Angela Rayner on Housing

Angela Rayner, as the UK's housing secretary, centred her core housing position on delivering the 'biggest wave of social housing and affordable housing in a generation,' aiming to reverse Britain's decline through billions in investment over a decade. She explicitly stated the government's priority is to significantly increase the availability of social rents to address the critical pressure point of having 164,000 children in temporary accommodation and 1.4 million people on social housing waiting lists. While acknowledging that achieving the overall target of 1.5 million homes is a 'stretch target,' she committed to putting the country on a 'very steep trajectory to the solution' within the current parliament, recognising the long-term nature of the crisis.

Her work also involved reforming the Right to Buy scheme, aiming to protect existing social housing stock while simultaneously supporting councils to build and acquire new homes to replace those sold. She confirmed the government would repeal provisions related to the sale of higher-value council assets and would not extend Right to Buy to housing associations due to the likely reduction in stock. Furthermore, she committed to introducing a renters' rights bill to give private tenants more protection to challenge poor living standards and unsafe electrics, referencing tragic cases like that of Awaab Ishak as a matter of urgency.