Portillo calls for social housing cuts
Michael Portillo has told the National Housing Federation conference social housing should be used as a ‘springboard’ to owner occupation.
The influential former MP said the sector should be shrunk, and the money saved used to encourage homeownership.
‘There is a correlation between occupancy of social housing and lack of contact with the labour market,’ he said.
‘If you measure the proportion of the population in social housing and those in any other types of tenure the proportion in social housing who are out of touch with the labour market is much higher.’
He described the social housing sector as ‘remarkably large’ and said if he was in government his aim would be to reduce the size of the sector and use it to boost owner occupation.
He also said he would ‘sweep away the perverse incentives which lead people in social housing to feel it is advantageous not to work’.
