Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I empathise totally with the Minister because I too grew up in a council home. It was in Moulsecoomb, Brighton, and was part of the “Homes for Heroes” development in 1925. My parents moved into it probably 25 years later. The welcome feeling of stability, security and community—of having shops close by and a garden—and being able to plan for the future was amazing. I still remember it incredibly fondly, so I welcome the Bill because any measure that strengthens social housing, protects tenants and begins to repair decades of neglect is a step in the right direction. For example, the reforms to right to buy are long overdue, while stronger protections for survivors of domestic abuse are important and necessary. I also welcome the Government’s continued recognition that social housing must be part of the solution to the housing crisis we are in, but, while I welcome the Bill, it does not match the scale of the problem.

I am going to repeat figures that have already been mentioned, but they bear repeating because they are so shocking. We are facing a housing emergency—not in the future, but an emergency happening now that is already devastating lives across the country. More than 1.3 million households sit on social housing waiting lists. Councils are spending billions of pounds every year on temporary accommodation. Families are raising children in cramped rooms with no security or stability, and young people are of course finding themselves locked out of affordable housing altogether. One in 50 Londoners is homeless and living in temporary accommodation. Among children, it is one in 21. How have we got to those figures when we live in one of the wealthiest countries—and wealthiest cities—in the world?

The Government describe this Bill as the next step in the housing renewal programme but the steps are simply too small. The private sector has never built enough houses, and Thatcher’s right to buy has cost the taxpayer millions. The Government’s housing benefit bill has gone up and as social housebuilding has collapsed to historically low levels, instead of the taxpayer building and owning, the taxpayer now provides a subsidy for private landlords.

We need to build council housing that people can be proud to call a home and that is warm in winter, cool in summer, free of damp and at a reasonable rent. In an age of billionaires, it is big corporations and investors which have driven up the price of homes that they call assets. The housing market is broken and the corporate investors have broken it. We cannot solve the housing crisis by slowly reducing the rate at which we lose social housing stock. We have to start providing homes at scale again, both through new homes in the right places and by supporting councils to bring back what is already available. Obviously, history shows us that this can be done. After the Second World War, more than 150,000 social homes were built every year. Councils were supported to build them, finance was provided and housing was treated as the essential national infrastructure that it should be. We need that same ambition now.

The Government’s reforms to right to buy are welcome but should have happened years ago. I also welcome the Bill’s provisions relating to survivors of domestic abuse: the principle that victims should not be forced to lose their home because of someone else’s abuse is absolutely right. However, I am concerned that some of these measures might not work in practice. They rely heavily on outcomes in a criminal justice system that too often fails victims of domestic abuse. Many survivors never see a conviction; many never even see a prosecution. We need to hear from the Government what alternative forms of evidence and protection can be used so that survivors are not excluded.

Then there is the question of affordability. A survivor may obtain sole tenancy rights, but what happens if they cannot actually meet the rent on a single income? We must also remember that removing a perpetrator from a property does not automatically make a survivor safe. Post-separation abuse is a reality experienced by thousands of women, so they will probably need some support for these tenancy changes. Young people experiencing homelessness, leaving care or escaping unsafe homes also need access to social housing, yet the stock available to them continues to shrink. The reforms in this Bill alone will not change that reality.

The Bill contains worthwhile measures and I will support its progress, obviously while offering helpful advice and ideas at the same time, but we should not pretend that it meets the scale of the problem in the housing emergency that faces this country. What frustrates me most is that the Government have seen that there is a problem but are not doing enough to actually fix it. This should have been the Bill that launched a new generation of council housing by committing to new build and the refurbishment of older housing stock at a rate we need. Instead, it feels like an opportunity only half taken.

The housing emergency demands urgency and ambition. Millions of people cannot afford for us to settle for anything less. I hope that as the Bill proceeds through Parliament, the Government will listen carefully and find ways to strengthen it, because the country needs more than baby steps to reform a broken system. It needs a social housing revolution, and this Government must be braver.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 7 in this group and must once again refer to my interests as a retired member of a Somerset farming family which lets some houses on the farm.

During the passage of this Bill, I have explained how the shortage of affordable housing to rent in rural areas has had and continues to have long-term social and economic consequences for our communities. It has led to school, shop and pub closures and reductions in transport and other services—quite apart from the effect on the viability of local businesses. Traditional family and social networks have collapsed, and all this has been caused by a lack of affordable housing to rent in our countryside. We must protect this stock, both where it remains and where, hopefully, it is soon to be added to. I will not say any more about all this because your Lordships have heard it all before and I have had support from noble Lords on all sides of the House.

