Theresa May will unveil plans to trigger 'a rebirth of council housebuilding' at Conservative party conference

Theresa May will unveil plans to trigger “a rebirth of council housebuilding” in her make-or-break conference speech, snatching another policy from Jeremy Corbyn.

Town halls will be allowed to borrow more cash to start building and be set tough targets, to help people who feel “left behind”, one senior minister admitted.

“We are going to make it easier for councils to build more houses for rent,” said Damian Green, the Prime Minister’s deputy, ahead of the speech in Manchester.

“What we expect this to do is to start a rebirth of council housebuilding.”

The move would show the Tories helping “parts of the country and the parts of society that, in the past, the Conservatives haven’t addressed,” Mr Green argued.

However, the details of the policy switch will be studied carefully, after years of councils being prevented from building – and forced to sell off much of their existing stock.

Existing rules bar the building of new low-rent homes, which much instead charge so-called “affordable rents”, at up to 80 per cent of the cost of local market rents.

The Prime Minister will also be accused of pinching another flagship Labour policy, after announcements to help debt-burdened students and give private tenants new rights.

In June, Labour’s manifesto pledged to build “at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale”, by the end of the decade.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Green admitted under-40s had deserted the Tories at the general election because, unable to get a secure home, they felt “left behind”.

“They feel they are working very hard in their 20s and 30s, but not getting the rewards from society that they should get,” he said.

The speech would also see the Prime Minister “explaining to people what drives her, what makes her so determined to fight for what she sees to be the right things for this country”.

“I think people will see and hear a more personal speech than you are used hearing from Theresa,” the First Secretary of State added.

The speech risks being overshadowed by the latest Boris Johnson controversy, after he told a fringe meeting that war-ravaged Libya could prosper once they “clear the dead bodies away”.

Three Conservative MPs have called for the Foreign Secretary to resign. He has, so far, refused to apologise and defended his comment.

Even before the gaffe, Mr Johnson had – to the fury of senior Tories – grabbed the headlines with his public challenge to Brexit policy.

The charity Shelter said a housebuilding rebirth was desperately needed, with 1.2m people on waiting lists for social homes.

Polly Neate, the charity's chief executive, said: “With little hope of benefiting from schemes like Help to Buy, struggling renters have been sidelined for too long.

“It's not right that thousands of renters are dipping into hard-earned savings or getting into debt because huge chunks of their salary is being snatched away by eye-watering rents.”