Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question, which anticipates the Liberal Democrats being in government and in a position to ensure delivery of housing. I point him to Eastleigh council, which has taken over a development of 2,000 homes not being delivered by its developer. It has made it a local authority development and is now driving it through. I recently went down to visit Liberal Democrat-run Cornwall council. The previous Liberal Democrat administration set up a housing company that is building 180,000 homes a year—sorry, I mean 180; I wish it were 180,000—and is using the profits from that to build social rent homes.

I invite the hon. Gentleman to join me in my constituency, where we are building 400 council homes on the North Taunton estate and have retained our council housing stock. Sadly, because of right to buy, it is not the 30,000 units it used to be—it is now only 6,000 homes—but we are doing what we can. My colleagues in Somerset council are bringing new council houses to parts of Somerset for the first time in a generation. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the activity of Liberal Democrat authorities on the ground.

New clause 1 would set a target of 150,000 social homes a year, which would something for the Government to aspire to. If not that target, what target will the Government set and when? The new clause does not require that many to be built; it is not a money resolution. It would simply require the Government to publish a strategy for what would be required to reach the target. If the Government are serious about the housing crisis, they should have no objection to setting a target of this kind. In our manifesto, we set an allocation of £6 billion a year towards that achievement. I appreciate that it would take a number of years to reach 150,000.

In the interests of time, I will move on to new clause 4, concerning borrowing restrictions on local authorities. I will give some “Hear, hears” to the Government for the Prime Minister’s words about reviving council housing and delivering a lot more of it, though I fear there are more words than pounds in his pronouncement. Shelter has commissioned research from Savills examining the impact of the housing revenue account debt on councils’ ability to build new social homes. The research found that writing off HRA debt could unlock between 190,000 and 284,000 dwellings.

Shelter also recently published research with Pragmatix Advisory that assesses the economic and financial case for cancelling HRA debt and investing in social housing. The central conclusion is that the policy would be compliant with the Government’s fiscal rules, while generating a substantial long-term economic benefit of £140 billion over a 60-year timeframe. My colleagues in Somerset council told me that if were not for the Government’s self-financing debt rules, they could build out another 630 council houses on top of the ones that I outlined to the hon. Member for Rugby.

I appreciate that the costs of writing off that debt would be significant—I am sure that the Minister has made that point—but if the Government will not write off all that debt, will they write off some of it? In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats put an extra £2 billion a year into this area. Will the Government put in £2 million to write off some HRA debt? It is important to get councils building again. Those that have their housing revenue account maxed out have the political will, and in many cases the experience, to do so, but they lack the necessary financial headroom. If we want to get councils building, we need to look seriously at the HRA debt.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I rise to speak to my new clause 34. I regret that my pointing out that the Bill will not create a single new social home appeared to get under the Minister’s skin on Tuesday, but the fact is that the Bill does not create any extra housing. That is not a surprise, as it comes from a Government who have built just 26% of their target in nearly 50% of their time in office. None the less, it is simply not good enough.

Moreover, in the places—few and far between—where the Government have tried to get Britain building, that has nearly always come at the cost of green belt protections, despite the fact that research from the Campaign to Protect Rural England shows that a large proportion of the Government’s lofty housing target could swiftly be met using brownfield land that already has planning permission. The CPRE estimates that up to 1.41 million homes could be built on existing brownfield land in England, based on data from local planning authorities’ brownfield land registers up to 2024.

[Deirdre Costigan]

The hon. Member talks about the importance of building on brownfield land first. That is certainly the policy of this Government. Would the hon. Member agree that although the previous Government professed to want to focus on developing brownfield land, they did absolutely nothing to make that viable, whereas this Government are putting money into the brownfield land release fund, which will help to clean up that land? Those are steps that the previous Conservative Government absolutely failed to take.

[Gareth Bacon]

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, but we are looking forwards, not backwards.

[Deirdre Costigan]

Ah!

[Gareth Bacon]

The hon. Lady says that the Government are making brownfield land development more viable. Where are the signs of that? There is no development happening. Development in this country has ground to a standstill under this Government. That malaise did not start under this Government—I will accept that criticism—but it is most certainly being exacerbated by this Government. They are doing nothing to turn back the tide. In fact, they are pushing it further.

Those 1.41 million starts would amount to 93% of the Government’s manifesto pledge. That is why I have tabled new clause 34, which seeks to require the Government to publish a strategy for prioritising brownfield land for social housing development.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I will speak in support of new clause 34, which is about prioritising brownfield for development. We always hear from the Government that they want to protect the green belt. I often laugh when they say that, because there is nothing in legislation: they never want to put anything on the face of the Bill or issue anything to protect the green belt.

