Andy Burnham plans to suspend Thatcher’s flagship right-to-buy scheme

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

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

He added that the policy meant building more social housing was akin to trying to “fill up the bathroom without being allowed to plug it back in” and that the country’s “desperate” housing crisis was getting “worse every year”.

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

Only Westminster would have the power to revoke the right to buy, but the comments will raise questions about Labour’s wider plans for the system.

Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policy, introduced in 1980, allows council renters to buy houses at a discount to help them move up the housing ladder.

Labor deputy leader Angela Rayner benefited from the scheme when she bought her council house in 2007.

However, she has vowed to change elements of the program if Labor comes to power, claiming that council stocks are not being replenished and that discounts for tenants are too high.

Ms Rayner faces scrutiny over whether she paid the correct amount of capital gains tax and completed the paperwork correctly when she sold the property in 2015.

She has said she will resign as deputy if police find she has committed a crime.

Mr Burnham wrote in the Guardian: “For far too long there has been a consensus in Westminster that some of the dogmas of the Thatcher era cannot be challenged… Slowly but surely we are emerging from the stifling impact of the 1980s.”

Mr Burnham has pledged to build 10,000 homes in Greater Manchester after being elected for a third term last week.

A report by the cross-party Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) committee found that the financial pressures faced by social housing providers have exacerbated the chronic shortage of social housing in England.

The report calls on the government to invest in the social housing sector to ensure 90,000 new social homes can be built in England every year and to review how much money is allocated to social housing.

In February, the G15 – which represents London’s 11 largest housing associations, traditionally the largest builders of affordable housing in the capital – warned Housing Secretary Michael Gove that housing construction in London was coming to a standstill.

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

A Labor spokesman said: “The UK housing crisis is a direct result of the government crashing the economy and failing to stimulate Britain to build.”

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

“Only Labor will deliver the biggest boost to affordable social and social housing in a generation, building new homes brick by brick.”

The government has been contacted for comment.

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