Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I hope the House will not agree with Amendment 1. I feel a little bit personal about this because the amendment knocks out huge chunks of the Housing Act 1985, which I put on the statute book 40 years ago.

The noble Baroness talked about the erosion of the social housing stock. However, 17% of the housing stock in this country is social housing. That is roughly double the EU average of 9.3%, so already we are way out of line with our European neighbours in our provision of social housing. But I oppose this amendment because if one looks at Clause 9, it makes it clear that 100% of capital receipts from the right to buy will be ploughed back into social housing. So it is exactly the opposite of what the noble Baroness said, that the right to buy would increase the waiting time. What would increase the waiting time is acceptance of this amendment, because it would deny local authorities the capital receipts which would still accrue to them, so I disagree with her fundamentally.

There are other reasons for disagreeing with Amendment 1. For millions of people—1.8 million people—it was a foot on the property ladder for those who simply could not otherwise afford it, and many of those against the right to buy are people who own their own home. It gave people financial security which they would not otherwise have had. It became no longer the preserve of those on middle or higher incomes, and it gave something back after paying years of rent. Also, in the long term, it can reduce dependency, because those who bought their home now have an asset that can be taken into account if and when they move into care. There are wider benefits that we touched on at Second Reading, which I will not repeat. The right to buy helped break down the monolithic nature of some of our local authority estates. I very much hope that the Government, and indeed others in the House, will resist Amendment 1.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to take part in this debate in Committee. I will not reiterate the comments I made at Second Reading, because I talked then about family provision in social housing and we will discuss that specific issue in later groups. I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley on her promotion to the Front Bench, and it would be remiss not to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on her promotion. I think it is a promotion—anyway, she is back on the Front Bench.

As has already been said by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, right to buy was one of the most transformative policies in British political history. It resulted in 58% of people owning their homes in 1981, being boosted to 69% by 2001, although that figure has now fallen back to 63%. Boosting home ownership boosts self-reliance, and 81% of people in most recent polls support the concept of owning their own home and being part of a property-owning democracy. In fact, 1.9 million homes were sold following the Housing Act 1980 to date, affecting 4.5 million social tenants. As we heard at Second Reading, right to buy improves social mobility, especially for those working people on low or modest incomes. We also heard demonstrable, empirical evidence from the London School of Economics about the impact being in homes that were bought under right to buy had on the educational attainment of children and young people. That was a longitudinal study, as noble Lords will remember.

I must say in passing that the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, are always sincere and well-resourced with research, but on this occasion I cannot agree with her for the reasons that my noble friend made clear. Capital receipts from right to buy were £51 billion, of which £47 billion was retained and remitted to His Majesty’s Treasury. The most recent sales in England in 2024-25 raised almost £800 million from 7,494 sales.

The important point to remember is that between 2012 and 2025, 48,000 units were replaced directly from recycled right to buy receipts back into the social housing stock. It is also important to nuance the arguments and remember that we had the renaissance of housing associations and alternative housing providers in that period, so it is not altogether correct to look at council housing and social housing just within the context of local authority housing.

There are a number of myths about right to buy, which is one of the reasons why I oppose the noble Baroness’s amendment. As my noble friend said, the level of social housing that we have is still high by international standards. I think we are fourth in Europe out of about 25 countries—significantly more than France, Italy, Germany and other large countries.

The fall in public sector housing construction began well before the advent of right to buy in 1980. Social housing waiting lists were, in fact, bizarrely stable when right to buy was at its most popular in the 1980s. There is a reason for that: social housing waiting lists were derived as a function of demand, not supply. So, in the period between 1981 and 1997, social housing waiting lists fell from 1.2 million to 1 million, in a period when we were selling off 100,000 council homes under right to buy. The problem, of course, was that the wider housing market was overheating, with a rise in real housing prices of 108% between 1997 and 2009.

The final myth is about discounts. Yes, you can say that discounted money is dead money to the taxpayer, but that criticism has to be misplaced. If one looks at the cost of, for instance, significant maintenance by local authorities and the payment of housing benefit then those alleged costs are significantly lower than claimed by those who oppose right to buy.

As my noble friend said, by abolishing right to buy we would remove the revenue and income stream for building more social homes, and that cannot be right. We would need to have an alternative if we were going to get rid of right to buy. Although I might not wholly agree with this Government’s objectives as outlined in the Bill, the noble Baroness’s proposal does not make sense because it would mean fewer homes for people who needed them, and that cannot be good. On that basis, I oppose the amendment.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a part-owner of rented property in West Yorkshire.

One of the strikingly important things for me, and I hope for all noble Lords, is the positive outcomes for young people exposed to the right-to-buy scheme from the 1980s. This is not wishful thinking on my part; it is clearly shown in research from the London School of Economics. I referred to this at Second Reading, but it is worth reminding noble Lords about.

