Social Housing Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Lord Best

Report stage
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the advice of the Local Councils Network on a number of amendments that I have tabled in this group, and for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and, on one amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Best. The Bill’s objective is to provide more social housing and protect our existing stock from ongoing dilution. The previous Government built roughly 130,000 new affordable homes in their five-year period. However, during that period, 28,000 social houses were disposed of. In the first year of this Government, 28,000 affordable homes are being built, but 5,806 have been lost from the social housing stock through disposal.

The first group that we looked at this afternoon dealt with the right to buy. These amendments concentrate on three things. First, they address other leaks in the bucket where social rent homes are being disposed of through sale. The exact figures are not known, but we estimate that there are 5,000 a year. Secondly, they would strengthen the provision where social houses are disposed of, so that proceeds are used to provide replacement social rent housing. Thirdly, they try to improve information on what exactly is going on here by requiring the collection of relevant data so that affordable housing is distinguished from social rent housing—we do not do that currently.

In Committee, the Minister was concerned about my amendment compromising the categorisation of private registered housing providers with government debt. Therefore, on Report, I have abandoned giving local authorities the right of first refusal at existing use value when social rent housing is being disposed of. However, in Amendment 15, we have maintained the right of private registered providers to be informed of disposals, as well as local authority housing, which is already provided in the Bill.

I am worried about overregulation and bureaucracy—I suspect that the Minister might be as well—and the feasibility of how every housing provider can be informed in a local situation. That is why my Amendment 21 proposes that a national disposal register, with access to local authorities and housing associations, should be provided. It should not be difficult to do this, and it needs to be done anyway for local authorities. It can then be accessible to housing association private registered providers.

We are supportive of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and I hope very much that the Government will respond positively to the concept that the time for notification should be increased from four to eight weeks when a housing sale is being contemplated. The local authority could then have a proper period to consider whether it could intervene to purchase the housing. I hope very much that the Government will accept that amendment.

My Amendment 17 would provide for notification content to assist decision-making, so that people can make decisions in a fairly limited period—even eight weeks is fairly limited. Therefore, it would require that tenure, EPC ratings, housing compliance, stock condition survey findings, accessibility adaptations, general funding data and compliance certifications should be included in every sale notice. Following discussions with the National Housing Federation, this amendment has been designed to remove anything that the providers do not already hold. They would therefore not need to commission anything specifically. It is not designed to create an additional burden; it would just ease the process of information so that decisions can be appropriately made about whether a local authority or registered provider could get involved in purchasing the property.

Since Committee, I have tabled two new amendments dealing with the Homes England funding framework. Currently, Homes England will be asked to develop a code of responsible development disposal practice to protect social housing, in consultation with the regulator and the sector. Compliance with it will be a condition of accessing funding. The code would recognise that not all disposals are irresponsible, and we do not want to deter appropriate regeneration.

Amendment 27 addresses a significant gap in the current framework. When a provider sells a grant-funded social home on the open market, it can comply by choosing to repay any grant to Homes England and then walk away with no obligation to provide any replacement house anywhere. The amendment would require that where a social rent home disposal involves public money, it should be invested in a replacement home in the same local authority area, with a slightly more flexible requirement for affordable rent disposals. The provider would still be allowed complete commercial freedom on the disposal itself.

Finally, Amendment 21 and a similar amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, Amendment 22, concern registered providers. At the moment, they already notify the regulator following the completion of the disposal, but the tenure is not currently included in that return, and the regulator has never published the resulting data that would tell us whether it is affordable or social and where the local authority is losing social housing. We simply do not know how many social rent homes are lost through disposal and where.

These amendments attempt to underline the fact that there is a huge disparity between social and affordable rents, and therefore we must do all we can to prevent any reduction in the stock of social rented housing. The amendments seek to protect against inappropriate disposals without reinvestment and to improve information so that we can determine what exactly is happening.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 17 from the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, and shall speak to my own Amendments 14 and 16 in this group. I declare my housing interests as on the register, not least as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, to which I am grateful for its help with this amendment.

