Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as a retired member of a farming family who still rent out some domestic property.

I cannot say how much I welcome this Bill. For over 40 years now, I have been struggling against the almost total lack of affordable housing in rural areas and trying to limit the damage done to our rural communities by the right to buy. It has been obvious to me for some time that however much we allow for the building of new homes in the countryside, we will never get to the point where less well-off rural families will be able to buy their own homes. Why should they have to buy? Why can they not rent?

The answer to that, at the moment, is that there are hardly any houses to rent in rural areas. There are some housing association rentals but very few private landlords—usually farmers with spare cottages. As rural house prices soar ever higher than their urban equivalents—research shows that a village house can cost over 50% more than a similar urban dwelling—the sale of these rural rented houses becomes ever more likely and puts them ever more out of reach of local working families.

As I have said many times in this House, the answer lies in the provision by local authorities of affordable housing to rent. Council houses really worked. I stress the very real need for more rural council houses. Currently 17% of the population live in rural areas, but they receive just 7% of any new affordable homes. Rural council houses were among the first to go under the right to buy in the 1980s—who would not want to live in the countryside? There are hardly any such houses left now. There are currently 306,000 families on rural housing waiting lists, and Defra research indicates that council house waiting lists in mainly rural areas increased by 32% in the four years to 2023, while in the same period there was no increase in predominantly urban areas.

The effect of this has been disastrous for rural England. It has led to rapidly ageing communities, a loss of local services, a breakdown of social networks and a complete absence of the necessary vigour that young families give to any community. Lack of housing has also undermined the rural economy, making it harder for businesses to find a good workforce and ultimately making it harder for any remaining workforce to find businesses.

The rural housing crisis—I emphasise that word—is now of epidemic proportions, and this Bill could be like the arrival of the long-awaited first ambulance at a rural motorway pile-up. Note that this is the first ambulance; there is a lot more to be done.

I will briefly run through some of the Bill’s clauses. Extending the qualifying period from three to 10 years is good. I would have gone for 12, but 10 is good. Reducing the discounts available is good. Extending the period from five to 10 years when a discount given to a purchaser can be reclaimed from a subsequent sale is also good.

On Clause 6, I approve of the right of first refusal up to 20 years. While we need more of all types of housing everywhere, it seems right to allow social landlords to retain what was social housing within the sector. Rural England attracts rich retirees buying into the market whenever and wherever they can, so such a right of first refusal will be very useful.

Clause 7, exempting all our national landscapes from the right to buy, is good. I hope that the reference to exempting areas designated as rural by the Secretary of State applies to any community with a population of under 3,000, as in the 1996 Act. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that and am happy if she wants to write.

Also in Clause 7, I was surprised that the exemption for new housing is as high as 35 years. That would seem a bit long if you are at all interested in any form of social mobility, but I understood it when I got to Clause 9—if there had been any doubt that the local housing authority would not be in receipt of the sale proceeds from the right to buy in the future, it will need a long time to get some return from its new housing investment. To me, Clause 9 is the weak point of the Bill. I detect the obfuscatory hand of the Treasury all over it.

There was—and is—nothing wrong with the right to buy. There was just no long-term thinking about the way it was introduced. By far the biggest problem with the old right to buy was that all the sale receipts went to the Treasury and the local housing authority never saw the money. It could therefore never reinvest; it could not waste council tax money on building council houses, only for them to be bought out below cost, at a discount, a few years later. Clause 9 is a golden opportunity to definitively put this right.

I am not convinced by the anti-hypothecation arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Young. There is no right to buy in hospitals or nuclear power stations, to use his examples. We will not lose those assets from their use by society as a whole, but we have lost all our council houses from society as a whole. If we are going to replace that loss, we need to change the way that we do things. We do have a housing crisis.

