This would seem to contradict what he said to Inside Housing in April 2010: ‘We support social housing, we will protect it, and we respect social tenants’ rights’.

Security of tenure is the bedrock of social housing - the simple fact that if you comply with your tenancy agreement, you can stay in your home provides a fundamental security for social housing tenants which sits at the heart of their quality of life. Tenants have a right to feel secure in their homes.

Ending security of tenure has the potential to undermine progress made to integrate housing, health and social care services. It will weaken community cohesion. It will permanently enshrine the stigma of social housing. It will send a message to social housing tenants that their status is only temporary and that therefore the ‘big society’ is not for them. And it will send a message to social housing tenants that if they better themselves they will lose their homes and their communities.

Tenants agree that the key issue is the shortage of affordable housing, but ending security of tenure would not make any significant amount of social housing available to tackle the problem of homelessness and overcrowding. Other methods need to be found to increase the supply of housing.

Cora Carter, chair, Tenants’ and Residents’ Organisations of England; Terry Edis, chair, National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations; Nic Bliss, chair, Confederation of Co-operative Housing; Michelle Reid, chief executive, Tenant Participation Advisory Service

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