Michael Gove has told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference that some social housing tenants are living in conditions that are holding back the “flourishing of children”.

Gove has only been in the role of Housing Secretary, now called the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, for a few weeks but has already made a ripple.

He has already been in the headlines for a £100,000 property developer donation just weeks before his appointment, as well as pausing controversial planning reforms laid out by his predecessor Robert Jenrick.

He’s also renamed the department into the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Now, he has taken a bit of a swipe at social housing. It comes just a month after the Surviving Squalor documentary on ITV, which shone a light on some of the horrific conditions in the sector.

Speaking at the fringe event, Gove said: “The supply of social housing overall has not kept pace with the demand, and also the quality of social housing, particularly in some parts of the country, remains scandalously poor.

“There are people who are living in conditions which are overcrowded, there are people living in conditions afflicted by damp and other factors which hold back the flourishing of the children and the families who are raised in those homes.

“Resolving the housing problem, however it is defined, is a way both of making sure that people have a stake in the future and that families can grow in a holistic way, and it’s fundamentally about social justice as well.

“It is also the case that we do need to look at the condition of social housing and the way in which we can make sure that there is proper incentivisation for those who are social housing providers both to improve stock and to increase numbers.

“It is also, critically, the case that you won’t unlock supply of any kind unless you work with those who are the developers, the builders and the generators of that new stock.”