Monday 1st June 2026
(1 week, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberSocial Housing Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
This text is a record of ministerial contributions to a debate held as part of the Social Housing Bill [HL] 2026-27 passage through Parliament.
In 1993, the House of Lords Pepper vs. Hart decision provided that statements made by Government Ministers may be taken as illustrative of legislative intent as to the interpretation of law.
This extract highlights statements made by Government Ministers along with contextual remarks by other members. The full debate can be read here
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this Second Reading on the Social Housing Bill. I look forward to listening carefully to noble Lords’ contributions from across the House. I am particularly conscious that many in this Chamber bring deep experience of housing, local government, safeguarding and the realities facing communities. I therefore would like to begin by recognising the value that this experience brings to our debate and thanking noble Lords for giving the Bill the attention that it warrants.
Before I turn to the detail, I hope the House will allow me a brief personal reflection, because this Bill is really personal for me. This legislation is not abstract; I grew up in Stevenage in social housing. In those days, before everyone carried a phone in their pocket, before the internet shaped the world—I should add that not even every house had a phone; I am that old—and before cars were widely affordable, community was the bedrock of our lives. Part of the unwritten contract for my parents when they accepted the offer of a job and a home in Britain’s first post-war new town, which is 80 years old this year, was that their parents would be welcome when they retired and that their children could, if they wished, be housed as children of tenants.
One of the great strengths of living in Stevenage was the sense of continuity and belonging that it offered. Families put down roots, your parents could live nearby and, in time, you could imagine your own children building their lives in the same area with the possibility, if they needed it, of a secure, affordable home in the community they knew. That sense of security—that social housing could be there not only for you but for the next generation—is part of what social housing at its best can provide: stability, dignity and the foundation on which people can build a life.
Amidst the complexities of modern life and the cost of living crisis, retaining that sense of community is more important than ever. Yet for too many people, it is no longer something they can rely on. In Stevenage, the housing stock has fallen from around 32,000 homes in the 1980s to around 8,000 today, and many former council homes are now let to those on universal credit, costing the public purse more than double when compared with a council home and leaving over 2,000 families stranded on waiting lists. This is a picture that we see around the country.
Over time, social and affordable homes have become scarce. In many places, homes sold have not been replaced. The result is that families who could once have lived side by side, in the same town and neighbourhood, are now too often separated by necessity and forced to move far from the support networks they depend on. That is one of the reasons I care so deeply about this Bill. It is about restoring a sense of security and fairness for tenants today and for communities tomorrow. Everyone deserves to live somewhere decent, safe, secure and affordable, in a community where they feel at home.
That is why the social housing sector plays such a critical role in our system, providing a home to around 16% of all households in England and supporting many of the most vulnerable, including those on the lowest incomes and those living with long-term illness or disability. Yet, for many, that security is out of reach. Today, more than 1.3 million households are on local authority waiting lists for social housing and over 175,000 children are growing up without a stable home. Families are left with little prospect of secure housing in their community. They are forced instead into the increasingly expensive and insecure private rented sector or into temporary accommodation at significant personal cost and growing expense to the public purse.
This country has not built enough social and affordable housing for decades. While nearly one in three new homes in recent years has been social or affordable, overall delivery remains far below the historic highs of the 1950s and 1960s, when housing was delivered at a far greater scale. This decline reflects a combination of factors over recent years. including lower levels of public investment, constraints on providers’ ability to borrow and invest, and wider economic pressures, such as inflation, which have increased the cost of building and maintaining homes. At the same time, the steady and significant loss of social housing stock, particularly where homes sold under right to buy have not been replaced, has further undermined the ability and confidence of providers to invest in building the new homes that communities so urgently need.
The Government therefore placed social and affordable housing at the heart of our manifesto. We have been clear that addressing these long-standing challenges requires not just incremental change but a sustained programme of renewal, bringing together investment, reform and delivery across the sector. The priority of this Government remains to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, alongside a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social homes. The delivery of these commitments is well under way.
