TORY ministers must ensure that the hundreds of thousands of empty homes across Britain are made available to social housing tenants and homeless military veterans, retail workers demanded today.

Delegates gathered in Blackpool for retail union Usdaw’s 2023 conference overwhelmingly backed a motion which urged Downing Street to work with councils to use “all the powers at their disposal” to free up unused housing stock for the most vulnerable.

The government’s own estimates suggest that at least 600,000 homes are currently vacant across England alone — more than double the 271,000 people recorded as homeless.