Reform would evict social housing tenants for poor garden maintenance

Lee Anderson, the party’s chair, said that if Reform came to power, it would insist that those in social rented homes would be required to keep their homes decorated and gardens looked after.

The plan is part of a wider policy that would throw out any foreign national from their existing social home, and prioritise young married couples who were born in Britain for new housing.

Anderson told a press conference: “If you go back in time and look what actually happened … the people that rented council homes had to be married under a Labour, socialist government.

“They had to look after their property. They had to keep it well maintained. The gardens done and decorated, and they were inspected on a regular basis by officers from the council.”

He added: “What is wrong with expecting people who live in subsidised housing, paid for, subsidised, by the hard-working British taxpayer … to keep their house to a reasonable standard?”

The policy is part of a promise by Reform to oversee a boom in social home building, whether through council or housing associations.

Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, said on Monday they would change the law to make sure certain types of people would get access to this new housing, with British-born working couples with children getting the highest priority.

Tice and Anderson said that for the purposes of the policy, people who were born abroad to British parents who were temporarily overseas would count as British-born. Those born abroad to foreign parents who have lived in the UK as British citizens for almost their entire lives, however, would not.

“We have no problem importing British-born people first,” Anderson said.

Tice, who is divorced and is getting remarried later this year, said his policy was deliberately designed to promote marriage.

“Marriage is a great thing, and in a sense, when people get married, we all hope that it’s going to be for life,” he said. “Sometimes it is, and sometimes it doesn’t work out, but I don’t think it’s wrong to be ambitious and to promote marriage.”

The party’s plans to boost social housebuilding rest largely on allowing housing associations, which have built the bulk of social homes since the Thatcher government, to borrow more.

Tice argued that if associations were allowed to increase the accounting value of the homes they own, they could borrow more and use that money to build.

Industry insiders, however, warned that such a plan could push many cash-strapped associations into worse financial problems.

Andy Hulme, the chief executive of Hyde, one of the country’s biggest housing associations, said: “As long-term charitable organisations that are closely regulated, social housing providers need to balance borrowing against the affordability of repayments.

“Under current arrangements, these proposals would radically change the interest cover levels on the debt providers hold, pushing many outside of their banking agreements, risking their ability to operate without negotiation with lenders.”