Angela Rayner is reportedly set to launch a consultation on whether to ditch Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme.
The deputy prime minister, who has promised a “council housing revolution”, will abolish the Tory flagship scheme that has been in place since the 1980’s, enabling council tenants to buy their homes from their local authority.
More than 100 local authorities called for the “unsustainable” scheme to to be scrapped on new council homes in a report on the state of Britain’s housing stock published earlier this week.
Leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch hit out at Rayner for trying to “destroy one of Baroness Thatcher’s most transformative policies”.
The deputy PM attended what was described as an ‘urgent meeting’ with town halls last month to discuss housing reform.
The move comes after a coalition of councils called for an emergency injection of £644m from the government to stabilise their housing accounts and prevent investment in new homes being delayed or cancelled.
Some 100 local authorities have joined forces to warn that the financial model for council housing finances is ‘broken’, with a £2.2bn ‘black hole’ in councils’ dedicated budgets expected by 2028.
The report, commissioned by Southwark Council, also calls for a new ‘sustainable’ Housing Revenue Account model which includes ‘long-term, certain rent and debt agreements’.
Cross-party bid to ‘secure the future of England’s council housing’
