A row has broken out over a statement made by housing minister Rachel Maclean at the Conservative Party Conference.

She told a fringe meeting near the conference venue in Manchester that not all renters are “bad people” who smoke weed or are in gangs.

Maclean went on to tell the meeting – hosted by the Bright Blue think tank and the National Residential Landlords Association – that a lot of people had suggested to her that the Renters Reform Bill was “not Conservative” and that Tory supporters would vote for it.

However, she said all four of her children, who are in their late 20s or 30s, were private renters as well as Conservative voters.

“There are plenty of young people who are in the private rented sector who are not weed-smoking bad people, in gangs and crack dens and everything else and smashing up the neighbourhood,” she said.

“There’s lots of decent people, hard-working people in the sector and we need to do the right thing for them.”

Maclean said there were also “a lot of very good landlords” and she did not want them to “lose confidence” in the market.

“If people are renting a property out they need to be able to get it back if they need to, they need to be able to evict bad tenants so we have taken the time to work through how that would work in practice” she added.

Maclean’s comments provoked a backlash on social media from people objecting to what they saw as a caricature or private renters.

Meanwhile the Housing Secretary has told the Conservative Party Conference that a thriving private rented sector is vital to ensuring an effective housing market.

The remarks by Michael Gove were made in response to a question by Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association at a fringe event.

Beadle asked the Secretary of State if he agreed that “a thriving private rented sector where landlords have the confidence to provide decent homes is important for the future of housing provision?”

Gove agreed and went on to explain: “You can’t have an effective housing market, or provision of the homes we need, without having a variety of different types of tenure. A route to homeownership, a private rented sector that facilitates labour mobility among other things, and socially rented homes in order to help people who are, for whatever reason, eligible for, and deserving of, that level of support.”

The Housing Secretary continued: “The overwhelming majority of landlords want a relationship with their tenants where their tenants stay. Easily the best thing is to have a long-term relationship with someone who pays the rent, looks after the property and where there are those ties.”

Alluding to the NRLA’s calls to ensure the cyclical nature of the student housing market can be protected when fixed term tenancies are ended in the Renters (Reform) Bill, Michael Gove told the event that: “Obviously in the rental market you need to take account of movement, particularly amongst students and so on.”

Gove had earlier reiterated that the Renters Reform Bill would receive its second reading before Christmas.

Beadle says in a statement released after the event: “The Housing Secretary is right to acknowledge the importance of a thriving rental market alongside all other tenures. But the only way to achieve this is to develop policies that can secure the confidence of the vast majority of responsible landlords.

“When section 21 repossessions end, landlords need certainty that the courts will more swiftly process possession claims where there is good cause.

“Alongside, this, we need to reform a tax system which is penalising the provision of the very homes renters are struggling to find.”