I am assured that all receipts from the right to buy will, in future, go to the local housing authority—so why not just say so? Clause 9 is so hedged about with ifs, what-ifs and what-nots that it appears that the Treasury is keeping open the right, in future, to once again steal money from the local authority housing budgets, as it has done for the past few decades. I know that that is rather simplistically put but, if we are trying to solve a long-term housing problem, please let us think long term. We must state firmly in the Bill that all receipts from the right to buy belong to the local housing authority or the housing provider. They should be ring-fenced for future local housing investment.

To sum up, I approve of the Bill, but only if it leads to widespread investment in rural council houses in the future. I am for ever hopeful.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, before I speak to my Amendment 19, I would like to support my noble friend Lord Jamieson in his promotion of Amendment 25 in respect of rural areas. I have been in enough debates in this House to know how hard it is for the term “rural” to be defined. The lamented right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans entertained us all with a debate about 18 months ago on what rurality meant. There is no definition within the Government or in this country of “rural”. There are a lot of contended assertions that rurality might be this thing or that. So unclear is the term that the Bishop commissioned his own research, and we debated it. I am bound to say that we were no further forward at the end than at the beginning—although last week, in the debate on the rural economy, as the noble Lord, Lord Katz, who is in his place, will recall, I advanced the definition of rural as that place where at 11 pm you cannot get an Uber to take you home from the pub, because in the sticks we do things differently. I make this point because if we are to have the term “rural” in Clause 7, it should be much more tightly defined so that we know exactly what we are getting and it goes beyond, “Can you get an Uber or not? Are you in the town or not? Where does the town begin? Where are the suburbs?”, and so forth.

I have made that point, and I now want to dwell on my Amendment 19. I am trying to be helpful here, because later, on Amendment 52 in the next group, I will talk about the concept of locality and recycling the right-to-buy receipts. It has been said that locality is not part of this Bill, but here it is in Clause 7, where the right-to-buy carve-out exists for social homes in national parks. Those places have some of the greatest housing pressures, as well as restrictions on new build, because new homes are restricted in national parks.

My amendment aims to be helpful, because when we had the ministerial drop-in before Second Reading there was a slip of the tongue. The words “national parks” and “national landscapes” were used interchangeably. I have taken that as my cue, because Clause 7 mentions areas of outstanding natural beauty. I am entirely in accordance with those, but there are only 34 areas of outstanding natural beauty, whereas there are 46 national landscapes. Collectively they make up 15% of England, and there are other places in Wales, such as the Gower, and in Northern Ireland there are about half a dozen, including the Antrim Coast and Glens.

I am seeking to avoid confusion between what I believe is the old term—areas of outstanding natural beauty—and the new term, now preferred by government: national landscape. That is why my proposed new sub-paragraph (1)(aa) would make it clear that where there is a national landscape, which includes areas of outstanding natural beauty, covered in new sub-paragraph (1)(b), it really means national landscape. This small amendment seeks to extend the provisions of Clause 7(3) from national parks, to avoid leaving a gap between them and areas of outstanding natural beauty. This should provide the clarity and certainty to make it consistent with the Government’s new nomenclature.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 20. Before I do so, I must refer to my interests for the purposes of this Committee as a retired member of a Somerset farming family which lets some houses on the farm. I thank noble Lords who have supported this amendment, notably the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Royall. Unfortunately, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who is not in her place, was late with her timing so did not make it to the Marshalled List.

At Second Reading I outlined the affordable housing crisis—I do not think that is overstating the case—that has overtaken many parts of rural England, and how rural housing waiting lists are larger, or are growing faster, than their urban equivalents. I explained that rural communities, rural social networks and even rural services have broken down, while the rural economy is stuttering, with businesses finding it harder to recruit their necessary workforce, and how all this is caused by a lack of affordable housing in the countryside. So it is vital that the local authority housing in rural England is protected from the right to buy.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Local Councils Network for its help with the amendments in this group in which I am involved. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her support for a number of them. I am pleased to support the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Best.

