Rayner was also pressed by Laura Kuenssberg on a Labour election promise to build 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament.
The deputy prime minister was asked how many would be social housing and how many would be council stock.
“I think it is really difficult to put an exact target on that because it depends on whether it is through a new town, access on a site with grey belt or whether it is an urban site,” Rayner said.
“But what I do want to see is the biggest wave of council housing in a generation and that is what I want to be measured on.”
In her conference speech, Rayner drew on her personal background as a single teenage mother to set out what she wanted to do in government.
“It was the foundation of a decent home, secure work and a strong community that nurtured me,” she told party delegates, as she reiterated her commitment to new legislation on workers’ rights.
She said the Employment Rights Bill, to be introduced in Parliament next month, would be a piece of “historic legislation”.
The bill would offer “a genuine living wage and sick pay for the lowest earners” and ban “exploitative zero hour contracts and unpaid internships”, she said.
“This is our Plan to Make Work Pay – coming to a workplace near you.”
On housing, she pledged to “clamp down on damp and mouldy homes” by implementing Awaab’s law and extending it to cover the private rented sector as well as social housing.
The law, named after the toddler who died after being exposed to mould in his home, was passed under the previous Conservative government and compels social housing landlords to carry out certain repairs in a specific timescale.
As part of its bid to build more houses, the government is also planning to introduce planning passports, with the aim of speeding up developments in urban areas.
Rayner trumpeted the government’s new devolution deals, which would see areas including Hull and East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire get new mayors.
