High Peak Liberal DemocratsLib Dem leader says prime minister is 'choosing to turn a blind eye and ignore the most vulnerable people in Britain'
David Cameron will be guilty of presiding over the death of social housing if controversial plans to force the sale of council houses to pay for an extension of the right to buy programme to housing associations are left unchanged, Tim Farron has said.
The Liberal Democrat leader warned that the "all-out assault" on social and affordable housing could destroy 30 years of work in rebuilding the housing stock.
Farron will say: "Millions of people are living in fear and desperation because they have no secure place to call home. Yet Cameron is choosing to turn a blind eye and ignore the most vulnerable people in Britain.
"Cameron is now attempting to do what he could never do before - to launch an all-out assault on social and affordable housing. If his plans go through unaltered he will destroy in just six months what has taken thirty years to rebuild since Thatcher. This will be death of social housing as we know it."
Farron spoke out after the government reached agreement with housing associations and the National Housing Federation that will see the right to buy scheme extended to an extra 1.3 million families.
The Local Government Association (LGA) criticised the "secret" deal agreed last month, which saw housing associations drop their objections to the scheme after securing the right to opt out of offering properties for sale to tenants if they have a strong reason to do so.
The LGA told the Observer that the scheme marked "a move away from providing the genuinely affordable homes the most vulnerable in our communities need".
The controversial housing policy was one of the main features of the Conservatives' general election manifesto. The Tories pledged to extend Margaret Thatcher's landmark right to buy initiative, which allowed tenants in council houses to buy their properties at a discount, to housing association properties. This will be funded by obliging councils to sell off their most expensive properties...
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