The sale of social housing properties that have become expensive to repair and maintain, or are simply situated in an inconvenient location, has become a contentious issue for the housing association sector. The LGA has calculated that in 2024-25 alone, 5,250 social housing homes were sold to private buyers, often at auction and no doubt often to private landlords who will be less scrupulous about letting them in poor condition. These homes are lost to the social housing stock even where the properties may be among the only remaining social rented accommodation for less affluent people in the area. The financial case for these disposals may be clear, but disposals of hard-to-replace social housing are seldom in the public interest.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, noted, the Government recognise this issue, to the extent that the Bill introduces a requirement for a social landlord to notify the relevant council of their intentions to sell four weeks in advance. This provides at least a fleeting opportunity for intervention that could save the property from leaving the social housing sector. A local authority keen to preserve the accommodation as social housing could try to negotiate its retention, perhaps by making a grant towards its repairs, or even by the council making a bid for the property. However, this represents a somewhat lightweight response to what is becoming a major drain on much-needed stock: 28,585 homes have been sold out of the social housing sector in the last eight years. The response of a four-week window when councils will be notified is surely inadequate; this is too short a time for sensible decision-making, so my Amendment 14 seeks to improve this notification requirement by extending the timescale from four weeks in advance of a disposal, as the Bill specifies, to eight weeks generally, and to 12 weeks in designated rural areas, where there are special difficulties, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron will explain. These changes would provide a wider window of opportunity for action to preserve the social housing.

Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Lord Best

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 56B. I was approached by the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association—ITSPA—because I chair your Lordships’ Select Committee on Communications. However, my committee has not had a chance to consider this particular issue so, having discussed it at length with ITSPA, which represents some 80 providers of telephony services via the internet, I speak in a personal capacity.

The amendment addresses a consumer rights issue relating to the penalties facing unwary customers of some of the companies that supply our mobile phone and internet connections. Unbeknown to those who sign up to get the internet from their iPhones and other mobile phones—unless they have studied all the small print and those terms and conditions that we all accept but have never read—some of the big players have built-in penalties for using the internet to make telephone calls—for example, through Skype. While providers such as BT, O2 and Sky, for example, have not adopted such practices and do not penalise their customers in this way, Vodaphone and EE have done so in recent years.

Presumably, the restrictive practices of these companies are a consequence of them providing mobile telephone services, which could be less popular and profitable if people use the internet to make telephone calls at a much lower cost. However, this practice is bad not just for the innocent consumer who can have their calls blocked or degraded, and/or could find some hefty charges on their mobile phone bills, it is also bad for this industry that finds it harder to attract investment to extend a really useful communication tool which, increasingly, could benefit more and more of us but has this cloud hanging over it. The practice is detrimental to consumer interests as well as anti-competitive and will gradually affect other services as we increasingly access the internet via mobile connections.

I note that amendments to this effect were tabled in the other place by both Conservative and Labour Members. We learnt there that the Government and Ofcom are keen to see an end to the current bad practice. We hear that in recent days Vodafone and EE have bowed to pressure from all sides and agreed to sign up to the industry’s code of practice which outlaws the technical blocking or restricting of telephone services through the internet. This is a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, as ITSPA points out, there are ways of interpreting this code of practice that could circumvent its intentions, for example simply by avoiding the term “internet access” and using a synonym such as “mobile data” or “mobile broadband”. There are also no sanctions for breaking the code, and those who voluntarily sign it one day can withdraw from it another. Only through legislation is the matter fully resolved.

As I know from the work of the Communications Committee, ensuring the law keeps pace with technological change—particularly in respect of the internet—is an important challenge for today’s legislators. This Bill takes steps in that direction and this amendment is very much a case in point. It seems that in the somewhat arcane world of telephony services, the consumer needs the protection of the law, not just of a voluntary code, to ensure fair play.

Finally, I gather that there is a school of thought that suggests we should await an EU directive on so-called internet neutrality—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, referred. That would cover this point, among other measures. However, I fear that we could wait a very long time for agreement on the content of this Europe-wide measure. Surely it is much better for UK citizens if the Government act now with a small, well-focused amendment to the Bill already before us. I am delighted to support this amendment.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

Briefly, I lend my support to this amendment. Most of the points have already been made but wherever uncompetitive activity is trying to distort a market and deprive market entry to competitors it should be exposed and eliminated. Internet access should be open and consumers buying that service expect it to be so. Can the Government really achieve their objective of an open market without considering this amendment? Selective blocking is abhorrent to innovation and generally has uncompetitive motives. Consumers are not fully aware of the practices when ISPs and mobile providers undertake inhibiting their services. Ofcom has already indicated that it would welcome more clout against the blocking of or economic deterrents for internet services. It recognises that these practices should be unacceptable. The voluntary code of practice should be given statutory support.