In 2025, we set out a clear five-step plan to deliver a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing. First, we are delivering the biggest boost to grant funding in a generation through the £39 billion 10-year social and affordable homes programme to support social housebuilding at scale. Secondly, we are rebuilding the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest, supported by a stable 10-year rent settlement. Thirdly, we have established a more effective and stable regulatory regime by updating the decent homes standard, implementing new minimum energy-efficiency standards, and the passing of Awaab’s law to drive up the safety and quality of homes for tenants. Fourthly, we are reinvigorating council housebuilding, which this Bill directly supports, recognising the central role of councils in social housing delivery. Fifthly and finally, we are strengthening our partnership with providers and investors to unlock capacity and accelerate delivery, and with tenants themselves to guide our reforms—including addressing the social housing stigma that tenants highlight as a key priority.
This Bill forms one targeted part of this wider programme of renewal, making the necessary legislative changes to underpin our reforms. We have already given social housing providers the long-term certainty and stability they need to dial up their housebuilding ambitions, through grant funding, long-term certainty about their incomes, clear and final quality standards, and specialised support for councils. We now need to deliver the parts of our decade of renewal plan which require primary legislation. The Bill will protect the number of social homes available to those in need and, in doing so, incentivise the building of more social rented homes. It will create a fairer system, with stronger protections for tenants who are victims of domestic abuse. It will reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and clarify the statute book so that providers can invest in new social and affordable homes with confidence.
Taking each of these objectives in turn, I turn first to protecting homes and enabling new supply. Right to buy has long provided an important route into home ownership, helping many social housing tenants achieve greater security and a tangible stake in their community. Since its introduction, it has supported more than 2 million households to buy their homes and realise the benefits of home ownership. But—and this a very big “but”—too often the homes sold have not been replaced. This has led to a steady loss of social housing stock, reduced the availability of genuinely affordable homes, and weakened councils’ confidence and capacity to invest in new supply, particularly where homes are sold and do not return to the sector.
It cannot make sense for a council to invest in building a new home and then for a qualifying right-to-buy tenant to move in and purchase that home for significantly less than it cost to build. The Bill therefore builds on the existing tranche of reforms that the Government have already made to the right-to-buy scheme. The measures will continue the mission to deliver a fairer and more sustainable scheme, one that continues to support long-standing tenants to buy while ensuring that councils can replace what is sold and better protect existing social homes to meet future housing need. We will increase the eligibility period from three years of tenancy to 10 years, which better reflects current practice and ensures that the scheme is targeted at those with a long-standing connection to their home. We will also better align discounts with cash caps and introduce a 35-year exemption for new-build homes, protecting new supply and giving councils the confidence to invest in homes for the long term.
Alongside this, the Bill introduces a new requirement for private providers of social housing to notify their local authority and other potential buyers before selling a home. This will maximise opportunities to retain homes within the social housing sector. Taken together, these reforms will shift the trajectory of the system from one where stock has been gradually depleted to one where it is protected and can begin to grow again. These measures are not about undermining aspiration but about ensuring that it is delivered in a way that is fair, balanced and sustainable, so that future generations have the same opportunities as those before them. They are designed to ensure that the sector is larger in the future, not smaller, and more capable of meeting need, not less.
Secondly, on the protection of tenants who are victims of domestic abuse, all tenants deserve safety and stability but those experiencing abuse face acute risks and, too often, must choose between staying in their home and continuing to suffer that abuse, or leaving and risking homelessness. The Bill strengthens protections to help victims remain safely in their homes where possible or move to suitable alternative accommodation where necessary. These measures form part of the Government’s wider commitment to tackle violence against women and girls, ensuring that the housing system supports rather than frustrates a victim’s route to safety and recovery. This sits alongside wider government action to improve quality standards, strengthen tenant voice and ensure that the sector works in the interests of those it serves.
