News of the profit comes as Labour cracks down on the Right to Buy
Bridget Phillipson’s family reportedly made a ‘900% profit’ on a council house (Image: Getty)
Bridget Phillipson’s family reportedly made a ‘900% profit’ on a council house. News of the claim emerged as the Labour Government plans to limit the rights of council tenants to buy their homes.
But according to the Mail, the Education Secretary‘s mother bought a two-bedroomed council house in Washington, Tyne and Wear, for £9,600. The publication reported this was a 38% discount on the £15,490 market value. The property was sold in May 2023 for £99,950 – a 900% profit.
Conservative Party chairman, Kevin Hollinrake, told the Mail: “Labour have once again been caught red-handed displaying their spiteful class-war hypocrisy.
“They are gutting the very same right-to-buy scheme that Bridget Phillipson and Angela Rayner benefited from, pulling up the drawbridge after taking advantage themselves. As ever with Labour, it’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.”
Ms Phillipson has been approached for comment. An ally of the Education Secretary said that it says everything that the Tories were choosing to attack a strong, working-class woman from the North East, adding: “It is sheer snobbery, plain and simple.”
They said the Tories are staring down the barrel of electoral oblivion and have nothing to offer this country but rancour and division.
The Government’s Social Housing Bill aims to protect social housing and boost the building of more homes.
At the centre of the legislation are reforms to Right to Buy, which allows council and housing association tenants to purchase their homes at a discounted price.
Changes include increasing the minimum tenancy needed to be eligible from three to 10 years and stopping tenants who have benefited from the scheme before from doing so again.
Discounts will also start at 5% of a property’s value and go up to a maximum of 15%.
Former housing secretary Angela Rayner brought forward the new rules in 2024. She also benefited from Right to Buy, purchasing her council house in Stockport and later selling it.
Ms Phillipson was at the centre of a row with Kemi Badenoch on Wednesday after the Tory leader called her a “spiteful class warrior”.
Kemi Badenoch says Bridget Phillipson is a ‘spiteful class warrior’ (Image: Getty)
Mrs Badenoch made her during Prime Minister’s Questions, sparking a behind-the-scenes incident that led Ms Phillipson to accuse the Tory leader of having “lost her head”.
During her regular exchange with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Mrs Badenoch had said Ms Phillipson “taxed private schools to pay for more teachers but the number of teachers has gone down”.
She added: “It turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as Education Secretary was a disaster.”
Sources said the pair later exchanged further hostile words in the division lobby. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mrs Badenoch said she would not apologise for her remarks.
The row is the latest in a long-running feud between Mrs Badenoch and Ms Phillipson.
In an interview with the Spectator earlier this month, the Tory leader compared the Education Secretary’s imposition of VAT on private schools to the actions of a “Gestapo officer”, referring to Nazi Germany’s secret police.
On Wednesday, Ms Phillipson told LBC Mrs Badenoch was “perpetually angry” and had been “getting worse every week”.
She said: “If I was going to say something, it would probably be pretty foul-mouthed, so it’s best to rise above it, best to be the bigger person.”