Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Neate Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 29, and I am delighted to see that it is grouped with the Government’s amendments extending protections for victims of domestic abuse, which I certainly support.

I was grateful for the Minister’s constructive response to this amendment in Committee, especially her recognition that the matter needs further consideration and her commitment to convene interested stakeholders to explore a way forward. I know that representative bodies from across the social housing sector have been working with officials on the best way to solve the issue of access to residents’ homes to carry out essential inspection repairs and safety works. In Committee, the Minister raised important concerns about tenants’ rights and the potential impact on their sense of security in their own home, and I agree that that is extremely important in safeguarding a tenant’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of their home. However, the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks to ask simply: are existing routes for access clear, consistent and fast enough when tenants and residents do not engage and clear safety risks are posed? I am convinced that the answer to this is no.

We know that housing associations and councils increasingly report difficulties in gaining access to residents’ homes to carry out statutory safety inspections. Recent HQN research found that 60% of surveyed social landlords had growing or considerable concerns about access issues. The primary concern here must be the safety of residents and social housing staff. If gas safety checks or emergency repairs cannot be conducted, issues can be left unidentified or unresolved that pose significant and imminent danger not just to the resident in that property but to people in neighbouring homes as well.

Legal action is typically taken as a last resort after steps to engage directly with residents have proven unsuccessful, but even this has become more challenging. Housing associations have observed a shift in decisions from judges over the last 12 months, with judges seemingly less willing to approve requests for injunctions, particularly for matters other than gas safety. As I mentioned in Committee, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just mentioned it too, a court judgment from October 2025 demonstrated that Parliament’s intention on forced entry is currently unclear.

Alongside the obvious risk to safety, there is the financial cost of inaction. In a 2026 White Paper, the Association of Safety and Compliance Professionals estimated that repeated access attempts cost the social housing sector more than £175 million annually in direct operational terms, with the figure rising to between £200 million and £245 million with legal escalation included. I urge that this money could be better directed towards work that will improve the conditions of residents’ homes or to building much-needed new social housing.

I am encouraged by the Minister’s approach so far. Whether through this amendment or another mechanism to clarify the process for securing access, I know that both she and social housing bodies want to work in partnership to develop a workable system with tenant safety at its heart.

[Baroness Neate (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to Amendment 76 standing in my name, and I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Abri Octavia housing association. This amendment would mean that landlords could not prevent domestic abuse survivors accessing social housing on the basis of debt incurred under coercive control or economic abuse. Research by Katherine Brickell of King’s College London and Mel Nowicki of Oxford Brookes University found that the allocations policies of only one in five local authorities in England currently exempt domestic abuse survivors from debt-related rules on social housing.

During my periods as CEO of Shelter and before that Women’s Aid, I saw the desperate impact of these rules on women and children who ended up homeless in temporary accommodation. Let us be clear what this means. Temporary accommodation is often just one room in a B&B, a converted office block or a hotel. Laying the table for tea often means laying the bed for tea. I have seen a GCSE student with nowhere to work but sitting on the toilet. I have seen a baby who could not be put down to crawl because there was no space between the beds. I have seen families having to live on unhealthy and expensive takeaways because they have no cooking facilities. Add all these challenges to the unimaginable trauma of domestic abuse followed by homelessness and you can easily see why many women literally risk their lives by staying with the perpetrator to spare their children from homelessness.

It was heartening today to hear the new Prime Minister prioritising the end of rough sleeping and, even more importantly, reiterating the commitment to a major programme of social and council housebuilding. The Prime Minister cited the model of Everyone In used during the Covid-19 pandemic but, while this was a great example of partnership and co-ordination, it is not a model for ensuring homeless people find safe and secure homes for the long term and not temporary accommodation in hotels. This is important context for this amendment.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Neate Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neate (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 65 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hussein-Ece, Lady Teather and Lady Lister, who have supported it. I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Abri Octavia housing association. This is my first time speaking in Committee, so I apologise to noble Lords for having to be prompted to rise to my feet.

