Theresa May: We’re securing people’s future at ‘every stage of their life’

Theresa May has been on Radio 4’s Today programme to explain the Conservatives extension of the Right to Buy scheme to Housing Association tenants.

The home secretary was challenged on comments from the National Housing Assocaiton that the new scheme would only benefit those in housing association homes at the expense of people who have worked their whole lives and paid money to the private rental sector to live.

She said that it was important to offer one set of people opportunities even if you couldn’t offer the same deal to others.

Critics have said that the scheme only benefits people in some of the most secure housing in Britain and does nothing to help those in the volatile private rented sector.

The policy is central to David Cameron’s pitch to the “working people” of Britain, those who were attracted by Margaret Thatcher’s original Right to Buy policy for the country’s council home, which is thought to have helped her secure a third term.

The home secretary also battled Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain sofa when he presented her with a clip of her speech in 2002 in which she warned that the Tories were in danger of being thought of as the “nasty party”.

May said: “I think it’s important for people to look at the characters and the track record of the two people they have got to choose between. There is a very clear choice between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.”

Later on Radio 4 she was challenged again and dodged the opportunity to repeat Michael Fallon’s accusation that Mr Miliband had stabbed his brother in the back by standing for the Labour leadership.