Angela Rayner rejects hypocrisy accusation after selling council house

Labour’s Angela Rayner has rejected accusations of hypocrisy after she personally benefitted from a housing policy developed by Margaret Thatcher that she has since criticised.

The party’s deputy leader and shadow levelling up secretary insisted she was not “ashamed” to have brought her council house at a discounted rate in 2007 under the late former prime minister’s right-to-buy scheme – despite wanting to review it if her party gets into power at the next election.

The Labour frontbencher issued the response after the Mail on Sunday revealed she had made a £48,500 profit on her ex-council house under right-to-buy, which she has previously criticised for giving some tenants “loads and loads of discount”.

The newspaper reported Ms Rayner bought her own former council house in Stockport, Greater Manchester, with a 25% discount in 2007 and realised the increased return when she sold it at the market rate eight years later.

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The revelation about Ms Rayner’s house sale – due to be published in Lord Ashcroft’s biography of the Labour deputy leader, Red Queen – comes after she promised to review the high discounts introduced by the coalition government in 2012, as well as a review to stop newly-built social homes from being sold off.

Tory MP Mark Jenkinson posted a link of the article on X, formerly known as Twitter, and wrote: “So Angela Rayner is a massive hypocrite, who knew?”

But in her own post on the social media platform, Ms Rayner said being able to buy her council house in 2007 was a “proud moment for me”.