Thirdly, the Bill reduces unnecessary bureaucracy and clarifies the statute book, enabling councils and providers to invest with confidence. It repeals unimplemented and unworkable provisions from previous housing legislation, including requirements to sell high-value homes, impose fixed-term tenancies by default and charge higher rents to higher-income tenants. It also streamlines the outdated consents process so that councils can make more decisions about the management of their social homes without having to get approval first. These changes bring clarity and reduce barriers to delivery, setting up the social housing system for the ambitious future we are working towards.
Social housing is an essential part of a functioning housing system. It provides security for families, supports communities, reduces homelessness pressures and, when done well, represents good value for the taxpayer over the long term. This Bill is a vital part of our reforms, but legislation alone cannot deliver the decade of renewal we want to see across the quality and supply of social housing. As I have said, this Bill is one targeted part of a comprehensive and ambitious plan that the Government are already delivering through record investment into new social housing; through new modern and robust standards to improve housing quality and safety and to strengthen tenant engagement and landlord accountability; and through working with the regulator and the sector to ensure that the system is stable and investible. Ultimately, the Bill is grounded in the everyday reality of families who need secure homes, in the practical requirements of councils and providers that need certainty to build so that future tenants can access social homes, and in the principle that the state has a responsibility to ensure that safe, secure and affordable housing is available to those who need it.
In the course of this debate, I know that noble Lords will rightly scrutinise the detail—how reforms are implemented, how we safeguard fairness and how we ensure that the sector can deliver—and I welcome that scrutiny. But I hope that the House will also recognise the central purpose of this Bill: to strengthen tenant protections for victims of domestic abuse, to clear away barriers that prevent investment and delivery, and to protect and grow the social housing available across the country. I commend the Bill to the House.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the National Association for Local Councils.
The Social Housing Bill attempts to address an important issue across many local authorities: namely, that we are not building enough social housing. Yet this Bill goes about this issue in completely the wrong way. There are, of course, some measures that we welcome. In particular, we welcome the Government’s efforts to give landlords and the courts more powers to protect tenants who are victims of domestic abuse. It is absolutely crucial that victims do not fall through the cracks of the system, and we will support efforts to strengthen the Bill in this regard.
However, for the most part, this Bill’s focus is not on the development of new social housing; it merely moves the goalposts on the existing housing stock. This Government came to power on specific promises in their manifesto to
“prioritise the building of new social rented homes and better protect our existing stock by reviewing the increased right to buy discounts introduced in 2012 and increasing protections on newly-built social housing”.
The first part of that pledge promises to prioritise the building of new socially rented homes, yet this is not what is prioritised in the Bill before us. Instead, the Bill goes into tweaking overdrive on the right-to-buy scheme. While we recognise the Government’s promise to review the discounts introduced in 2012, other provisions in the Bill represent an all-out attack on the right-to-buy scheme: a key Conservative legacy that has helped so many own their own home and has transformed social mobility across this country. Indeed, I heard the Minister describe the right-to-buy scheme as a “leaky bucket”. For a council that fails to build enough social housing, this may indeed be its point of view, but that is not whose side we are on. We on these Benches are not on the side of failing councils; we are on the side of hard-working families who do not want to be dependent on the state forever.
To be clear, we do not dispute that we need more social housing. Our population has grown rapidly, and development has not kept up with that demand. Under this Government, more landlords are exiting the market; unemployment is on the rise, especially for young people; and more and more people may be forced to look for social housing. But what do they find? They find the First Lady of Sierra Leone, who otherwise occupies a presidential palace. They find that social housing is being taken up by non-UK nationals, as was highlighted in the “Alternative King’s Speech”. Approximately 33,000 new social tenancies each year are going to households where the lead tenant is a non-UK national. At the same time, the Government invest around £4 billion annually to deliver roughly 30,000 new social homes. That is neither sustainable nor fair for British citizens.
