As a councillor in an area with a number of housing challenges, Peter Thornton has been a vociferous campaigner in his quest for more affordable housing. And he is right that when it works as it was meant to, good social housing provides people with stability and security, and with support to get their lives on track. It can be an essential feature of a healthy, vibrant community.
But as I'm sure Peter knows, in too many areas social housing falls short of this ideal - it has long been the situation that the country does not have enough social homes for everyone who wants one. And with the housing waiting list having nearly doubled since 1997, we can no longer just sit idly by - we need to do more to ensure that our social homes are used to maximum effect and provide much needed security and stability to more of the most vulnerable in society
I plan to ask the top one per cent of earners who are on six figure salaries but still living in social housing to pay a higher rent. They won't be forced out of their home, community or estate - just expected to pay a more appropriate amount for the house they live in, with the extra money being reinvested into building more affordable homes for those who really need them. This 'Pay to Stay' approach for six figure earners will help us house more of the people in greatest need.
Of course this is just one small step which won't lead to an overnight evaporation of the waiting list. Our house building programme, major planning reform and the New Homes Bonus are all going to contribute more. But I do think that people have a right to expect that heavily subsidised social housing should help those who need it, not just those who choose to enjoy the housing subsidy but themselves earn £100k+ salaries.
It is simply untrue to describe our reforms as an attack on aspiration - as an attempt to drive people from their homes. Rather they are all about allowing social landlords more flexibility in how they use social housing and allowing them to pursue their fundamental aim of helping to house people in need. In fact our Affordable Rent programme is likely to produced communities which are far more mixed with people on variable incomes.
Where Peter is right, is in his call for a new commitment to build more affordable homes for those with real ambition to get a foot on the property ladder. And we have made that commitment - over the next four years the Government is investing £4.5billion to deliver up to 170,000 new affordable homes, including through a new Affordable Rent programme that will allow landlords to offer homes to new tenants at up to 80 per cent of local market rate, where they commit to using the extra revenue to build new homes.
Our changes are part of the most radical reform of social housing for a generation, to give councils more flexibility to use their social housing stock to the maximum effect and drive down waiting lists - ensuring that as many people as possible benefit from this valuable national resource.
The lazy consensus that led to record waiting lists has been shattered and decent hard working people stand to benefit.