Angela Rayner is set to slash Right to Buy discounts by two-thirds in an unprecedented attempt to stop council house tenants from buying their own homes.
The Deputy Prime Minister is poised to take an axe to the Margaret Thatcher era scheme, despite the fact that she herself once benefitted from it.
Under plans to be unveiled in the Budget, the discount of 70 per cent available to those seeking to buy their council house would be cut to around 25 per cent.
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At the same time, Ms Rayner is to more than triple the amount of time people need to have lived in their home to qualify, from three years to 10.
She is also considering scrapping the availability of Right to Buy already for newly built council homes, as first disclosed by The Telegraph.
Unprecedented restrictions
The changes, reported by The Times, will impose unprecedented restrictions on the scheme, which was introduced in 1980 to boost home ownership.
They will also prompt accusations of hypocrisy against Ms Rayner given that she used the discount programme to purchase her own council house.
She bought the property in Stockport under Right to Buy in 2007 and sold it eight years later, making a profit of ￡48,000 in the process.
Mr Rayner faced claims that she had failed to pay the required capital gains tax on the profit, though HMRC and police investigations led to no action against her. She has always denied wrongdoing.
The Deputy Prime Minister is expected to argue that her crackdown on Right to Buy is necessary to stop England’s social housing stock from dwindling.
At present, around 23,000 council homes are demolished or converted each year, compared to just 11,000 that are built.
Ms Rayner has pledged to reverse that trend by doubling the rate of council house building and restricting loss of the existing stock.
She is reportedly set to be handed an extra ￡1 billion by Rachel Reeves at the budget, though government sources disputed that figure.