According to the 2021 census for England and Wales, 72% of those who identified as Somalis live in social housing in the UK. That is an example of a dependency culture right before our eyes. This is not why the British taxpayer pays tax. This is not a functioning safety net, nor is it a welfare state working for its own citizens. Moreover, it is evidently not the right-to-buy scheme that is the problem here. We Conservatives know the solution. We need to build more new social homes for local people, not restrict their opportunities for home ownership.
We need the opportunity of right to buy, but at least one new home must be built with the money from the right-to-buy sale. If you do this, it is a win-win outcome. We need an honest and mature conversation about whom social housing is for and what the state can afford. We need to recognise that it is a finite resource and should be reserved for those who truly need it, without needlessly trapping people into welfare indefinitely and with no way out. We also believe that councils should have the powers to decide who to prioritise, such as those with existing connections to their local area, or veterans who have done so much for our country.
Reacting to the King’s Speech at the start of this Session, one Labour MP summed it up perfectly: “This is incrementalism”. That is exactly what we are seeing with this Bill before us now: tweaking with a successful scheme in order to weaken a proud Conservative legacy, rather than solving the problems the country faces today. This is red meat to appease Labour Back-Benchers in the other place, who—let us be honest—would rather see the right-to-buy scheme abolished altogether.
This is not serious policy direction, let alone a vision. This House and the British people deserve better. I repeat that there are measures in this Bill that we welcome, particularly to protect victims, and there are certain measures that we, of course, recognise as manifesto commitments. But we have serious concerns about significant aspects of this Bill: its implementation and commencement, the powers being handed over to the Secretary of State and all that is currently absent from the Bill to properly and adequately address the problems we face.
Where are the measures to keep larger social housing providers accountable to their local communities, for example? How can we make shared ownership schemes more workable in practice? How can we enable councils to have more choice over what works best for their residents? I look forward to hearing the contributions and insights of other noble Lords across this House on how we can make this a better Bill for the other place, and I look forward to engaging constructively with the Minister throughout the passage of the Bill.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this very thoughtful and constructive debate. As ever, there has been an incredibly wide range of experience and insight brought by this House, and I really welcome the scrutiny given to the Bill today. The debate has covered a varied range of issues, and I will do my best to respond to as many of those issues as I can in the time allowed—but I assure noble Lords that I will check Hansard at the end, and if there is anything I do not get the chance to respond to, I will reply in writing.
I want to give one piece of statistical information in relation to the impact of the Bill. Under the previous pre-reform baseline, the system was projected to deliver a net loss of around 26,000 homes between 2026 and 2036 due to right-to-buy sales. By contrast, following implementation of the measures in the Bill, we expect to see a net gain of around 18,000 homes over the same period. I hope it will be many more than that, but the provisions in the Bill will deliver that.
Before turning to the specific points raised, I will make one general point. I was very keen to stress in my introduction that the Bill is a range of very specific measures in relation to right to buy, domestic abuse, and removing some of the bureaucracy around social housing. It does not cover all of the Government’s programme on social housing, because much of that programme does not need a legislative framework. In fact, we have already started to deliver much of it with a £39 billion investment. The social and affordable housing programme is already under way and will be delivering very soon. Many of the quality issues that were raised in the debate are also already being dealt with; there are extensive programmes to deliver them, and that reform is on its way already.
The Bill attempts to start easing some of the pressure on social housing, which is being caused by the specific issues contained within the Bill. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, will sympathise when I say that if you bring an enormous Bill before this House—we went through the process of the levelling-up Bill together—you get criticised for doing a Christmas tree Bill. However, if you bring a narrow, tightly focused Bill like this one, you are criticised because you have not put everything in it. So as a Minister you are never going to win—but this is the right step to take at this point in time.
