The Labour Party plans to reduce the Right to Buy discounts by two thirds in a bid to halt diminishing council house stock, The Times reports.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is also considering scrapping Right to Buy altogether for newly built council houses.

Currently people can buy their council houses with a 70% discount, though that’s set to be reduced to around 25% in next week’s Autumn Budget.

Currently 23,000 council homes are lost each year, compared to 11,000 that are built

The scheme was established by then-PM Margaret Thatcher in 1980, and has long been blamed on the UK’s dwindling supply of social housing stock. In 2015 David Cameron extended the scheme to housing association properties.

Rayner has previously called for the Right to Buy system to be made “fairer” to the taxpayer, adding that there needs to be a “balance” between new stock created and old stock lost.

She told the BBC last month: “The changes the previous government made has made it a lot easier with a huge discount for people to buy the social housing and we just cannot replace them.

“Therefore I have started a consultation because I believe that we should make it more fairer to the taxpayer who help fund social housing so we don’t lose the sites as quickly as we are.”

Rayner herself has attracted controversy, as she bought a property in Stockport using Right to Buy in 2007, which was sold off eight years later for £48,000 of profit. She was accused of failing to pay capital gains tax on that profit, though she denied the claims and the police took no action against her.

The Autumn Budget will take place on 30 October.

Via @PropertyWire