Angela Rayner issued a naked pitch for a top job under Andy Burnham as she used a speech to push for Labour to maintain its sky-high spending on benefits.

The former deputy prime minister insisted that benefits claimants are 'not lazy people on the dole' in a clear indication of the pressures the next prime minister will face over defence spending.

Ms Rayner - who was forced to quit after a tax scandal - is tipped for a top job under Mr Burnham and used a speech on Tuesday talk up her credentials on devolution and social housing.

The 'Red Queen' boasted that she had insisted on £39billion in funding for social housing during negotiations with the Treasury while she was in Government, and 'would do it all over again'.

And in a sign of the lobbying from Labour's Left Mr Burnham will face on how to fund an increase to defence spending if he is installed in No10, Ms Rayner added: 'The same is true for welfare.'

Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately told the Mail: 'It doesn't matter who is in charge of Labour it is always their instinct to spend more and tax more, especially when it comes to benefits, and yet when it comes to protecting our country, the kitty is empty.

'Now Keir Starmer has finally called time on his dreadful premiership, Labour have the chance to changes course. Sadly, if Angela Rayner's intent is anything to go by Labour will keep a ballooning benefits bill while our armed forces go underfunded.'

In a speech at the Social Mobility Symposium, Ms Rayner talked up her record as housing secretary before she was forced to quit following her underpayment of stamp duty.

She said: 'I dug my heels in, demanded £39billion for social and affordable housing, and the Treasury won't thank me. And I was the last one to settle on my budget, but I'd do it all over again.'

Social housing looks set to be a key part of Mr Burnham's agenda for government. In his campaign launch speech, he said he wanted 'the biggest programme of council house building since the Second World War'.

The so-called 'King of the North' has also suggested this could be funded by rediverting the existing £39billion affordable housing programme to which Ms Rayner referred entirely to social rent homes.

After boasting that she 'dug my heels in' to force the Treasury to fund social housing, Ms Rayner added: 'The same is true for welfare. You hear arguments for taking away people's support.

'Families are told to pull themselves up from their bootstraps. It's no fun to be going to a food bank to feed your children when you're in work.

'It's no fun to have your wages topped up because you're not earning a real living wage. These are not lazy people on the dole, they're working families who can't keep up.'

Recalling her own experience as a teenage single mother who left school without any GCSEs and went on to become a Cabinet minister, Ms Rayner said: 'The one thing that we always had when we was growing up was our council house.

'No matter what happened to us, no one could take our home away from us.'

The former housing secretary also trumpeted her controversial worker's rights laws and praised Labour's move to lift the two-child benefit cap, as she urged the party to 'have the courage to say that those are our values and we stand by them'.