Social Housing Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness O'Neill of Bexley and Baroness Thornhill

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments I echo the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, regarding the loss of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, from the Front Bench.

Amendment 82 is a sound and compassionate amendment. Speaking from experience, I learned the hard way that the exchange of data between the Prison Service and local authorities with regard to placing ex-offenders does not happen as it should. I felt that the noble Lord’s comment about all local authorities taking their share is particularly pertinent, as I found out from bitter experience. To cut a long story short, I noticed a spike in homelessness and offences in certain neighbourhoods. When I dug under those statistics and spoke to the Probation Service, it turned out it was to do with the lack of homes for ex-offenders. I said, “How come it’s all congregating here?”, and they said, “Well, Hertfordshire councils aren’t very co-operative”. I then found out that only two of the 10 authorities in Hertfordshire actually co-operated and tried to work with this group of people. I am pleased to say to the Minister that they were Watford and Stevenage.

However, I fear that Amendments 86, 87 and 88 confuse a lack of action with a lack of oversight. The social housing sector is not short of reviews, strategies or regulators; what it is short of is homes. On Amendment 86, the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, was absolutely right that every home unlawfully sublet is a home denied to someone in real housing need. We should tackle tenancy fraud whenever it occurs, but I am not persuaded that yet another review from Whitehall will tell us anything that landlords do not already know. In my experience, the challenge is not a lack of understanding but often a lack of capacity and resources.

My greatest concern is with Amendment 87. Of course we want fewer voids, faster reletting and better use of existing stock—yes, yes, yes—but this amendment seems to assume that nobody is already collecting the data, monitoring performance or holding providers to account, and I do not believe that this is true. We already have a Regulator of Social Housing overseeing governance, financial viability and consumer standards; we already have the Housing Ombudsman scrutinising landlord performance and identifying systemic failings through complaints; and housing associations and councils already operate under significant scrutiny and reporting requirements. The danger is that we mistake reporting for better performance. You really do not fatten a pig by continuing to weigh it. A national strategy will not relet an empty home and another set of metrics will not house a family; good management does that, as does investment and building more homes.

As for Amendment 88, we support strong governance, transparency and tenant representation, but those principles are already embedded in the existing regulatory framework. Housing associations are independent organisations, subject to robust oversight, not bodies waiting for Whitehall to tell them how to behave.

Therefore, while I support the objectives behind these amendments clearly and firmly, I cannot support the assumption behind them: that every challenge in housing requires another review, another strategy or another layer of central direction. The sector is already regulated, scrutinised and awash with data. What it needs is the freedom, capacity and investment to focus on what matters most: providing and managing good homes for the people who need them the most. For that reason, we oppose these amendments.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, in particular my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lord Farmer.

A common theme has run through this group: making better use of the social housing stock we already have. The amendment from my noble friend Lord Farmer addresses the important issue of prison leavers at risk of homelessness. Stable accommodation can play a crucial role in helping individuals rebuild their lives and in reducing the risk of reoffending. His amendment rightly seeks to improve co-ordination and information sharing between agencies, and I know that the House will have listened carefully to those arguments.

Amendments 87 and 88, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, are fundamentally about making the best use of the social housing stock we already have. We all hear calls for more social housing, but that conversation inevitably turns immediately to building more homes. As my noble friend Lady Eaton said, new supply is important, but it will not arrive overnight. Before we ask taxpayers to fund more homes, is it not reasonable to ask whether the homes we already have are being used as effectively as possible?

We need to make better use of the homes we already have. To do that, we need a more accurate view of how many we need. When an estimated 148,000 social homes may be fraudulently occupied, there is a strong case for a national strategy that tackles tenancy fraud, reduces void periods and improves re-letting performance. The Government themselves estimate that 5,800 social homes may be illegally sublet through short-term letting platforms. There could be a lot of people making a lot of money out of that. That demonstrates why tackling tenancy fraud must be part of any serious strategy for improving the use of social housing stock. Even if that figure proves to be overstated, it underlines the importance of having accurate data and a clearer understanding of the scale of the challenge.

Likewise, we need to understand how accurate housing waiting lists are and when they were last reviewed. Circumstances change, and it is only with a timely review that a more accurate and transparent assessment can be made of the number of dwellings actually needed, as well as ensuring that the list is assessing accurate prioritisation. Without that information, it is difficult to judge how many additional homes are genuinely required and how many could be made available through better stock management.

At a time when the demand for social housing continues to grow, it is not enough simply to talk about building new homes. We must ensure that the homes we already have are being managed as effectively as possible. Too often, concerns are raised about lengthy void periods, delays in re-letting, outdated waiting lists, tenancy fraud and unlawful subletting. Every property left empty unnecessarily is a missed opportunity for a family in need. Every home unlawfully sublet is a home denied to someone on a waiting list.

Our amendment would require the Government to produce a national strategy for improving the management and utilisation of existing housing stock. It would improve transparency, requiring key information to be published on void properties, re-let times, recovered properties and enforcement activity relating to unlawful subletting. It is not about creating additional bureaucracy; it is about ensuring that landlords, local authorities and government focus on making the best use of an extremely valuable and scarce public asset.

The related amendment on unlawful subletting seeks to better understand whether current enforcement powers are being used effectively and the barriers that might exist. Before calling for ever more supply, it is entirely reasonable to ask whether the stock we already have is being managed as efficiently as possible.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness O'Neill of Bexley and Baroness Thornhill

Committee stage
Monday 15th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will stick to my words at the beginning and be as brief as possible and to the point. If the aim is to preserve existing stock, clearly this is a lever you have to pull. We would not disagree with that, even though it is so low, but let us be clear: if the average house price in my area—actually, perhaps the average is not a good way of looking at it, but if the median house price is about £450,000, you are still getting a discount of £90,000. How many of us would say no to that?

The other question we have to ask ourselves is: who pays for the discount? However much detail we want to get into about finances, the bottom line is that a sale does not build another house and that money has to be added. Those are simple reasons why we support this direction in the Bill.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on her return to the Front Bench. I declare my interests as vice-president of London Councils—I will be there tomorrow morning—and as a part-owner of a rented property in Bexley. I also put on record that my parents had a right to buy. My dad was a bus conductor, and I am proud of that.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate on what is ultimately a question of proportionality. The Government believe that the current level of discounts is too generous and that they need to be reduced. The question raised by these amendments is whether the reductions proposed in the Bill go further than necessary, and hence we have probed the inclusion of Clause 5. My noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendments do not seek to preserve the status quo; rather, they offer an alternative approach that would reduce discounts while retaining a meaningful incentive for tenants considering home ownership, as my noble friend Lord Fuller said. In that sense, they seek a compromise between the current arrangements and the considerably lower levels proposed by the Government.

Noble Lords have referred to the importance of preserving the viability of the scheme. That is a legitimate concern. If discounts are reduced to the point where the financial advantage of exercising right to buy becomes marginal, there is a risk that the policy ceases to operate as intended. The issue before the Committee is therefore not whether discounts should ever change but whether the Government have adequately justified reductions at the scale proposed in the Bill. Having listened to the debate, I am not yet persuaded that they have. For that reason, I hope the Minister will give further consideration to a more measured approach to better preserve the opportunities that the right-to-buy scheme has offered to many tenants over the years.