The right to buy guaranteed detectable, sizeable school performance gains among young people exposed to it, increasing good grades in high-stakes exams. There is also evidence that there is an income effect, which gives more financial stability to households through home ownership, and there is a crime reduction effect from public housing tenants becoming owners of their own home. It is disappointing that such prejudice against right to buy is likely to remove from social housing tenants the opportunities which right to buy has created for so many.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 95. As is clear, it is a probing amendment, and a permissive amendment that would require the Government to make provision by regulations for requiring social housing providers to publish data and evaluation on policies for developing social rented housing for families. This amendment is clearly in scope, but the important context to remember is that housing is an important part of economic and social policy, and particularly social housing. Getting housing policy right has an impact on population, on public services and on economic growth.

This is an important amendment, and will require debate and discussion within government, because we have a crisis in family formation. The total fertility rate is 1.39 children per woman, compared with the 1960s when it was 2.9 and the 1970s when it was 1.7. It has been declining since 2012. There were 585,396 live births last year, a reduction on the previous years. There are societal reasons for that, principally around childcare costs but also housing costs and other societal issues, including financial uncertainty about delayed parenthood and more women being involved in the labour market than in the 1960s and 1970s. This amendment is saying not that women should have more children per se but that it is good policy for the Government to be in a position to understand their duties and responsibilities in a wider economic sense to collate, collect and analyse information, and to encourage registered social providers and local authorities to help families who want to get into social housing.

For instance, the Government might require local plans and housing needs assessments to track and plan for bedrooms and family-sized homes, not only total dwelling numbers. We know that the experience over the last 10 or 15 years has been a drive, because of affordability issues, in planning policy across local authorities, towards flats and smaller units. This is essentially inimical to families being able to move into social housing accommodation.

We would expect local plans and housing needs assessments to specify an evidence-led bedroom mix in areas with strong demand from young families, and to use policy design codes and public funding levers—particularly in social housing—to secure an adequately supply of three-bedroom homes in both urban and suburban locations. Planning policy should actively favour small and medium-sized schemes, which deliver an above-average share of three-bedroom homes and usable private or shared play space, especially where developments are under 50 units and local impacts are modest. National planning policy and local design codes should encourage mid-rise terraces and mansion block-style flats with shared gardens, courtyards and safe streets, rather than long corridors of single-aspect one-bedroom units.

I do not expect the Minister to respond to this amendment in detail, but it is a good start to enable local authorities and the Government to get a handle on encouraging families to access social housing. That would make a big contribution to a good social and community mix across all communities—rural, suburban and urban. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that this begins a useful debate on an issue that is important to us all, and particularly important to an ageing population with fewer young people in the workforce, and to resolving the significant issues we have around family formation and the provision of social housing.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 58A in this group. I am delighted to support the other amendments in the group about which the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has spoken, asking the Government for various assessments of impact.

The Government contend that they want to protect the stock of social housing but also to maintain the right-to-buy scheme, but under the Bill tenants are likely to be discouraged from exercising the right to buy by obstacles, delays and uncertainties posed for a renter aspiring to home ownership. My amendment would require the Government to provide on an annual basis, once the Bill comes into operation, an analysis of the income to the public purse as a result of any change in the number of sales, broken down by the numbers sold, the resulting income and additional income from cost savings from overhead and maintenance when a property is sold and no longer a charge on the council. This should equip the Government to assess the scheme and its costs in the round against competing commitments when establishing an order of priority in spending, as Governments must do, and an overall budget. Councils too would have the essential figures to judge how best to meet their competing commitments and responsibilities.

Indeed, for a democratic system such as the UK, Parliament should also be given the full picture to assess matters and judge how the legislation is operating. Above all, the public, who foot the bills through council tax, rates and general taxation, and who face the highest overall levels of certain taxes—income tax et cetera—since records began in 1948, should also know what impact these changes will have in respect of right-to-buy sales. One of the most popular measures passed by any Government since the 1980s, right to buy has enabled 1.9 million council homes in England alone to be sold to tenants so that they can stand on their own two feet.

There are two deeper reasons for my amendment. First, there is the imperative of obliging any Government to take account of the finances of the country in making policy, and the burdens their policies might place on the economy and on the people and businesses who work and pay taxes. Secondly, there is a need to reduce benefit dependency, yet one of the most effective ways of reducing dependency is to help people to buy their own homes. By contrast, one of the most dangerous ways of encouraging dependency is to put increasing numbers of people in the socially rented sector, where already 25% of households fall into the economically inactive category and other inactive categories. This is excluding people who are retired or have a physical impairment. If the Government are serious about reducing dependency, they should not be putting new obstacles in the way of people who want to buy their council houses.

I hope the Government will accept this modest amendment for an impact statement on the results of the Bill. This would ensure that the Government themselves, the councils and everybody who needs to know has the knowledge of the outcomes of the new arrangements, so that we have the evidence to measure the impact of the Bill on right-to-buy sales and associated finances. On that basis we can review the Bill and, if necessary, make changes.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments. I will check why that has not happened, but it is certainly on the GOV.UK website.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I feel duty bound to correct the Minister. She promoted me to being a former leader of a council. I had the honour to be a borough councillor for eight years and a constituency Member of Parliament but never a leader of the council.

Also, the very helpful and comprehensive letter that the Minister sent to noble Lords in the wake of Second Reading was helpful and the best letter that I have received from a Minister. I thank her for that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for the error and thank him for his kind comment.