Basically, the thinking behind all these amendments is that with social housing units that are sold off and disposed of, we are always in danger of losing a valuable social asset. So it is important that whenever a social housing unit is coming up for sale, everything is done to make sure that it is used as a unit for social housing, if it can be, and that we do not lose that in the community. I am not dealing with rural areas in my remarks, but I understand the importance of social housing units disappearing in rural areas.

There is also an issue with housing associations becoming larger and across wider geographical areas; they sometimes lose their connection with the localities because of their spread. Therefore, it is essential that where these sales and disposals take place, they are held to account.

I obviously support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, made the same point about extending the one month to two months so that the regulator can be informed and there is a proper period of time for whoever could purchase this social housing unit to look at how they can do it. In Amendment 45, we have put in some requirements for information about the housing unit, as to whether it is decent homes-compliant and on its energy performance. It is about getting all the details of the property together at the same time, so that the process does not become overbureaucratic and prolonged and can instead be quite straightforward.

The main amendments I have put forward in this group are Amendments 38, 41 and 42. These go further than just informing the local authority or other local housing association that a property is being disposed of, and would actually put a right to refuse in the hands of a local authority or the local registered provider to obtain the property at existing use value. It would strengthen the mechanism and the incentive for somebody to step in to save this property for social use, rather than allowing it to go out into the private market.

That is why these amendments are important: they would give the right of first refusal both to local authorities and to local housing associations to buy the properties. Social housing is very valuable, and we must keep it as much as we can. Obviously, there will be circumstances where it might not be appropriate, but these amendments are intended to put safeguards in and to give every incentive for a local authority or a housing association to participate and acquire these properties so we do not lose them as social housing units. I hope that the Minister will give very close consideration to accepting some of these improvements.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 46, and I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their support.

As I explained at Second Reading and as we have heard already today, the shortage of affordable housing in rural areas has had, and continues to have, long-term social and economic consequences for our rural 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 social networks have also collapsed, and recent evidence now suggests—as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said—that the lack of supply caused by low levels of new provision of affordable housing to rent is being exacerbated by registered providers disposing of their rural stock. Very often, this rural stock is old and in need of expensive modernising, particularly the need to achieve energy efficiency and modern EPC targets. Furthermore, to make matters worse, they are often high market value rural homes, whose sale receipts could possibly help pay for larger housing projects in more accessible locations that offer economies of scale without the extra costs and complexities of small rural schemes.

The business case for these disposal decisions is irrefutable, but the evidence suggests that these decisions are not recognising the important role that an affordable home plays in a rural community. The evidence shows that there has been a significant increase in rural disposals over the last five years, particularly by the larger registered providers. Once sold, it is difficult to replace these homes in the affected rural community, as opportunities for new affordable developments are scarce, particularly in high-value landscapes or areas affected by ecological constraints or in coastal areas.

There is a need for both our amendment and the Government’s existing Clause 11. The Bill’s current amendment to the Housing and Regeneration Act simply requires registered providers to notify local authorities of a disposal, but with very short notice, as has been noted. It would not prevent such disposals, nor open the opportunity for the registered provider and the local authority to explore other options that would avoid the disposals in rural communities, where these may be the last social housing in a rural area.

My amendment would give the rural local authority early visibility of stock conditions, asset plans and disposal strategies and would enable local authorities to plan for likely losses as well as new supply. It would open opportunities to consider purchase, retrofit, renovation, rural regeneration or other interventions before homes and land are lost permanently. Could local authority funding be available to fund replacements in the communities concerned? Could local authority funding help modernise the property or properties, making a sale unnecessary? Perhaps a package of rural sales and rebuilds could attract Homes England regeneration funding. Or, given the large plots of some of these homes, could everyone get together to redevelop the site to provide more homes?