Labour’s favourite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has found that 1.4 million brownfield sites have been left unbuilt since 2007. As I said on Second Reading, that number is rather close to the Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes, which they have all but admitted they will not meet.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, because we have had this debate many times, to date we have not set a national social and affordable housing target. That is because, as I have explained on numerous occasions, social and affordable homes come through grant funding and through the section 106 process; it is for local authorities to set out the needs for their particular areas as part of local plans. As he knows, through the NPPF we have strengthened some of the expectations in that area.

I turn to the hon. Gentleman’s new clause 4. The Government have already taken several steps to rebuild the capacity of councils to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, including the fundamental reform of the right-to-buy scheme at the heart of the Bill, as well as a 10-year social housing rent settlement, and social rent convergence.

In the Budget yesterday, it was confirmed that preferential borrowing rates for council house building will remain in place until at least March 2028 to support councils to borrow more cheaply for house building. There are no current restrictions exercised by central Government on the amount that councils can borrow via their housing revenue accounts for house building purposes. Councils are now free to borrow in line with the prudential code, which requires them to demonstrate that any borrowing is affordable, prudent, sustainable and proportionate. Those are precisely the types of test that the hon. Member’s new clause envisages. They are essential to ensure that local authority finances are managed sensibly and sustainably while ensuring sufficient flexibility to meet local housing targets. As such, in our view it is not necessary to accept the new clause as there are no restrictions to remove.

I turn to new clause 34, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Orpington. The Government are strongly committed—as was the previous Government, as several hon. Members have fairly pointed out—to a brownfield-first approach, including for the development of social housing. Let me be clear. I say this on every occasion I can: once permissions are granted, we expect to see them built out as quickly as possible. Opposition Members will not have to wait long for the build-out transparency package, on which we consulted some time ago, to be brought forward.

On 17 August, the Government published a new national planning policy framework that makes it clear that authorities should plan to meet as many of their development needs as possible on brownfield land. To strengthen support for the development of brownfield land, the new NPPF encourages higher densities in sustainable locations and greater intensification of urban and suburban sites. It also introduces a presumption that development inside settlements should be approved unless any adverse effects would substantially outweigh the benefits of doing so.

Furthermore, through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, the Government have committed to make regulations requiring strategic planning authorities to have regard to the desirability of prioritising development on previously developed land. That arose from a challenge we received from the Opposition during the passage of the Act. Taken together, those measures demonstrate the Government’s strong and continued support for brownfield development in national policy.

On social housing in particular, national planning policy reflects our commitment to the delivery of social rent homes. It requires local planners to set out minimum proportions of social rent required on new development. As everyone knows, the NPPF is a material consideration of critical importance in planning decisions and local plans are required to be prepared with regard to it. It is therefore the right place to set clear expectations for how and where development should come forward. A requirement to produce a separate brownfield land social housing development strategy would be unnecessary and duplicative, as existing policy and relevant plans already sufficiently achieve its aim.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, policy in this area is already aligned; we do not need a separate brownfield land strategy. Such strategies are, as I have previously dubbed them, the last refuge of an Opposition scrabbling around for meaningful policy amendments to a Bill. For those reasons, and having given those assurances, we cannot accept the new clauses.

[Gareth Bacon]

This is starting to become quite fun. I do not accept the Minister’s comments. We will seek to divide the Committee on new clause 34 at the appropriate moment.

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[Gareth Bacon]

I rise to speak to my new clause 53. Many people in social housing have come into their new home after a past marred by hardship and a lack of safety. When tenants finally have a roof over their head and a place to call home, they must not be left to face unsanitary or unsafe living conditions because of their property owner or manager. That is why we tabled new clause 53, which the hon. Member for Ealing Southall was absolutely correct to describe as a probing amendment. It would add an extra layer of protection for tenants and a fresh route to direct accountability for registered providers.

The new clause would enable tenants of a registered provider to request an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing, giving tenants new powers to ensure that their home is not just four walls, but a sanctuary. It is vital that social housing tenants be able to make the most of the regulator’s functions and that the regulator be not just a bureaucratic machine, but a voice for the vulnerable.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Members for Taunton and Wellington and for Orpington for tabling and speaking to their new clauses. This Government are determined to ensure that social housing tenants live in safe and decent homes, and that they are listened to and have access to redress when things go wrong. However, I am not persuaded that these amendments are necessary.

In the spirit of cross-party generosity, I will say that the powers taken under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 under the previous Government did not do all bad things; there were some good things that the previous Government did, and we should acknowledge them. The Act provided the powers for that regulatory framework, which provides strong mechanisms for tenant voice and regulatory oversight.

In 2024, the regulator introduced a new proactive regulation regime and has since begun inspecting all large landlords at least once every four years. The regulator issues a consumer grading after those inspections, so that it is clear to tenants and the public how well the landlords are performing. In addition, the regulator retains the ability to engage with landlords outside these routine inspections if concerns are raised.