Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

Amendment 9 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

As Amendment 9 has not been moved, I cannot call Amendments 10 to 12.

Clause 12: Restriction on certain sales of social housing by private registered providers

Amendment 13

Moved by

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Would it be in order to speak to Amendment 66?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

For clarification, the question before the Committee is that Clause 14 stand part.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Amendment 66 in my name is a probing amendment relating to the paragraph which abolishes the provision in earlier legislation to phase out tenancies for life. It has much in common with Amendments 77 and 78, which are in the names of my noble friends.

There were two speeches at Second Reading which made me think the time had come to review the assumption that life tenancies are the best way to allocate a scarce resource. Neither speech, as it happens, was from these Benches. One was from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and this is what he said:

“Why is it that social housing is now nothing like what it was? Having been brought up in the slums of Notting Hill, I was stuck in a Catholic orphanage for a few years and then moved to Fulham ... there we had our own beautiful piece of social housing. In that block of flats were trainee police officers, trainee teachers, drivers and all sorts of people, including disabled people and those who were old. It was sociable and socially mixed”.


He went on to say:

“Unfortunately, what has happened to social housing is that it is under threat. It is under threat because the bar has been raised by local authorities and now it takes only the most desperate, largely, whereas in the good old days it was a reflection of the working class, the upper working class and even the lower middle class”.—[Official Report, 1/6/26; cols. 722-23.]


The other speech was from the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, and this is what he said:

“There are some policies pursued by Governments which are very much of their time. Perhaps regrettably, we do not review those policies sufficiently regularly and they become enshrined in our body politic, but they were the answer to the question of a different era”.


He was talking about the right to buy, but it struck me that the same might be said of security of tenure. It was the right policy at the time, but that does not mean it is the right policy for today. The noble Lord went on to make the point that times had changed, saying:

“Councils have ever-increasing waiting lists for council housing, and they face the massive financial and social challenge of dealing with the need for and cost of temporary accommodation. There is no spare housing, let alone properties which are hard to let; there is a housing shortage”.—[Official Report, 1/6/26; cols. 693-4.]


Times have indeed changed. I looked at the speech which Nye Bevan gave on 16 March 1949, when he introduced the Housing Bill. He said:

“We shall, of course, go on providing additional homes until we have reached the position of providing a separate home for every family in the country. The House must reflect that when that is done—and we shall do it before very long—it will be the first time that any nation has done it in the recorded history of mankind”—


would that he had been right about that. But he went on to say that

“we should try to introduce in our modern villages”,

and towns, housing where

“the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and farm labourer all lived in the same street … in ... the living tapestry of a mixed community”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/3/1949; cols. 2124-27.]

Sustainable Drainage Systems

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think the noble Baroness is referring to Schedule 3, which has been under consideration since 2010. It is important that we consider the most efficient and effective way of securing the objectives of that. Although a final decision has still not been made, we believe this can be better achieved through continued improvements to national planning policy and the adoption of maintenance approaches, rather than commencing Schedule 3. That is why we have strengthened the national planning policy on that important issue.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that at the micro level, small areas of open ground such as gardens, and particularly front gardens, are an important part of a natural drainage system, particularly in urban areas? Can she tell the House whether there is any active discouragement coming from local authorities, or indeed from government, to stop people or in any way discourage them from paving over important areas of open ground that are under their control?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The discouragement from doing that comes through the planning process. When this kind of paving over is done subsequent to that, it is very difficult to monitor it, but I am sure our local authorities take a very serious attitude. Indeed, when I was a county councillor I had areas in my own county division that were subject to flooding, and we went out, inspected and gave advice to householders about how they might take these things forward. It remains the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that there is proper drainage for local areas and to make sure that a small area of paving will not overwhelm the systems that are put in place to take the water away.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 26th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have double-checked the voting arrangements. It is a two-thirds majority for combined authority and combined county authority budgets. It is a simple majority, including the mayor, for most other things in a combined authority, and a combined county authority. The Bill does not override existing voting arrangements set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, or the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act. This has to be done by consequential SI. The existing voting arrangements are set out in Article 8 of the Combined Authorities (Finance) Order 2017, and will continue to stand. I hope that is helpful.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 84?

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

I would still like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 151 to 170 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, before we move to the next amendment, I need to tell the House that there has been a slight revision to the voting figures on the last vote, on Amendment 121. The figures as announced were Contents 152; Not-Contents 126. The latter figure has been revised to 128. The outcome is not affected, but the figures are slightly different.

Amendment 171

Moved by

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

262A: Clause 57, page 93, line 24, leave out from first “the” to end of line 27 and insert “EDP (see section 76(4) and (5)).”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 76 inserting a new subsection (4).

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I alert the Committee to the fact that, if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment 263 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 262A agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

286A: Clause 60, page 96, line 4, leave out “conservation measures are likely to be sufficient to” and insert “effect of the conservation measures will materially”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would make changes to strengthen the overall improvement test, which the Secretary of State must consider before making an EDP.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I alert the House that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 287 or 287A by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 286A agreed.