Boris Johnson says he became convinced council house tenants should be allowed to buy their own home after witnessing the appalling state of housing in Wolverhampton.

He said the local council didn't seem to care that tenants were living in squalor.

And Conservatives were right to help people buy their properties instead, he said.

He said: "I remember when I was first absolutely certain that we Tories were right about housing."

Mr Johnson was speaking at the Conservative conference in Birmingham's ICC.

Boris Johnson speaks at a Conservative home fringe meeting on day three of the Conservative Party Conference

Recalling his time as a journalist working for a local newspaper, he said: "I was a reporter on the Wolverhampton Express and Star, not far from here. And I went out to see a couple who were complaining about damp.

"It was a terrible scene. They were sitting there and with the heating on full blast and a baby crying, and the condensation dripping down the window, and there were these great black spores all over the wall.

"The chap was in his socks in an armchair and in a state of total despair. He was worried about the baby’s cough – which was getting worse.

"The council wouldn’t do anything, and he felt he couldn’t do anything – because it was not his property, and I could see that he felt somehow unmanned by the situation.

"And I felt very sorry for them both – because they were total prisoners of the system.

"And I thought what a difference it would make to that family if they had been able to take back control – to coin a phrase. To buy that flat.

"And since then I have lost count of the times – and I bet you have too – when I have been out campaigning, and someone has told me on the doorstep that they would vote Conservative forever out of sheer gratitude to us for letting them buy their own home.

"That is what people want – the pride of having a place they own."