Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

82: After Clause 18, insert the following new Clause—
“Provision of information and collaboration on housing for prison leavers(1) The Secretary of State has a duty to—(a) ensure local housing authorities receive the necessary information, and(b) facilitate effective collaboration between local housing authorities, HM Prison and Probation Service and other relevant organisations,to prevent prison leavers at risk of homelessness from being unable to access housing.(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, publish—(a) requirements for the nature of the information that must be shared with local housing authorities,(b) the timescales on which the information must be provided to local housing authorities,(c) the timescales within which local housing authorities must respond, including when they need to confirm whether or not housing will be available,(d) requirements for local housing authorities to respond to the person or body which made the social housing referral for a prison leaver, and(e) guidance for local housing authorities on their responsibility to provide further information as required.(3) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report setting out the number of prison leavers provided with social housing by local housing authorities on release from prison. (4) The Secretary of State must lay the report under subsection (3) before Parliament.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that local housing authorities receive information and effectively collaborate with other organisations as necessary to provide housing to prison leavers at risk of homelessness. It also to require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on social housing provision to prison leavers.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 82 is in my name and I support the three other amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friends Lady O’Neill of Bexley and Lord Jamieson. Amendment 82 augments my Committee stage Amendment 94, and I thank MHCLG for two meetings with officials which have helped me refine what I think is needed. Summarising briefly the arguments I made in Committee, which are still all valid, I would say that this amendment does not require local authorities to house ex-prisoners but aims to improve their rehabilitation by prisons and local authorities working better together to prevent post-release homelessness. Releasing prisoners into homelessness, and especially rough sleeping, makes their rehabilitation almost impossible. Unsurprisingly, they will be more than twice as likely to reoffend as those released into settled accommodation.

They are also far more likely to die. In an investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman into 137 deaths after release over a two-year period, almost one-third of those dying within two weeks had been released homeless. The PPO described homelessness on release as “a considerable issue”. It is also a growing issue. Last year, there was a 28% rise since 2021 in the numbers of deaths within two weeks of release. Greater pressure will shortly come from the 10 monthly tranches of early releases from English and Welsh jails, starting on 2 September 2026, of an estimated 6,000 prisoners. HM Inspectorate of Prisons told the Commons Public Accounts Committee in November 2024 that, at some prisons, the limited housing stock available for those released had been

“overwhelmed by early release schemes”.

The Government are aware of this. Ministry of Justice data shows almost 13,000 people left prison homeless or as rough sleepers in the year to April 2025—a 39% rise from the previous year. Its national plan to end homelessness states that this

“could have been prevented had better coordination and planning been in place”—

hence the timeliness and needfulness of my amendment. It would ramp up accountability on local housing authorities’ compliance with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, because some are far better than others, under similar stock pressures, at finding ex-prisoners accommodation. Effective partnerships with prison, probation and other organisations are key to successful operation of the Homelessness Reduction Act’s duty to refer, which should kick in 50 days prior to release.

My amendment would tighten up the existing legal framework, as it is not delivering as it should, and its reporting requirements would reveal how local authorities compare with their statistical neighbours. It would enable regulations to specify more clearly how and when local housing authorities must respond to referrals. Prisons are also not consistently complying with the duty to refer; hence, regulations would also tighten the process at their end.

My new amendment explicitly refers to the need for effective collaboration between all relevant agencies, for reasons that I will now explain. Given the urgency, I am pleased that there has already been promising news on its direction of travel. First, the new Prime Minister —and I sincerely wish him well—has promised to end rough sleeping. Over half of all “duty to refer” referrals to local housing authorities are from criminal justice agencies, highlighting just how many of those threatened with rough sleeping are prison leavers. I met Andy Burnham when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester and asked if he had ever visited what used to be the city’s notorious HMP Strangeways. He had not, but he mentioned that practically all the men he saw sleeping rough on the road down to his office from what is now HMP Manchester had recently been released from there. Symbolically, they had barely moved on. Given today’s remarks, he clearly remains profoundly exercised by this.

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[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I thank my noble friend Lady Eaton and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her support, particularly in highlighting the variability of councils’ responses to notification that homeless prisoners will be coming out on their patch, and how councils right next door to each other vary from one to another. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for her contribution.

I thank the Minister for understanding this amendment. I am slightly disappointed, but I am aware of the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm and that quite a lot of work could be done on this in the Summer Recess. It is quite a simple amendment. Therefore, in view of the timescale that the Prime Minister has put on this—by the end of this Parliament—I ask that the Government use the Recess usefully to tidy up this amendment, maybe to come back at Third Reading with their own government amendment. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 82 withdrawn.