Angela Rayner brushed off a “quip” from Lee Anderson over council housing on Tuesday.
The deputy prime minister announced a new towns task force to help reform the UK’s house planning system in the Commons yesterday, and set out an annual target of 370,000 homes for local authorities.
It’s part of Labour’s plan to tackle the housing crisis.
So Reform UK MP, Anderson, asked Rayner for more details in parliament – and seemed to try and squeeze in a quick dig, too.
He said: “I welcome the news of a council house revolution.
“And we all know the deputy prime minister is a little bit of an expert when it comes to council housing.
“But, can she confirm that the priority will be given to British families, veterans and pensioners?”
Rayner has spoken of growing up on a council estate with her family regularly over the years.
Her website says: “She was brought up on a council estate and left her local comprehensive at 16 with no qualifications and a baby already on the way, after being told she would ‘never amount to anything’.”
Rayner also faced scrutiny earlier this year over whether she paid the correct amount of tax on the sale of her council house (a sale which happened before she became an MP).
She was later found to have not committed any criminal offence.
Back in the Commons, Rayner did not let the dig from Anderson slide.
She said: “Well, we have confirmed that people with a local connection will get a priority in those homes but I also say to the honourable gentleman who tries to make a quip about the fact that I grew up in a council house...”
She paused, before saying: “The situation that I hear and when I took on this brief is that actually people used to talk about my childhood as if I grew up in poverty.
“But many kids today, if they got a council house it would be considered they’d won the lottery.
“Those children today can’t have that. So we will build the homes, we will prioritise people locally can get them.”
She added that first-time buyers will get “first dibs” too, explaining: “There’s a number of measures we’re putting in place to make sure that the homes that are built are there for the people that need it.”
Anderson also shared a clip of their exchange on X, with the caption: “Council house revolution.”