Nick Clegg made the comments about his former colleague (Picture: PA)

Social housing was not built under the Conservative-led coalition because of fears it would ‘create Labour voters’, according to Nick Clegg.

The former deputy prime minister claimed the theory prevented government officials from building homes.

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Social housing has been thrown into the spotlight since the Grenfell Tower fire.

‘It would have been in a Quad meeting, so either Cameron or Osborne,’ Nick Clegg told the Guardian.


‘One of them – I honestly can’t remember whom – looked genuinely nonplussed and said: “I don’t understand why you keep going on about the need for more social housing – it just creates Labour voters.”

The seemingly cold attitude to social housing residents has been brought up in light of Grenfell Tower (Picture: Getty)

‘They genuinely saw housing as a petri dish for voters. It was unbelievable.’



The comments were revealed ahead of the release of Mr Clegg’s 2016 book ‘Politics Between the Extremes’.

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Yet the seemingly cold attitude to some of the poorest in Britain have been shared by many in light of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The West London complex was social housing and more than 50 are now confirmed to have died in the fire.

It had recently been refurbished by a private subcontractor on behalf of the Conservative-headed local council.

Railway tracks run in front of the charred remains of the Grenfell Tower (Picture: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images)

That decision has been harshly criticised as it was revealed that the new fittings could have been fire-proofed for just £5,000 more.

Grenfell Tower had been built in 1974, but the building of social housing has slowed in the decades since.

More than a million people are on housing waiting lists across the country but many have accused the government of being slow to respond to the housing ‘crisis’.