I thank the Minister and her team for meeting to discuss our concerns about how the strict interpretation in how Section 157 of the 1985 Housing Act was implemented resulted in over 60% of rural parishes being excluded from the exemption to the right to buy. Thus 60% of all rural parishes remained exposed to the near certainty of losing their council houses—and they did. We must not let this happen again. The problem was, and remains, that in the 1985 Act, Section 157 regulations require that local authorities apply to the Secretary of State for rural area designation of their rural parishes: that is, parishes that have a population below 3,000, with less than two persons per hectare. The problem was and is that few local authorities applied. Most local authorities did not realise that this was a requirement, had transferred their stock to a registered provider or did not have the resources to put together the necessary evidence. The point is that they did not apply and therefore we lost 60% of conforming rural parishes.

At our meeting with the Minister and her team, we all agreed that this must not happen again—hence my amendment, which I tabled in Committee and repeat here. We also agreed that it was not strictly necessary for the definition of a designated rural area to be in the Bill. Therefore, I agreed not to press my amendment to a vote, provided we had some sort of undertaking that, at least in the short term, all parishes that fitted the criteria could be included, whether or not their local authority had made an application following the 1985 Act. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if the Government merely rolled over the post-1985 list of parishes with designated rural area status. I am counting on the Minister to reassure me on that point.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my Amendment 9 asks for information that is necessary to understand the full situation. I had better declare that I rent a flat in a social housing block, which was presumably bought under right to buy.

In Committee, my noble friend Lady Bennett argued that the most effective way to protect our social housing stock is to abolish the right to buy. I also support that. Scotland abolished the policy in 2016 and Wales followed in 2019; neither has chosen to bring it back. Both Governments concluded that, in the middle of a housing crisis, preserving social housing for the future was more important than continuing a policy that reduced its supply.

I appreciate that the Government are not prepared to take that step in this Bill but, if that is the case, the very least Parliament should expect is a clear picture of how the policy is operating and what impact the changes it will make are having. The amendment would require the Secretary of State—whoever it is—to lay an annual report before Parliament setting out how many homes have been sold under right to buy, the receipts received by local authorities, how those receipts have been used and an assessment of the impact on the availability of social housing in each local authority. The reality is that, for decades, we have been selling social homes more quickly than we have been replacing them. Every home lost is one fewer home available for the next family on the waiting list.

Social housing should be seen as a long-term public asset, not simply a resource to be steadily diminished while demand continues to grow. Between 1980 and the abolition of right to buy in Scotland, almost half a million social homes were sold. The Scottish Government estimated that ending the policy would protect around 15,500 homes over the following decade. In Wales, Ministers similarly concluded that ending right to buy would help preserve affordable housing and give councils and housing associations greater confidence to invest in new homes. We may disagree on whether England should follow that path, but we can surely agree that Parliament should have the information needed to judge whether these reforms are having their intended effect.

I also welcome the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, which would extend reporting requirements to include the right to acquire. If we are assessing the impact of policies that reduce the stock of affordable housing, it is sensible that the report should capture information from both schemes.

I acknowledge that some figures on right to buy are already published, including the total sales receipts. However, the Government do not publish the amount of those receipts retained by local authorities, nor does Parliament receive a single annual report bringing together sales, receipts, how those receipts have been used and the overall impact on the availability of social housing. This amendment would bring that information together in a single annual report laid before Parliament, enabling both Houses to scrutinise the real impact of these reforms and judge whether they are delivering their intended objectives.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I co-signed Amendment 9 from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, because I thought it was very sensible. If it is not taken up by the Government today, bearing in mind that we do not yet have a Secretary of State for the department sponsoring this Bill, I would have thought that this would be right up the new Prime Minister’s street—being open and transparent and showing a duty of candour. I hope that, if the Government reject the amendment today, he will consider it in the Commons.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for accepting the amendments to include the other scheme, because this is just about trying to get an understanding of the picture. For what it is worth, I do not agree with what she just said about ending right to buy. I am a strong supporter of it, as are many current and former Cabinet Ministers of this Labour Government, who have taken advantage of it personally—or their families have. I do not criticise them for that; it was a very wise thing to do. However, this would just show that it has not had quite the impact that everybody thinks. In fact, it ties up or reduces the amount of capital available to build more social housing.

If the noble Baroness were minded to put her amendment to the vote, I would support her, but I appreciate that she has not indicated that in advance. Nevertheless, if the Government do not accept her amendment today, I hope that the Office for National Statistics takes it up as a project in order to improve reporting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 18 in my name and add my voice to the amendments I co-signed in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford. He has already set out very clearly why we want this further information. Although we debated Amendment 24 in the last group, it is the same process—as has just been set out to some extent by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington—that, once these houses go out of the social housing market to whoever, then we have a problem. That is why I am concerned about how the disposal is done.

