The Deputy Prime Minister has won Treasury backing to build tens of thousands of council homes, a report in the Times claims.

Around 11,000 council, or housing association, homes are built in England each year — but 23,000 are demolished or converted, leading to a net loss of more than 11,000 homes, according to official figures.

Rayner is understood to have been promised further funds after the Budget once Chancellor Rachel Reeves sets the two-year spending review next spring.

The move is part of Labour’s drive to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. Over the last five years, the country built around 1 million houses.

Rayner argued to the Treasury that a municipal house-building programme would ease a projected £9bn rise in the benefit bill and cut the cost of temporary homeless accommodation paid by councils.

Currently, temporary accommodation costs taxpayers £1.9bn a year, data from the Centre for Homelessness Impact shows. The UK also spends £30bn a year on housing benefits.

The extra cash is set to go into the government’s Affordable Homes Programme, when Reeves delivers her 30 October Budget.

“Angela’s ambitions on social and council housing have the full backing of the prime minister and chancellor, and that will become even clearer in the weeks ahead,” a senior government source told the Times.

“They are joined at the hip when it comes to getting Britain building,” the source added.

Social home building hit 30,000 new homes a year during former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s leadership from 2007 to 2010.

However, some housing groups claim council housebuilding needs to rise to 90,000 a year to address the UK’s shortfall of 4.3 million homes.

Rayner also plans to cut Right to Buy discounts that offer council tenants up to 70% off their home purchases.

Last year, 10,896 homes were sold through Right to Buy while only 3,447 were replaced. Since 1991, the scheme has seen 24,000 social homes move into the private sector, according to official figures.

Tenants can buy their homes if they have lived in social housing for three years, at a maximum discount of £102,400 across England, or £136,400 in London.

The Right to Buy scheme was introduced in 1980 by former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as one of her flagship reforms.

Since 1980, there have been 2,026,893 home sales under the Right to Buy scheme, according to Department for Housing & Communities data in March.