Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Teather (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 80 is a retabling of an amendment I tabled in Committee. I will say a few words at the end in support of the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, has just spoken.

My Amendment 80 would require the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the extent to which former members of the Armed Forces are able to access social housing. I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss this issue and for making clear her commitment to achieving progress on this. I also thank her hard-working officials for sending me a very helpful note about the data that is collected, which I note was sent extremely late in the evening, so I am sure they were working hard in advance of the Bill returning to the Lords today.

The Minister responded to my amendment in Committee and in more detail when we had the chance to meet. She explained that she sees the way of making progress on this as being incorporating it partly within the wider review of social housing allocation. I broadly support that proposal, which I think is a sensible way forward, but I have some questions that I would be grateful if she would respond to. The information that her officials sent me was about data. I was really asking for a lot more information so that we are able to scrutinise how the Government are getting on. The Government say they are making progress on this issue. We need to be able to see the impact of that. Are more of the Armed Forces community able to access social housing or is it having no impact whatever?

The data that was sent to me on local authority housing statistics reported that 2,649 households on housing registers are members of the Armed Forces community and have been given additional preference under local authorities’ allocation schemes and that this equated to around 0.2% of the 1.34 million households on housing registers in England. Do we really think that is picking up everybody who ought to be benefiting from being given an additional preference? How do the Government intend to ensure that all those in need report their need? How are they encouraged to report their need? Is the review being conducted going to meet the gap between the figure that we currently have and the almost certainly many others who are not benefiting from the measures that the Government have already brought forward? How are we going to monitor the progress that is made? How do we know that what gets delivered is going to be successful? How we measure success is an important question here.

My other point is about injured veterans who have a disability and require specialist or adapted accommodation, which relates to the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, just moved. We spoke about this in private, so the Minister is aware that this is an issue very dear to my heart as my husband is a wheelchair user and other members of my family who have complex disabilities have struggled to access housing. One of them remained in hospital for a very long time waiting for accommodation that would meet his needs. This is a question about not just the waste of taxpayers’ money of taking out adaptions that are done but the extreme waste of taxpayers’ money of keeping people in hospital waiting for an appropriate property that would meet their needs.

I know the Minister has said—and I accept this—that not every disability is the same, and people will often require something that is personally adapted to meet their needs. However, there are certain aspects of adaptation that are likely to meet many people’s needs, including wider doorways and wet rooms, so stripping everything out does not make any sense whatever. I really hope the Minister will respond to that. It dovetails neatly with my point about making sure we are meeting the needs of veterans as well as others.

I do not intend to push my amendment to a vote, but I would be pleased to hear the Minister explain how the Government are going to respond to the point about the gap between what we currently know about and the people who are facing the changes that the Government have made, and how we are going to reach them and make progress on those aspects.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I tabled Amendment 81 and I support my noble friends on the Front Bench in their Amendments 83 and 84.

My amendment is trying to bring a bit of accountability back into housing associations. An issue that has been well described during various stages of the Bill is that housing associations are becoming enormous, with no connection to local areas. As a consequence, I thought—especially in line with the vibe of the new Prime Minister about devolution, local decision-making and people feeling involved—that it was time to get some democracy and democratically elected people back on these boards. Specifically, Amendment 81’s proposed new subsection (3) says:

“Regulations under subsection (2)(b) must ensure that no private registered provider’s board is comprised of a majority of elected local councillors”.


I anticipate that the Government will try to say, “This will put it back on the balance sheet”, but the answer is that it will not. The ONS—and I know this because there are some excellent officials over there; I have worked with some of them in the past—only puts things on the balance sheet because you have to have a majority. Control has to be with local government, which is why having a minority, not a majority, specifically in primary legislation, is key to that.

It feels that the direction of several housing associations is not going in the right way. The new Prime Minister has certainly been keen to talk about council housing—more so than social housing, although I appreciate that both will be in his mind—and that is where people would expect that, where there are special situations or a special kind of social housing or council housing, somehow there would be local involvement, not somebody who might be a couple of hundred miles away deciding what houses get sold, what get built and where they get built. For that reason, I hope the House may consider this during its consideration of the Bill.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thought the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, might like to speak first to tell us about his amendments so that we could respond, but I will go first.