In Committee, I suggested that we should not have any cash purchase at all. This time, in Amendment 18, I have suggested that, where there is an auction, it should be possible for someone to be able to buy it who is not a cash buyer. It genuinely astonished me in Committee that the Labour Government did not want to do that; they wanted only cash buyers and did not care that people who are unable to apply for a mortgage might not have a quarter of a million or more to spend when they try to buy a home in the village they live in. I hope the Government have reflected on trying to make sure that local housing is open to local people.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, discussed the situation with big plots, and that is exactly what happened in Orford. Somehow, the housing association did not notice when its tenant had started rebuilding—or rather, destroying—parts of the house. There was a big garden; if it had been a commercial enterprise, there could have been probably three houses to fill the space and replace the original one after knocking it down. But, no, it was sold for cash. Nobody was able to buy it if they did not have several hundred thousands of pounds in their pocket. That is why I feel strongly about Amendment 18.

I also add my voice to Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I tabled something similar in Committee and thought I heard positive noises from the Government that recognised the cycle of council meetings and cabinet meetings in local authorities. I had hoped we would get an amendment from the Government at this point; if we do not get it here, I hope we get it in the Commons.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 22, which again is about transparency. I am sure the Minister is going to say again that all the information is out there, but this is actually about collating it, so that we do not have to hunt for it, and it is easy to read. I am grateful to the Local Councils Network for highlighting this issue and the gap in current reporting arrangements. This amendment would require post-disposal reporting to distinguish between homes let at social rent and those let at affordable rent. It would require the Regulator of Social Housing to publish annual data in a form that allows useful analysis over time.

This is important as, although both tenures fall within the broad category of affordable housing, they are not the same. Social rent remains the only tenure that is genuinely affordable for many households on the lowest income, while affordable rent can be set at up to 80% of market rent. If social rent homes are being sold and replaced by homes at affordable rent, it represents a significant change in the nature of our social housing stock. At present, Parliament has no way of assessing whether that is actually happening.

The Regulator of Social Housing has confirmed that it has collected disposal data since 2017 but has never published any analysis of it. As a result, although we know that more than 28,000 homes have been permanently sold out of the social housing sector since 2018-19 through disposals, we cannot establish just how many of those had been at social rent and how many had been at affordable rent. Without that information, it is impossible to judge whether we are losing the homes that are most affordable for those who need them most or whether they are being replaced on a like-for-like basis.

The regulator already collects the information that this amendment asks for, but we need the data published in a way that enables Parliament, local authorities, housing providers and the public to understand what is actually happening to our social housing stock over time. Perhaps the Minister could tell the House whether the Government see any objection in principle to the regulator publishing this information annually. If the data is already being collected, what is preventing it from being published in a way that enables proper parliamentary scrutiny?

This is quite an interesting group, and I support quite a lot of these amendments, including Amendments 17, 21, 26 and 27, which are all good. I will support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Young—he is not listening to me. I think he might divide the House, and I will be supporting him on Amendments 23 or 25.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I will continue with the brevity. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this thoughtful and constructive debate. Given it is my first time speaking this afternoon, I remind your Lordships of my interest as a part-owner of a rental property in Bexley and as a vice-president of London Councils.

We have heard a range of important contributions on how the disposal of social housing should be managed, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Coffey and to the noble Lords, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Best, and of course the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for bringing forward these amendments for consideration.

First, there is the importance of transparency. Whether through the provision of additional information on sales notices, the establishment of a national register or post-disposal reporting requirements, noble Lords have rightly highlighted the need for greater visibility of what is being sold, to whom, and with what consequences for local housing provision.

Secondly, there has been a strong focus on ensuring that social housing assets remain within the sector, wherever reasonably practicable. Amendments concerning notification periods, opportunities for other registered providers to purchase properties and the development of a code of responsible disposal practice all seek to address that objective.

Thirdly, several amendments have recognised that not all social housing is the same. Homes adapted for people with disabilities, homes in rural communities and homes let at social rent all make a particularly valuable contribution to meeting local housing need. It is understandable that noble Lords wish to ensure that such properties are not lost without proper consideration of the consequences.

We have also heard persuasive arguments regarding the recycling of capital grant and the importance of replacing homes within communities from which they are lost, wherever possible. As housing pressures continue to be felt across the country, there is clear merit in ensuring that local areas benefit from local reinvestment. From these Benches, we believe that housing providers should have the flexibility to manage their stock effectively, but that must be balanced against the equally important objective of maintaining the supply of social housing and ensuring confidence in disposal decisions.

This has been a valuable debate which has explored how that balance might best be struck. I once again thank all noble Lords who have participated, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.