A considerable number of noble Lords—the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott, Lady Pinnock, Lady Shah, Lady Murphy, Lady Jones, Lady Neate, Lady Gill, Lady Young and Lady Thornhill, the noble Lords, Lord Best, Lord Lansley, Lord Babudu, Lord Sikka, Lord Bailey and Lord Bird, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Earl, Lord Russell—talked about housing supply and the ability to deliver increased social housing supply. The fact that so many noble Lords mentioned this highlights the great importance of that issue. The Bill strengthens our commitment to building more social rented homes and to delivering what we all want: the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, spoke about the Conservative legacy, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, has just repeated that theme. We would not be where we are now if we had not had 14 years when this problem was pushed under the carpet. In the time that the Labour Government have been in power, we have delivered the Renters’ Rights Act, tackling the problems that private rented sector tenants have in their tenancies. We have passed the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which has swept away some of the planning bureaucracies preventing housing being built. We are now approaching this Social Housing Bill, as well as empowering local councils and strategic authorities to deliver the infrastructure and the homes we need to grow our country. So I will not be taking any lectures from the other side of the House about their legacy, which has caused the housing crisis we are now trying to fix.
Our reforms to right to buy, notably the 35-year exemption for new-build social homes, will directly support our ambition by ensuring that councils have the confidence to deliver. The Bill’s changes will stop homes being sold before councils have recovered the costs of building them. Anyone who has been a council leader will know the pain of building homes and having them sold for less than they cost to build. Crucially, the Bill builds on the funding and regulatory certainty we have already given the sector to boost supply, including the £39 billion of investment—the biggest long-term investment in recent memory. The programme aims to deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes, including at least 180,000 for social rent.
As other noble Lords have said, I have been somewhat disturbed by some of the comments about allocations to non-UK nationals. Eligibility for social housing is tightly controlled. If a person’s visa status means they cannot access state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for an allocation of social housing. For all social housing, the overwhelming majority—88% of social housing lead tenants—are UK nationals, according to the 2024-25 English Housing Survey. It is not at all helpful to use some of the derogatory and mischaracterising tropes that often accompany discussions around social housing. That is just not helpful, and I hope we can avoid that in future discussions. Fraudulent tenancies are sometimes obtained, and where they are councils have very strong powers to deal with them. I hope that anyone listening to or watching this debate—including anyone in this Chamber—who is concerned about a fraudulent tenancy will do what they need to do: report it to the local authority concerned. I hope we can avoid comments like that during the rest of the discussions on the Bill.
Of course we have to support councils to build more homes. My noble friends Lady Shah, Lord Whitty and Lord Sahota, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Neate, Lady Young and Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Fuller, all spoke about that. In 2024-25, councils completed 10,480 homes, the highest number achieved in over 30 years. The Government are committed to reinvigorating council housebuilding, and councils are central to our efforts to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding. We have already taken decisive action to maximise councils’ engagement with our new social and affordable homes programme. Since April, for the first time, councils can mix right-to-buy receipts with grant funding, helping to improve the financial viability of their bids.
We have also allocated almost £9 million to 44 councils to support bid development through the council housebuilding support fund. This funding forms part of a £63 million four-year programme to support councils to improve their skills and capacity to build housing themselves. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I note that a great deal of work is going on with skills and capacity more generally in the construction sector. Finally, we are helping councils to borrow more cheaply to finance housebuilding by extending the preferential lending rate from the Public Works Loan Board for another year until March 2027.
The noble Lords, Lord Fuller and Lord Jamieson, my noble friend Lord Sahota and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, clearly highlighted the need to provide support. Local authorities need to deliver programmes that are right for their areas. This is about the Government providing that support and funding and then letting local authorities implementing that in the right way for their local community.
We are all concerned about the safety and decency of social housing. There have been a number of mentions of Awaab’s law in our debate today. The noble Lords, Lord Best, Lord Babudu and Lord Stoneham, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baronesses, Lady Murphy and Lady Jones, all highlighted these issues. Reforms are already under way which will deliver transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social homes. The newly updated decent homes standard will ensure that all rented homes in England are decent, safe and warm, designed with tenant safety at their core, while remaining proportionate and affordable for providers to deliver.
