Anger as Labour tells unemployed tenants 'find a job or lose your council house'

Radical plans to force the unemployed to seek work or lose their council homes were in doubt last night after an angry backlash from charities and Left-wing Labour MPs.

The new Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, said tenants should be made to sign "commitment contracts" pledging to seek employment.

Council housing should become a "springboard to opportunity, not just a safety net", she said.

But campaign groups and Labour MPs accused her of proposing a "return to the workhouse" in a move that could see thousands thrown onto the streets.

Miss Flint's Department of Communities and Local Government was forced to stress that the minister was merely "starting a debate", adding: "Nothing is definite at the moment."

Downing Street sources said Gordon Brown knew she intended to float the idea and regarded it as a "good issue to be having a debate" around.

In her first speech since being promoted in the reshuffle forced by Peter Hain's resignation last month, Miss Flint said there was clear evidence that many long-term unemployed in social housing could find work with the right support.

The latest statistics show the number of unemployed council tenants has risen by 20 per cent to 55 per cent since 1981.

Miss Flint, who was herself born to a teenage single mother and spent parts of her childhood in council housing, said: "Social housing should be based around the principle of something for something.

"Social housing will always have a strong role in supporting the most vulnerable - the elderly, those with disabilities.

"But there are also many who are currently unemployed who could find work with the right training and support."

Miss Flint said the link between social housing and worklessness was "stark".

She added: "I am concerned about what has been called a collapse in the number of people in council housing in work over the past 25 years.

"Council housing was originally somewhere which brought together people from different social backgrounds and professions but this has declined.

"We need to start a national debate about whether we can reverse this trend, and have strong, diverse estates with a mix of people."

Tory housing spokesman Grant Shapps said: "This is a classic example of the Government trying to grab the headlines with spin that they cannot legally enforce.

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"Ministers and local councils have a statutory duty to house homeless families with children and so they can't boot them out of their houses without then providing alternative accommodation."

Labour MP John McDonnell, head of the 30-strong Campaign Group of Leftwing MPs, said: "Instead of attacking poverty, the Housing Minister has launched another attack on the poor.

"Sanctions and threats already exist within the benefits system, so to threaten to make people homeless is more brutal than anything we've seen since the end of the Poor Law. What next? Will it be the novel idea of the workhouse?"

Adam Sampson, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: "What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless."

However, Sir Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: "Stronger sanctions may be necessary if we are to do something about the small minority that resist help, and this is a debate that needs to be had."

• Homes for the 'worthy poor'

The first council houses were built in the late 19th century to provide accommodation for the "respectable worthy poor".

As thousands of servicemen returned from the First World War in poor health and struggling to find work, a Homes Fit For Heroes campaign was launched and by 1919 all councils were required to offer social housing.

In the 1950s, large towers blocks capable of housing hundreds of tenants were being constructed, with potential households vetted to ensure they were respectable.

With the advent of Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme in the 1980s, the profile of tenants began to change.

Her Housing Act offered anyone who wished to buy their council home discounts of up to 60 per cent on the market price.

It led to the remaining houses being distributed via a "points system", which was used to prioritise applications.

Some 20 per cent of Britain's housing stock is now owned by local councils or housing associations.

Robert Whelan, of the think-tank Civitas, said: "The more indications of inadequacy, the more points people get. It means the most severely troubled tenants go to the front of the queue.

"The respectable working poor, for whom social housing was originally intended, don't get a look in. Single mothers or junkies are prioritised.

"Now you have people chosen by a computer and you end up with estates where no one is working and no children have fathers present."