This amendment would ensure that domestic abuse survivors were not made ineligible for a social home as a result of debt incurred in the context of abuse. This speech will be short because I do not have criticisms to make of the Bill. I merely hope to strengthen further the very welcome changes that it proposes for survivors of domestic abuse.

As I know noble Lords are aware, and as I saw time and time again as chief executive both of Women’s Aid and Shelter, domestic abuse survivors who manage to leave their abuser are often systematically robbed of their financial independence. The fact that they might become homeless is a threat frequently wielded by perpetrators to maintain control: “If you leave me, you’ll have nowhere to live”. Or even worse: “If you leave me, the children will be homeless”. All too often, the housing system makes these threats come true, preventing victims gaining safety and not allowing survivors and their children the safe space they desperately need to rebuild their lives together.

The Bill as it stands is already life-changing for survivors. It takes important steps towards shifting the system so that it is on the side of the survivor, not the perpetrator. My amendment is one more step in the same direction, which I believe would strengthen the Bill still further.

In just one month in 2023, research found that 1,500 children were trapped living in temporary accommodation as a result of housing-related debt, which according to local authority rules meant their mother could not get a social home. The housing crisis has grown only worse since then and so has the dangerous shortage of refuge accommodation for women fleeing abuse. This is exacerbated when women cannot move on from refuge into a social home and are therefore occupying a space that could literally save another woman’s life.

At Shelter, colleagues working in front-line services and on the helpline saw daily that a gatekeeping culture exists in many local authorities. For a start, survivors are not believed. Then, rules governing housing allocations are used to make the gateway to a social home as narrow as it can possibly be. Yes, there is guidance, and I am aware that the Government believe that statutory guidance can be used to achieve the ends that this amendment would achieve. I am sure that in the best local authorities that is true, but I have seen guidance disregarded many times and colleagues at both Shelter and Women’s Aid having to intervene to get a survivor’s rights upheld. The problem is that a minority of survivors have a powerful advocate on their side; most are struggling on their own. For them, all too often, guidance is not enough.

It is also not urgent enough, nor is it guaranteed. The time and uncertainty of consultation is time and uncertainty that survivors and their children cannot afford. This is especially true in the context of a desperate shortage of funds in local government, an even worse shortage of social homes, the imminent local government reorganisation, and the disruption and local shifts of emphasis following the local elections, not to mention the current political instability, which means timetables can vary. In this context, it is appropriate that priority matters are dealt with urgently by legislation. We are in the middle of a housing emergency, a funding crisis in women’s refuges and major upheaval in local government. Domestic abuse survivors are caught in the eye of this storm.

The truth is that no family should be in temporary accommodation, but that is not the reality we are in. No local authority should be gatekeeping social homes in a way that denies people their rights as enshrined in guidance, but that is not the reality we are in. This Bill, which places domestic abuse survivors at the centre of the social housing system, can be an even bigger opportunity for this House to demonstrate that we believe that domestic abuse survivors and their children, who have been systematically deprived of their financial independence, simply must have every chance to recover and that a safe and secure home is the foundation of that.

I am grateful for the hard work done by the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Shared Health Foundation and researchers from King’s College London and Oxford Brookes University on this amendment, which is supported by Women’s Aid, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse and other expert organisations.

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 65, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, who has brought to this amendment her considerable experience in dealing with domestic abuse and homelessness.

It is not that long ago that the expectation was that, when somebody was the victim of domestic abuse, they had to leave their home and the perpetrator could be left in possession of the home. Thankfully, we have, in a number of ways, changed that thinking. Domestic abuse protection orders and domestic abuse protection notices in the Domestic Abuse Act have given powers to ensure that it is the perpetrator who leaves. I welcome Schedule 1 to the Bill and the efforts that the Government are making to provide greater stability and security to the victims of domestic abuse.

It is also not that long ago that we thought that domestic abuse was purely domestic violence and always had a physical violence element. As we know now, there is complexity to domestic abuse, which can include coercive control and economic control. It is in that sense that Amendment 65 is so important. It recognises that there are victims of domestic abuse who may be victims of economic coercive control and find that debt has been racked up by their perpetrator, unbeknown to them. When they are trying to leave, and trying to secure social housing for themselves, they find that that debt is against their name as well, perhaps as having been joint tenants, and find themselves in an impossible situation that has been created because they were a victim of the actions of the perpetrator.

