Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Babudu Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Babudu (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak at the Second Reading of the Social Housing Bill and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. Even if we may not agree on everything, there was much in his remarks that I agree with.

I strongly support this Bill, both its broad intention and its specific provisions. Like my noble friend the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, my support is rooted in my own experience and that of many of the people I served as a local councillor. When I was growing up and my family needed social housing, we were able to move into a decent-quality flat in south London near to where we had lived before, shortly before I took my GCSEs. Frankly, I dread to think what it would have meant for me and my studies, for my parents and their work and for my brother and his medical care if we had had to move much further afield to poor-quality housing. In my time as a local councillor, I met many families living in conditions that clearly were not suitable for them. They were desperate for an opportunity, like I had in the late 1990s, to get into decent social housing where they could thrive.

I begin with that because I think it is important, in discussing social housing, to put people at the centre and to keep in mind health and the wider implications of where you live. As other noble Lords have touched on, the home is one of the most important determinants of the health of people of all ages. We know that, for children in particular, staying in low-quality temporary accommodation can mean disrupted access to primary care, delays in accessing developmental support, poorer mental health outcomes and reduced educational attainment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also mentioned—and that is before we get to elevated risks of respiratory illnesses and other conditions. The breadth of the health impacts that we see in families living in inappropriate accommodation is substantial and accumulates, and it deserves to be named here. I ask noble Lords to keep those health impacts in mind throughout this debate.

I recognise that increasing the supply of social homes is not the only route to addressing those harms—many noble Lords have mentioned the conditions of housing—but the context we are in gives us good reason to do what we can with this Bill to increase and protect the supply of social homes.

Before I discuss the Bill itself, I acknowledge, as others have highlighted, that it is properly understood as part of a much wider programme. The 10-year rent resettlement, the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme and the mechanisms to lower borrowing costs for social housing providers, both private and public, are serious measures, and I gladly welcome them.

Turning to the Bill itself, the reforms to right to buy are comprehensive and strike the right balance. The increase in the eligibility threshold from three to 10 years, the reforms to discounts, extending the right of first refusal on the onward sale of formal right to buy properties, and the exemption of newly built social homes from right to buy for 35 years represent proportionate steps that address some of the aspects of right to buy that have proved most damaging to maintaining levels of social housing stock, while maintaining what I agree is a valued route to home ownership for long-standing tenants.

I welcome the provisions protecting social housing tenants who are victims of domestic abuse. During my time as a local councillor, I saw the profound dilemma that current laws can put victims in, forced to choose between living in danger or losing their home. I am really encouraged that the Bill stands to help to address those problems, and I know it has been welcomed across your Lordships’ House.

Taking these and other provisions of the Bill together, I share the hopes of my noble friend the Minister that they will ultimately increase the supply of much-needed social housing across the country. However, I want to speak to an issue that several noble Lords have mentioned. Shelter’s 2024 report on the need for social housing, Brick by Brick, drawing on data from MHCLG, estimates that 260 social homes were lost over the decade prior. In that context, the Government’s wider programme currently indicates an ambition to support the building of at least 180,000 social rent homes over the next decade, but it seems that these plans would not even take us back to where we were. I recognise that the Government’s programme is ambitious, particularly by recent standards, but the scale of need raises the question of what the Government’s success measures are for the Bill and whether their plans are sufficient to give us the social housing we need, according to the Government’s own estimates.

I turn to more of the detail of the Bill, although I note that this is not the time to do too much of that. I welcome the requirement for private registered providers to notify local authorities and other known social housing providers in the area before they dispose of social housing. This may be a misunderstanding on my part, but could my noble friend the Minister explain why the Bill does not seek to introduce a right of pre-emption here, as exists with formal right to buy homes? The same supply impact on our social housing stock applies in both circumstances, and a four-week notice window seems quite tight for giving social housing providers enough time to decide and then act on the opportunity to secure a social home.

In conclusion, I look forward to seeing the Bill return in Committee and to better understanding the success measures against which it will be judged. Most importantly, I look forward to seeing the necessary steps being taken to achieve marked improvements in the supply of decent social housing in this country, and to the health benefits that will follow from that for individuals and families who are so desperately in need of it.