While they are all on the same theme, these amendments are all different so I will take each of them in turn. As usual, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, sounds totally sensible, but I have checked this with three allocations officers in three different councils—so I have top trumped his single one—and the conclusion was that this is not an issue. Councils have the power to do what they wish with homes that have been adapted. They can leave them as voids, or they can rip out adaptations if they feel that they are too niche, but the reality is that they rarely have to do that because demand is so great. In fact, one officer said to me that the longest they have ever had to wait to re-let an adapted home is three weeks. I suppose I am saying that they would agree with the noble Lord that they care about protecting their precious adapted stock, and they do so.

My noble friend outlined the case for her Amendment 80. She said that many councils do this, but she is seeking to broaden our data about who accesses social housing, particularly veterans. The reason why that is important, as many of us know, is the high incidence of ex-military who end up homeless. My noble friend made a pertinent point about the wait that people have in order to get their adaptations. That is a far more serious point, and it could be to do with the availability of funding.

--- Later in debate ---

We have asked for two very simple things: social housing that businesses and individuals can invest in, and ending the situation where we have many empty homes. I walk past many empty homes in the West End of London and out where I live, in Cambridge. Why can we not declare an emergency and use those homes? Those are the kind of things that will bring about great social justice. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 92, the final amendment, and will be going ahead of my noble friend speaking from the Front Bench. To set it out pretty clearly, I hope that this finds favour with not only the Minister but the renewed Secretary of State, the right honourable Angela Rayner, who has been appointed. I also hope this finds favour with the Prime Minister.

Basically, one of the barriers for councils and others in trying to provide social housing is land. Homes England has tons of land. It has been given a lot of land by other government departments, with the very specific intent for homes to be built. But I am still awaiting—admittedly still within time—Answers to Questions about how many homes Homes England has built. I think that, at the moment, it is constrained by Treasury rules that it has to do this commercially. That is nonsense. We have an asset and there is a very clear intention by the Government to build many more homes, and, in particular, with this new Prime Minister, many more council homes. Why can we not just get on with it?

I appreciate that people go on about different aspects of finances, but the point is that this is in the Government’s hands. It is a bit like why the Conservatives brought in the right to buy initially. The property was there, and we knew that there were people wanting to buy those homes, to have and to invest in as they did, rather than them being an ongoing expense for the taxpayer. We have the same here. There is land all over the place that could become homes much more quickly if it was simply handed, for free, to the local council to get on and build.

For anybody who thinks that it is quite challenging to build homes, I remember that my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook and I were having dinner on The Cut. We saw the modular building right opposite the Old Vic. It is not a huge plot of land, but now there are four homes there—and it was all done within about two or three months. It is quite extraordinary. Where there is a will, there is a way, but land is the barrier. I encourage the Government to think that through.

I want to support Amendment 89, from the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I have long been a supporter of this. At the moment, there are 754,000 vacant properties in England, according to statistics published by the department last October. That has gone up by about a third in the last decade. That is not on; something needs to be done to try to get this moving. Quite often, these places are scruffy, and yet councils are not making use of their powers to force the owners of such properties to tidy them up and keep them looking nice. Much more needs to be done on this.

The proposed new clause headed “Long-term empty homes use: strategy and funding” is very sensible and the amendment is definitely needed. I expect the Minister will say, “It doesn’t need to be in law. We’re already doing something about it”, but the very fact that we are seeing an increase—I think it increased year on year—is a real scandal when, by the way, 105,000 of those empty homes are in Greater London.

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, has not indicated whether he intends to press his amendment. If he does, I would support him, but I hope the Government will consider it carefully and come forward with their own amendments by the time the Bill goes to the other end, particularly under the guise of the new Prime Minister and the renovated Secretary of State, in order to really make a difference here.