In addition, the Government have legislated on Awaab’s law, requiring social landlords to investigate and fix damp, mould and emergency hazards within strict timeframes. We have committed to bring forward regulations for further hazards using a test and learn approach. We will announce timings for the implementation of phase 2 in due course.
The Government have published a draft update to the national design planning practice guidance, which consolidates key existing guides and tools into one document. The updated guidance illustrates the Government’s priorities for well-designed places, helping local authorities to make planning decisions and developers and architects to submit planning applications to local planning authorities. It highlights that well-designed, liveable places should have a mix of house types and tenures to suit people of all ages and all stages of life, according to different needs, and integrated with other facilities. We are clear that this guidance should be applied across all housing sectors in this country, including social homes. A consultation seeking views on that guidance closed on 10 March, and we will publish a final version in due course.
The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, referred to my spreadsheet about the quality of homes. I have just taken on this responsibility. I take it very seriously, and there is a lot of work to do.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Young, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to energy efficiency in social housing. We are committed to ensuring that every tenant has a decent, warm and comfortable home. We are implementing new minimum energy-efficiency standards in the social rented sector, requiring all social homes to meet the new energy performance metrics. They will help make energy bills cheaper for millions of social tenants, reduce fuel poverty and make homes warmer, more comfortable and less susceptible to damp and mould.
We have also published the future homes standards, which will come into force in March 2027 for non-high-risk building work. All new homes will have excellent insulation, low-carbon heating systems and, in most cases, solar panels.
To answer my noble friend Lady Young—sorry, I should not call her that now, but she still is—social landlords will be required to meet one of the new energy performance certificate metrics. We have listened to the sector’s concerns about affordability and deliverability, and we have introduced two compliance dates to address these concerns, allowing providers to balance their time and financial capacity across other housing priorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised a key issue around investment in social housing and mentioned additional ways to generate capital to support investment in social housing. We are open to hearing innovative ideas that meet our core principles—delivering more homes for social rent and creating high-quality and sustainable places—so my officials are very happy to follow up with the noble Lord on specific proposals, and I hope he will be happy to discuss those with us.
The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, raised an issue about Clause 9. Clause 9 will not affect the increased flexibilities we introduced in July 2025. Councils will continue to retain 100% of right-to-buy receipts, and those flexibilities will remain in place indefinitely. From 2026-27, councils will also, for the first time, be able to combine receipts with grant funding for affordable housing, helping to accelerate the delivery of new homes. The purpose of Clause 9 is to reduce administrative burdens for councils and central government because currently, whenever the rules on receipts change, the department must reissue retention agreements to every stockholding authority. Clause 9 will streamline this by allowing the Secretary of State to modify the requirements by determination, removing the need to reissue agreements while maintaining oversight. It is a safeguard power rather than something that takes away the important retention of receipts.
The noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Stoneham, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick, Lady Teather, Lady Watkins and Lady Thornhill, mentioned the important issue of estate regeneration. We are clear that increasing supply and improving the quality of existing homes must go hand in hand. Too many tenants are living in homes that fall short of modern expectations, and we are determined to increase the number of social and affordable homes and to drive up standards across the homes that already exist. That is why the reforms that I have already mentioned are under way—to improve the quality and safety of social housing.
We are committed to supporting estate regeneration schemes to transform neighbourhoods and deliver well-designed housing with a better quality of life for tenants. The core strategic objective of the new £39 billion social and affordable homes programme is to maximise supply, but it will also support regeneration schemes that provide a net increase in affordable homes.
The noble Lords, Lord Jackson, Lord Young and Lord Truscott, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, among other Peers, all spoke on the right to buy. I want to be absolutely clear: the Government are not seeking to abolish the scheme. For many social tenants, it remains a crucial route into home ownership, opening the door to greater security and opportunity. However, as the noble Lord, Lord John, highlighted, we must also confront the reality before us. For too long, homes sold under right to buy have not been replaced at the rate needed, contributing to growing pressures on social housing supply and waiting lists across the country. That is why the Bill takes a balanced and responsible approach, retaining the opportunity for long-standing tenants to buy their homes, while protecting vital stock and ensuring councils can replace homes sold. So these are practical, necessary reforms that are designed to deliver a fairer, more sustainable scheme.
