When families on incomes above £42k are losing their right to child benefit, when public sector workers are getting made redundant in their thousands, and when too many council owned homes do not meet Decent Homes standards, I cannot see a valid argument for providing some of the best of the council housing stock to a few people in the richest 1% of the population.

It is the majority of people, middle-income earners, who support this subsidised housing. It is important for the government to assist some people on low incomes, but not the highest income earners. And this is not one of those universal benefits like child benefit used to be, it is meant to be targeted, and as such the rules should be tightened.

If we were debating whether it is right for people on £20k or £40k to have a subsidised house, then I think there are many more considerations that need to be taken into account, but once we go above £100k the situation is pretty clear, there is no need for these people to benefit from subsidised housing.

Even if this were not about cutting public expenditure, there is a fairness issue that the government would be right to address.