Housing minister Grant Shapps has denied a cover-up over the publication of figures showing a collapse in affordable housing.
He has said that the figures were not deliberately delayed while the Government produced its housing strategy.
Shapps was involved in an angry confrontation over the issue with John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday morning.
He was effectively challenged as to whether he had buried bad news, by bringing out the housing strategy document before the catastrophic results on affordable housing starts were announced.
On Tuesday, the day after the housing strategy was published, figures published by the Homes and Communities Agency showed a 98.7% drop in the number of starts on affordable housing in the six-month period from April to the end of September.
Just 454 affordable housing starts were made in the period, down from 35,735 in the previous six-month period.
Presenter Humphrys asked Shapps why the Government’s housing strategy announcement was not delayed for 24 or 48 hours until after these statistics had been released.
Shapps claimed he did not have access to the figures until they were published. A furious Shapps then rounded on Humphrys, saying the Today programme had wrongly accused him of pulling out of an interview the day before. Shapps said he had never confirmed the booking, but Humphrys retorted that the interview had been confirmed by his staff.
The ensuing spat lasted for two minutes, with Humphrys insisting that he stood by Today’s version of events.
The confrontation attracted comment on Twitter where it was described as a ‘meltdown’.
Defenders of the affordable housing programme say it has been hit only because of a transition period between the previous government’s National Affordable Housing Programme and the new Affordable Homes Programme.
But shadow housing minister Jack Dromey shows no signs of wanting to let the row drop.
He has written to Shapps asking what discussions Shapps had with the prime minister and officials over the timing of the announcement and the publication of the statistics. He also called for an urgent debate on affordable housing, and for Shapps to apologise for “misleading” the public.
He said: “Grant Shapps is wilfully misleading the public over what is the worst housing crisis in a generation. He should be ashamed and apologise to the public.
“Now the public know the Government snuck these figures out quietly, the day after announcing their housing strategy.
“Cameron’s Government knew a month in advance that these figures were coming, but seem to have timed their cynical announcement of a ‘housing revolution’ the day before the truth could be told of the biggest fall in affordable house building in history.
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