Government proposals to sell off housing association properties have been branded “hare-brained” amid warnings they will worsen the shortage of homes for more than a million Britons on waiting lists for affordable accommodation.
Boris Johnson is reported to want to grant 2.5m housing association tenants in England the right to purchase their homes at a massive discount, in an echo of Margaret Thatcher’s popular “right to buy” policy of the 1980s which saw a huge proportion of the nation’s stock of council homes sold.
Labour branded the plan “desperate”, pointing out that it repeats a policy from David Cameron’s 2015 Conservative manifesto which failed to deliver any sales.
And the chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter said the “hare-brained idea” was “the opposite of what the country needs”.
Earlier, a minister has rejected calls for an all-women shortlist to find a replacement for disgraced Tory MP Neil Parish. Universities minister Michelle Donelan said that female-only shortlists for parliamentary candidates are “demeaning” to women.
