Angela Rayner could ditch Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy policy despite benefitting from the scheme herself, reports have suggested.

Labour’s housing secretary is considering slashing the discount offered to tenants who buy their council house and also blocking the scheme on new homes.

Local authorities are said to be putting pressure on the deputy prime minister to cut the cost of Thatcher’s flagship policy.

Shadow housing secretary, Kemi Badenoch, said it was “no coincidence” that Labour “wants to destroy one of Margaret Thatcher’s most transformative policies”.

The Tory leadership hopeful said: “If Angela Rayner was serious about improving people’s lives, she would be finding ways to increase housebuilding, rather than cutting a programme that gets people on the housing ladder and gives them a stake in their communities.”

A consultation on proposals will be launched in next month’s autumn Budget, reports in the Telegraph suggest.

More than 100 local authorities called for the scheme to be axed on new council homes in a damning report into the state of Britain’s housing stock.

The report accused the scheme of helping to burn a £2.2billion hole in local authority accounts and exacerbating the country’s housing crisis.

Ms Rayner attended an “urgent meeting” with local authorities last month to discuss housing reforms.

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government said: “We are working at pace to reverse the continued decline in the number of social rent homes.”

Right to Buy, created by Thatcher, allows council tenants to buy their homes from their local authority at a discount of up to 70pc.

In 2007, Ms Rayner used the scheme to buy her former council house in Stockport, Greater Manchester, for £79,000 after claiming a 25% discount.

She later sold the property for £48,500 more than she paid for it.

The purchase led to a police probe in May this year, after Tory MPs alleged that she breached electoral law, failed to pay capital gains tax and falsely received a single-occupancy council tax on the property.

The investigation was later closed when no wrongdoing was found.

Since 1991, the scheme has resulted in a net loss of 24,000 social homes.

This is partly because under the current system, councils can only keep a third of the receipts from each sale to build a replacement home, with the rest going to the council and government for other purposes.

A government spokesman said: “We are facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory and that is why we are working at pace to reverse the continued decline in the number of social rent homes.

“We have made clear we will give councils and housing associations the stability they need and will set out further details at the next spending review.”

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer removed Thatcher’s portrait at Number 10 last week after his biographer reported he found it “unsettling”.