In effect, this would be a pre-emptive stage before any decision to sell is taken. I hope that this kind of information sharing would also lead to a better partnership working between registered providers, local authorities and community stakeholders. However, I should say that to find the right solutions takes time—hence the need in our amendment for a 12-month notice.

As it stands, the current amendment in Clause 11 is more suited to non-rural areas, where there is more social housing and there are more opportunities for replacement. A disposal in these locations would not be as catastrophic as losing the last affordable home in a village or undermine the local authority’s strategy priority to support rural affordable housing delivery and sustainable communities. The notification of a proposed sale will still be important, giving the local authority some time to consider repurchase or using resources to bring a home up to standard. However, I am very concerned that four weeks is a totally inadequate period for local authorities to master the necessary resources for these actions; even 12 weeks would be pushing it. In rural areas, where a long-term strategic approach is necessary, I believe that constant communication and at least 12 months’ notice of an intention to sell will be the least amount of notice necessary.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will say something about disposals, but as this is the first time I have spoken in the debate, I will make some general comments in support of the Bill.

Social homes are a vital resource for low-income families, and the current system has depleted that stock for decades. I therefore welcome measures in this legislation to protect social housing stock by reforming right to buy. With over 170,000 children currently living in temporary accommodation, it is essential that social homes are protected so that housing associations and councils have the confidence they need to build more social homes at pace. Measures to increase the minimum qualifying period for right to buy to a period of 10 years, reform right to buy discounts and introduce a new 35-year exemption for newly constructed social housing will boost councils’ confidence to build while ensuring that right to buy is more sustainable and better value for taxpayers’ money.

The proposed reforms to right to buy in this legislation have been broadly welcomed by the social housing sector. That is because the current system is not sustainable; it has led to a depletion of social housing stock that is desperately needed, as several others have said. Councils in particular have been unwilling to invest in new social homes that may be quickly sold at a discount.

Amendment 4, tabled by my noble friend Lady Taylor, seeks to remove right-to-buy eligibility from residents who own other residential property. It is a sensible measure to ensure that a new, reformed right-to-buy system is fair, proportionate and offers value for money.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, we begin with the amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. As we discussed in Committee, the right to buy has brought transformational benefits for 2 million families across the country. I do not wish to focus on the benefits to those who access right to buy, as I believe that case is inarguable, but rather I wish to debunk the argument against right to buy, which has focused on the loss of social housing.

Let me first be clear that we believe in one-for-one replacement or better, which was why I was pleased that the last Conservative Government introduced 100% retention of right-to-buy proceeds, which enabled councils, including my own, Central Bedfordshire, to deliver more council housing than was lost through right to buy. If this could spread across the country, there would be no loss of social housing. This should be the focus of the Government: delivering one-for-one replacement, not seeking to deny the opportunity to some of our most disadvantaged families to own their own home, which has proven to be one of the greatest mechanisms for social mobility in this country.

I turn to why right to buy can increase access to social housing. Some might find this counterintuitive, so forgive me if I get a little into the weeds. I refer to the Government’s impact statement, in particular to table four on page 24, which shows that, in 2026-27, the pre-November 2024 baseline was 8,050 right-to-buy sales supporting some 5,450 replacement homes. That is the “do nothing” scenario. It also shows that, once the restrictions are fully in place from this Bill and the legacy impacts wind down in the period 2031 to 2035, annual right-to-buy sales are projected to fall to around 1,100 a year, with around 1,450 replacement homes.

I applaud the Government’s ambition for one-for-one replacement—in fact, rather better than that—but, despite that, by the Government’s own analysis, there will be 4,000 fewer new social homes funded every year, or 6,600 if there were a one-for-one replacement. The Minister has argued that more social homes will be retained and, yes, there will be around 3,000 per year. Notwithstanding that this assumes a failure to deliver one-for-one replacement, I would like to examine the impact of this figure, because it ignores a critical factor. Retaining a social home does not mean that it is available for a new tenant. The family still live there; it is just that they have been denied the opportunity to own their own home.

