Rayner holds meeting with council leaders to discuss Right to Buy changes

Angela Rayner reportedly attended a meeting with council leaders to discuss changes to the Right to Buy scheme last month.

Labour’s election manifesto included a commitment to reviewing the significant RTB discounts introduced by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2012 and increase protections for newly-built social housing. The latter could involve scrapping the new scheme for new homes entirely.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary is expected to announce a consultation on these proposals as part of the Autumn Budget on 30 October amid mounting pressure from councils to make changes to RTB.

A report ‘Securing the Future of Council Housing,’ published yesterday, revealed that over 100 local authorities are calling for RTB reforms.

>> See also: Was Angela Rayner right to buy?

>> See also: Councils call for £644m capital funding injection to stabilise HRA finances

The 2012 changes raised maximum RTB discounts to £75,000 outside London and the South East, and to £100,000 in London, while reducing the eligibility period for tenants to three years.

This led to a surge in RTB sales, from 2,638 in 2011-12 to a peak of 18,100 in 2016-17, before a gradual decline in subsequent years.

The recommendations in the report were for RTB discounts to be reduced, and that “new discount levels should be more sensitive to geographic differences”.

A further recommendation was to lengthen the eligibility period for using the Right to Buy to 10 years and enable councils to keep 100% of RTB receipts to re-invest in new or replacement social homes.

Rayner herself used the scheme in 2007 to buy her council house in Stockport, at a 25% discount. She received criticism for making £48,500 in profit when she sold the property earlier this year.

Labour MP, Clive Betts, told the Telegraph: “They’ll [the Government] most likely reduce the discounts to a trickle. That’s what the last Labour government did and it effectively stopped Right to Buy from happening. They reduced the discounts until it no longer happened.”

Under New Labour, RTB discounts were reduced to £16,000 outside London and the South East, while remaining at £38,000 within London and the South East.

Before 1999, the maximum discount was £50,000 across England.