Politicians clashed angrily yesterday over the Government’s controversial plans to extend Right to Buy to housing association tenants.

Shadow housing minister John Healey demanded details from his counterpart, housing minister Brandon Lewis, of the voluntary deal done with housing associations. He accused Lewis of “weasel words”, and said that under the deal, Many housing association tenants would find themselves badly let down.

He said that tenants who asked to buy would find their landlords saying no.

Lewis defended the deal, saying: “We want more people to be able to buy a home of their own, and extending the right to buy is a key part of that. It will give tenants who have that aspiration something to strive for that is achievable.”

But Healey said: “The extension of the so-called right to buy to housing associations, funded by the forced sale of council homes, will mean fewer genuinely affordable homes when the need has never been greater. We will oppose it. This is a back-room deal to sidestep legislation and proper public scrutiny in Parliament.

“We have said from the start that this is unworkable and wrong—and so it is proving. The Minister’s and the Secretary of State’s statements today are riddled with holes. They are promising 1.3 million housing association tenants the right to buy their own home.

“How many tenants will not, in fact, have this right next year? What about those in at least 37 housing associations that have said no to the deal, and those many more who have not been consulted and have not replied?

“What about those in the nine separate categories of the deal where housing associations may exercise discretion over sales?”

Healey – a former housing minister – said the deal was not about Right to Buy, but about “beg to buy”, and asked how there could be a right when it was not going to be backed by any legislation.

Other politicians  piled into the fray, with Alison Thewliss saying that the Scottish Government have abolished Right to Buy for both housing association and local authority tenants. She said: “We arrived at that position after observing the frustration of local tenants who could not gain access to stock because it was being sold up, year after year.

“The pool of stock . . . was shrinking year after year.”