I know that the Prime Minister talked today about rough sleeping, which has often been a huge focus for a number of Governments, but it is actually a small number of people in this country compared with the people who are living in temporary accommodation. I hope that the Government will give this full force and back the intent of the Prime Minister not only on rough sleeping but, as he also mentioned, on making sure that people get their homes. That will be the basis on which they can have prosperous lives.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, this is a group of interesting and different amendments. Nobody could fail to be moved by the way that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, speaks to us, or to understand and feel his passion. He should not doubt for a minute that we share that; I think we all do.

My concern about Amendment 89 is that it would involve empty dwelling management orders. There is a real irony about those orders, as they are a power that councils rarely use. In fact, councils regard them as much more complex and difficult than CPOs—compulsory purchase orders—and have almost abandoned using them altogether. There were, in fact, no EDMOs used at all between 2023 and 2024, and only 200 in total since they were introduced in 2006.

I absolutely understand the intention of what has been said, but I am going to be cheeky and use this opportunity with the Minister to jump on one of my hobby horses, which is empty homes. This is really about the constraints and difficulties with compulsory purchase orders. It was said that councils should use their powers, but the trouble is that there are real barriers to councils using those powers. To start with, on money, councils lack dedicated funding to renovate properties, which is exacerbated by the costs of compensation to the owner and legal fees, so there are real money issues there.

It is absolutely accepted that the CPO process is overwhelmingly bureaucratic, complex and slow; it also requires government approval. If we are talking about the devolution of things, perhaps that is a power that councils could just get on with. On the six months, you want to say, “Of course that’s right”, but from my experience tracing the owners can, in reality, take far longer than six months. It is really frustrating watching officers try to progress these sorts of things. It is very challenging when there are so many absentee owners now. Some of the most difficult issues are about untangling complicated probate ownership.

Another big issue is the capacity in councils to do this work, when there is an ongoing concern that councils are constantly being asked to do more with less, particularly with regard to such issues and enforcement. But I understand why this amendment has been brought and the Government should look at removing some of those barriers to CPOs, which are well known and well evidenced. Councils are not using them for those reasons and some of those could be changed.

I have reassured the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that I will say nice things about Amendment 91. He is feeling a bit bruised today. Of course, it is absolutely right. Where we disagree on this is that I have always believed that brownfield is at the top of the planning hierarchy—ever since John Prescott’s days. It is very clear that we should be developing on brownfield sites. The amendment says that there should be a stronger emphasis. The reason for this, I know from sensible discussions with the Conservative Front Bench, is that they deal regularly with councils that do not give planning permission for brownfield sites.

That is a very real concern. Developers will always develop green spaces over brownfield, so there is a case for talking about incentives to use brownfield sites, to get those more into action. But I guess it is also a challenge for the Minister’s inspectorate. If councils are regularly turning down suitable housing sites and not giving permission, presumably a developer will appeal and inspectors will do their job. So I totally agree that it is always preferable to use brownfield.

My authority is one where 98% is brownfield. We do not really have any green sites apart from scratty little bits of land, which we very quickly put social housing on if we can get ownership of them. I absolutely get where the noble Lord is coming from; I just believe that brownfield is at the top of the hierarchy and that councils that are not playing ball, not playing by the rules, should be brought to account regardless of what party they are run by.

I have to say publicly to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that I find her amendments wonderfully quirky. She is really good at thinking outside the box. I am busy thinking, “Okay, this one actually sounds quite simple, coming from the noble Baroness, but I bet there are loads of really complicated reasons why it can’t happen”. What I will say is that she put it very simply: why can they not just give it for free? In our council we give the land for free. The only way we get social housing built is by giving the land for free. I guess it is about the principle of that, and I wholeheartedly endorse the principle. Public land is a public asset and should be used for the public good. It might amuse the noble Baroness to know that we have some very quirky policies on land use within our party. Land clearly is an issue for building and development. I will rest my words there and look forward to the Minister’s response.