I hope that the Government are going to look favourably on the amendment. An effort is being made by the Government through this Bill to change the scenario for those who are the victims of domestic abuse, but there is this loophole. The Government need to look at this element, given the knowledge we now have of the forms that domestic abuse can take and the greater understanding we have of the circumstances in which people can be left that are nothing to do with their behaviour, but purely because they have been the victim of a perpetrator.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Neate Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neate (CB)]

My lords, it is a privilege to be part of this debate. As somebody who is still pretty new here, the sheer range of expertise and experience is striking to me. I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Abri Octavia housing association.

We live in a country where people on a low income simply cannot afford a decent place to live, where 1.3 million people are on council waiting lists for social housing and where well over 350,000 people are homeless in temporary accommodation. Many millions are in poor-quality homes that they cannot truly afford. As I saw many times while I was chief executive of Shelter, the lack of a secure home breaks people’s sense that their country has any investment in their future. It breaks communities, damages trust and destroys people’s sense of belonging. Can noble Lords imagine how this entirely justified sense of unfairness could be weaponised to exacerbate blame, scapegoating and division? We do not have to imagine it; that is exactly what is happening in many of our communities right now. As a country, we cannot afford to let this continue.

For decades, and through successive Governments, we have failed to build the social homes that are the only solution to this emergency. Independent analysis commissioned by Shelter shows that if this failure continues for another decade, the cost to the economy and our public services will exceed £117 billion. This is why I very much welcome the current Government’s much-increased investment in building social housing and, in particular, the way in which they have rebalanced the priority of the so-called affordable homes programme towards the only genuinely affordable form of housing for people on low incomes—social homes. Our communities desperately need even more and they need it soon. I urge the Government to make bolder, faster and more ambitious changes, to get councils building social homes at scale once more.

Turning to the Bill, the reforms that it introduces to right to buy are critical and much to be welcomed. We also need to see the replacement of homes already lost to right to buy, which has meant that, over many years, we have been losing more social homes than we have built.

The Bill’s measures to protect survivors of domestic abuse will transform the prospects of many abuse survivors and their children, and are very welcome. To achieve its aims, the measures in the Bill will require significant co-operation between social landlords, the criminal justice system and local specialist organisations that support survivors. Post-separation abuse makes up 40% of calls to the national domestic abuse helpline, according to the charity Refuge. This could be exacerbated if perpetrators are forced from their home, as I know well from my time as chief executive of Women’s Aid. The measures in the Bill are a major step forward, but they require significant local co-operation and resources to be implemented successfully.

There is a major challenge around survivors’ ability to afford a tenancy on their own, particularly if the abuse has included financial exploitation and saddling the victim with debt, as is very common indeed. I propose that the Bill could be strengthened still further, by ensuring that domestic abuse survivors are exempt from housing-related debt rules, which are currently denying them access to social housing. If added to the Bill, this measure would be a huge step towards ensuring that domestic abuse is no longer a precursor to homelessness, as I have seen throughout my career. I would welcome the opportunity to talk to the Minister about this.

In 2017, when I first joined Shelter, I met a woman who had fled an abusive relationship, losing her job and social housing tenancy in the process, to another city over 100 miles away. She and her three children were living in one room in temporary accommodation, nowhere near friends or school. She was desperately isolated and fearful. Shelter helped her into new temporary accommodation that was somewhat better. Shockingly, however, when I left Shelter last year, nearly eight years later, she and her children were still there. They still had nowhere to call home. The measures in the Bill, particularly with the addition that I have suggested, will, I hope, mean that a woman going through the same experience now would have a different story. That would truly be an achievement.

However, for that family and hundreds of thousands like them, now and in the future, only a new generation of social homes will make the difference that they need and repair people’s sense that their community and country are somewhere where they can put down roots, feel secure and respected, and achieve their potential. This is not about the dream of home ownership. This is about the reality of working hard, paying your rent and getting security in return.