Andy Burnham plots to suspend Thatcher’s flagship Right to Buy scheme

Andy Burnham has said he wants to suspend Right to Buy in Manchester as he blamed Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policy on Britain’s housing crisis.

The city’s Labour mayor said the scheme – which allows council tenants to buy homes at a discount – meant councils had no incentive to build more houses as they are sold off “quickly and cheaply”.

He added that the policy meant building more council housing was like trying to “refill the bath without being allowed to put the plug back in” and was making the country’s “desperate” housing crisis “worse every year”.

As mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham has the most extensive powers of any elected mayor outside London, overseeing decisions relating to public transport, strategic planning and housing, productivity and skills, economy and innovation, and the environment.

Only Westminster would have the power to revoke Right to Buy, but the comments will raise questions as to Labour’s wider plans for the scheme.

Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policy, introduced in 1980, allows council tenants to buy homes at a discount to help them onto the housing ladder.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, benefitted from the scheme when she bought her council home in 2007.

But she has vowed to change elements of the scheme if Labour comes to power, claiming council stock was not being replenished and that discounts to tenants were too high.

Ms Rayner is facing scrutiny over whether she paid the right amount of capital gains tax and filled out paperwork accurately when she sold the property in 2015.

She has said she will step down as deputy if the police find she has committed a crime.

Writing in the Guardian, Mr Burnham said: “For too long, the Westminster consensus has been that you can’t challenge some of the dogma of the Thatcher era… Slowly but surely, we are freeing ourselves from the suffocating effects of the 1980s.”

Mr Burnham has pledged to build 10,000 homes across Greater Manchester after he was elected for a third-term last week.

It comes as a report by the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee found that financial pressures facing social housing providers has exacerbated a chronic social housing shortage in England.

The report calls for the Government to invest in the social housing sector to ensure that 90,000 new social rent homes a year can be built per year in England, and to re-examine how much funding is allocated to social rent homes.

In February, the G15 – which represents London’s 11 largest housing associations which are traditionally the biggest builders of affordable housing in the capital – warned Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, said that housebuilding in London was grinding to a halt.

The G15 members are on track to start building just 1,769 homes in London this year, a fall of 76pc compared with the 7,363 started in 2022-23.

A Labour spokesman said: “Britain’s housing crisis is a direct result of the Government crashing the economy and failing to get Britain building.

“Labour mayors like Andy Burnham are leading the way in driving change to deliver the homes Britain needs.

“Only Labour will deliver the biggest boost to affordable, social and council housing for a generation, getting new homes built, brick by brick.”

The Government was approached for comment.