

Former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher first allowed council house tenants to buy their homes at a discounted rate in the 1980s. 

The conditions of the Right to Buy policy have regularly changed since its introduction.

Ms Rayner, who is also Housing Secretary, has previously said she wants the scheme to be 'fairer' to taxpayers.

There is currently a maximum discount of 70 per cent of the market value of a council tenant's property, or up to £136,400 in London boroughs and £102,400 across the rest of England.

But, as announced at the Budget, Labour are returning discounts to their pre-2012 levels from later this month as they scrap changes made by the previous Tory government.

This will see the maximum discount in most parts of London reduced to £16,000, £38,000 in the South East, £34,000 in the East of England, £30,000 in the South West, £26,000 in the West Midlands and North West, £24,000 in the East Midlands and Yorkshire, and £22,000 in the North East.

Ms Rayner herself benefited from the Right to Buy scheme by profiting on the sale of a council house she bought under the policy in 2007.

She rejected claims of 'hypocrisy' after she was revealed to have made a £48,500 profit on the property in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

The Deputy PM bought her council home with a 25 per cent discount and made the five-figure profit when she sold it at the market rate eight years later.

Ms Rayner dismissed accusations her planned changes to council home discounts would 'pull up the ladder' to make it harder for other social housing tenants to benefit in the same way she did.

She said 'unfair' discounts introduced by the Tories in 2012, which she is reducing, was 'long after' she exercised her own right to buy under the old system.