On the issues around home ownership and social mobility, raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Eaton and Lady Gill, and the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, the right to buy provides a pathway for social housing tenants to own their home. However, as I said, too many homes sold under the scheme have not been replaced. So we are reforming this, as we set out in our manifesto, but we are not shutting the door on home ownership; that pathway will remain for tenants who have lived in and paid rent on their homes for a long time.
On the wider issue of home ownership, there is an extensive programme going on now with the sector to make the buying and selling of homes much less complicated and much easier for first-time buyers, so your Lordships will hear more about that in weeks to come.
The one-for-one replacement of homes was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott, Lady Warwick, Lady Shah and Lady Neate. We are moving away from the previous one-for-one replacement target for homes because that was introduced when there was no wider expectation placed on councils to build. We know that the right to buy has acted as a strong disincentive to council housebuilding, which our reforms will unleash. We are calling on councils not just to replace homes sold but to go further and play a central role in delivering a generational increase in social and affordable housebuilding. That reflects our wider programme and objective. We will continue to monitor right-to-buy sales and council housing delivery to make sure that this continues to be the case.
I want to speak briefly about the rural exemption, which was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell. Excluding rural areas from the right to buy reflects the very real and unique challenges of replacing social and affordable homes in those communities. Constraints on land, planning and supply mean that once homes are lost, they are often extremely difficult to replace. For that reason, we have taken the targeted decision to exempt designated rural areas from the scheme. We are not proposing to exempt any further areas from the scheme.
I have already spoken a bit about allocations, but I know that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, was very concerned about these issues. The allocations framework is not included in the Bill, but work is going on with the sector to discuss further issues around allocations. The allocations framework gives priority to the groups who are most in need, and local councils have the freedom to manage their own waiting lists so they can develop solutions that make best use of their social housing stock. They are required by law to give priority to certain categories of people—for example, those who are homeless, as I know the noble Baroness will be very well aware—and we committed in our National Plan to End Homelessness to work with partners to update statutory guidance on social housing allocations to make sure that the framework is working effectively, and to support vulnerable households.
I will just briefly mention the mergers of housing associations, which was a common theme that came out during the debate. Housing associations of course play a vital role in delivering good quality homes and services, and landlords sometimes conclude that the best way to do this is through a merger with another housing association. Housing associations are independent organisations that make their own commercial decisions, and we do not direct how they run their business. However, all registered providers of social housing are required to deliver the outcomes of regulatory standards before and after any merger. In addition, under the transparency, influence and accountability standard set by the regulator, where a merger is being considered, tenants must be given the opportunity to influence and be involved in that process. A landlord must also be able to demonstrate to affected tenants how they have taken the outcome of the consultation into account when reaching a decision. I knew I was not going to get to all the points I wanted to make, but I will respond to noble Lords in writing on those I have missed.
Fundamentally, this Bill is key to ensuring that social housing continues to play the role it should in our society, not just for today but into the future. As I reflected at the beginning of this debate, social housing has long provided more than just a roof over people’s heads. It supports stable, connected communities, places where people can put down roots, build their lives and remain close to family and support networks. The Bill is a step towards restoring that stability—what the noble Lord, Lord Bird, called opportunity, security and comfort. Those were good words. It is protecting the homes we have, supporting the building of the homes we need and ensuring that the system works fairly for those who rely on it most. In doing so, it seeks to ensure that future generations can once again enjoy the security, opportunity and sense of belonging that I had growing up in Stevenage and that social housing has provided for so many in the past.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 12, Schedule 1, Clause 13, Schedule 2, Clauses 14 and 15, Schedule 3, Clauses 16 to 20, Title.