Ministers may block the sale of England’s new council houses under a right-to-buy scheme, Angela Rayner said.
The deputy prime minister said the government would impose restrictions on new social housing “so we don’t lose stock”.
Launched by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, the Right to Buy scheme has allowed tenants living in council housing to buy their homes at a significant discount.
Successive Conservative prime ministers extended and encouraged the scheme, resulting in nearly 2 million homes being sold.
The policy was initially praised for increasing homeownership rates among working-class people, but more recently has been blamed for exacerbating homelessness.
Charities and campaigners have called for the scheme to be suspended while more social housing is built.
Rayner told the BBC she did not want more council housing to “leave the system”.
“We’re going to put restrictions on them so we don’t lose these homes … we don’t lose this inventory,” she said.
She added that England was facing a “catastrophic emergency” related to homelessness.
In 2007, the Deputy Prime Minister purchased his own home under the Right to Buy scheme.
The government plans to launch a consultation on the policy this autumn. Labour’s election manifesto is committed to “strengthening protections for new social housing”.
Labor has pledged to build 1.5 million homes during this parliament but has not given a specific figure for social housing.
The right to buy scheme ended in Scotland in 2016 and in Wales in 2019.
In the Budget, Rachel Reeves announced measures to allow councils to retain all funds received from social housing sales, a policy implemented by the previous Conservative government for two years until March 2024 policy.
In May, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the right to buy on new properties should be suspended, a policy that was causing the city’s housing crisis to become “worse every year”.
David Cameron reintroduced Right to Buy in 2012 during his coalition government and increased the discount tenants can get on council homes. In 2022, Boris Johnson extended the scheme to tenants renting their homes from housing associations.