Based on figures from the House of Lords Library, around a net 3% of social homes become available each year for new tenancies, so, of the 3,000 additional homes that are retained, only around 90 would be available each year for a new tenant. Compare that with the 4,000 new social homes if the current right to buy were to continue. The cumulative impact over 10 years would be 35,000 fewer families having the opportunity to own their own social home and, if the Government focused on one-for-one replacement, 65,000 families. As we discussed in Committee, when we are having a housing crisis, this will result in 4,000 fewer homes being delivered every year. Can the Minister explain how denying a home to 4,000 families a year fits with the Prime Minister’s announcement this afternoon about eliminating homelessness?

That is why we have tabled amendments which seek to retain important features of the existing framework, including qualifying arrangements, discount provisions and other safeguards that have formed part of the scheme for many years. Amendments 1 and 2 would protect those who are already secure tenants when the legislation comes into force. The principle is straightforward: existing tenants accepted their tenancy with a legitimate expectation that, after three years, they would become eligible for right to buy under current arrangements. It is one thing to change arrangements for future tenants; it is quite another to make retrospective changes for existing tenants. This is about fairness and a fair transition.

Finally, Amendment 6 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. The Government are proposing to retain a right of first refusal in perpetuity for the local council whenever a right-to-buy property is sold by the owner. The current position is 10 years, which seems proportionate. Perpetuity is a very long time. This raises multiple questions about inheritance, redevelopment, long-term blight and evidencing many years after the event that you actually did offer it. This is bad law and risks inevitable problems for the future.

There is a simple choice before us. Do we support aspiration? Do we support the opportunity for families to own their own home? Do we support increasing the availability of social housing for those on council waiting lists? Do we support building more homes in a period of housing crisis? Or, for ideological reasons, will the Members opposite deny tenants the opportunity of home ownership? Will they deny those on council waiting lists the opportunity of a secure and affordable social home, while cutting housebuilding? We should not seek to stop right to buy. The better approach would be to strengthen replacement, reinvestment and local delivery. I beg to move and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

The amendments in this group invite the Minister to beef up the Bill’s rather gentle nudge to encourage social landlords to behave responsibly in selling their existing properties. I know that the Minister has been taking another look at this clause, and I understand that she is persuaded that we need to extend the statutory minimum currently in the Bill beyond four weeks, not least because she is familiar with the constraints on timing for local authorities to take action. I look forward to hearing her positive response.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, as heralded, I support Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. As he said, I am particularly interested in the 12-week delay proposed here for rural properties. I will not explain again the vital importance of affordable housing to virtually every rural community or how vital it is that we retain each and every house, wherever and whenever we can—I have already been through all that. But once sold, it is difficult to replace those houses, as land and opportunities for new, affordable development are often scarce in the affected rural community, particularly where the landscape might be protected or where the adequacy of the local infrastructure, such as power, water and drains, is a restricting factor.

The problem is that, very often, such rural stock is old and in need of expensive modernising, particularly with the need to achieve energy efficiency and EPC targets. To make matters worse, virtually all rural homes have high market values, which, if they are sold, could pay for larger housing projects elsewhere. Incidentally, these higher market values are why we desperately need more affordable homes to rent in rural communities. The point is that the registered provider’s business case for these disposal decisions is quite hard to argue against; as a result, the evidence shows, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said, that there has been a significant increase in rural disposals over the last five years, particularly by larger registered providers.

If it was compulsory to delay and discuss the overall problems with the local housing authority, solutions might be found, as has already been mentioned. Could local authority funding help modernise the property or properties? Could local authority funding help build a replacement in the community itself? Maybe a package could be devised to attract Homes England regeneration funding? Given the large plots of some of these houses, perhaps everyone could get together to redevelop the site to provide more homes? The point is that such discussions and solutions are bound to take time; hence the demand in this amendment for a minimum of 12 weeks’ notice for these rural homes.