Tory ex-housing minister quits, claiming he was a suc...

A former housing minister responsible for the sell off of huge numbers of social homes has told the Prime Minister he will not be standing at the next General Election.

However, the letter from Sir Brandon Lewis - who was housing minister under David Cameron’s premiership from July 2014 to July 2016 - claims great success during his housing tenure.

Lewis writes: “My ministerial portfolios have covered large scale delivery programmes from building the housing our country so desperately needs …”

When holding his housing position, Lewis was a fierce advocate of Right To Buy.

In 2015 Lewis announced that 36,000 social homes had been sold under the scheme in the three years since RTB was reinvigorated in 2012.

But - by contrast - only 3,357 new home starts and acquisitions had been made over the same period. That was under 10 per cent of the number sold.

Lewis said at the time: “We want to help anyone who works hard and aspires to own their own home to turn their dream into a reality. Right to Buy is central to that vision and has already created more than 36,000 homeowners, helping generate over £2.8 billion for more affordable homes.”

Just before he announced he was quitting the Commons, Lewis was surrounded by controversy, this time over his links with a Russian-born businesswoman reportedly linked with a sanctioned oligarch.

His local Eastern Daily Press wrote: “The latest register of MPs' financial interests shows Sir Brandon Lewis took £5,000 in a single donation in February from Lubov Chernukhin - one of the Conservative Party's biggest donors. It means in the last decade, the Great Yarmouth MP [Lewis] has received nearly £70,000 from Mrs Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a multimillionaire businessman who served under Putin as a junior minister, but later fled Russia.”

After Lewis announced his impending departure from the Commons at the start of the weekend, former Prime Minister Liz Truss tweeted: “Brandon is a great friend and fantastic Norfolk colleague. All best wishes for the future!”