Housing Minister Grant Shapps has called for councils and housing associations to allow their tenants to set up businesses from their homes.

He cites research which suggests that up to 96% of housing associations can require tenants to get written permission to be able to work from home – with many tenants believing that permission would be denied.

While 11% of homeowners work mainly from home, the figure can be as low as 5% of council tenants.

Of the 200,000 small businesses operating from home only 22,000 of these are in council or housing association properties. This means that only 11% of small businesses in the 1,000 most socially deprived areas operate from home – compared to 36% in the rest of the country.

Rather than waiting for tenants to come forward and ask permission, Shapps also called on councils and housing associations to make the first move and make clear to their tenants that they are pro-business – meaning there should be a presumption in favour of being able to run a business from a social home.

Shapps said: “I want all social tenants with the ambition