Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I have previous experience in the delivery of social housing. During the 2010s, when I was leader of South Norfolk Council, we consistently delivered 1% of England’s entire affordable housing every year. My council built more homes to rent than the rest of Norfolk put together. Every home lost to the right to buy was replaced and then some. After my nearly 20 years as council leader, the number of affordable houses in south Norfolk had gone up from 4,188 to more than 7,000.

I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, that the amount of social housing is not a finite resource; it can be built. We had an ambitious plan that could be delivered through development proceeds from a position of negotiating strength. The Planning and Infrastructure Act and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act have weakened that power but, when I was leader of the council, I held all the cards. Now those cards are held by developers, on undeliverable housing targets under the five-year land supply, so the Government have made their task harder. The irony is that this Bill has never been needed more, since the private rented sector was decimated by the Renters’ Rights Act, which turbocharged rents to new highs. Who knew?

That said, I welcome the measure for a 35-year lockout for new homes on right to buy. The probability that brand new homes could be acquired under right to buy has chilled new investment and spawned no end of avoidance structures from within local authorities, which is diverting.

In some respects, it is shame that the right to buy will be diluted. It should be stated clearly and loudly that the ability to buy your own home has been one of the most empowering success stories of the last 40 years. Done right—as I did, as leader of the council— a social home that is bought houses two families: the family who bought the house and another one in the new house which replaces it.

This plays to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron: I have concerns that the Bill will prevent receipts in one authority being applied to a neighbouring one, even if they are in the same housing market area. When my neighbour Norwich City Council could not build houses or spend the receipts, it lent the money to us and we built some affordable houses within a mile of the city boundary. My reading of the Bill is that this desirable behaviour would be banned, and that is crazy.

This leads me to the subject of locality. I understand that the Bill is limited in scope, but protecting the stock cannot be just a national numbers game. Housing is more local than that, but that is not envisaged in the Bill, as I read it. There are general freedoms for social providers to recycle funds, not within a specific area but across their entire estate. As part of my ward work, I was surprised last month when a home in Brooke, in the ward where I live, was under the management of Victory Homes but being managed from Gloucester. The freedom to move receipts within the RSL without challenge, from Norfolk to Gloucester, does not help local people at all. Unless we protect the stock in local markets, a large provider may focus on where it is cheaper, not where it is needed. The RSLs are different from the councils.

I was grateful to the Minister for the drop-in before the Recess, when she explained that it is very difficult to define territories. From one ex-council leader to another, she must know that that is incorrect. We both developed local plans based on housing market areas. They are defined; they exist. It is just not the case that area management is not part of the Bill. The principle of locality is established and there are welcome carve-outs for national parks. I just wish that it would go further on national landscapes. In Committee, I will seek to probe how receipts can be recycled locally by default before being snaffled by the centre.

None of this would be necessary had social housing providers not become so large. Scale has not been good for the tenants. It has led to a lack of local accountability. National RSLs populating their boards with the great and the good, acting as pound shop developers on the government dime, has seen tenant reps excised from the landscape. The consequence is that the focus on local matters, such as anti-social behaviour, has been dropped, as I know from my own ward casework. This Bill could have been stronger on anti-social behaviour to demonstrate that the Government are on the side of the law-abiding resident, but it is not.

Candidly, far too great a focus on development has led to a loss by these RSLs of the social purpose of providing social homes. RSLs cannot even sell houses they developed initially for the private market to be used for social use, and that is wrong. Instead, one of the effects of the liberalisation of certain financial powers in this Bill may be to drive financial engineering to new heights. The truth is that as RSLs have become overleveraged, they have been caught out by the increase in build costs, finance and land costs. Quite simply, there is no space for the social purpose of these organisations. That is an omission this Bill should correct but does not.

I am disappointed that the Bill purports to protect the supply of new homes but fails to consider the texture of protecting certain types of adapted homes. I spent about £3 million a year adapting homes for an ageing population. In some cases, it might have been a grab rail or a ramp. In one case, a £75,000 extension was required. When, as so often happens, the tenant passes away and the home is re-advertised, no credit can be given for those adaptations. The new tenant can ask for them to be removed, and they do. It is crazy. It is a waste of money. It reduces the pool of adapted homes. It is bad for everybody, especially the taxpayer, who has to pay twice, once to put the adaptation in and again to take it out. Where are the provisions in the Bill to protect the supply of adapted homes for the ageing population? I have heard it said that this is an allocations issue and we are not going there. I say: why not?

As I warm to my allocations theme, where are the protections for veterans? Where is the assertion that those with local needs should be prioritised? Where is the preference for the indigenous population? Where are protections for local needs, for affordable housing in our villages—small developments in places such as Bergh Apton that local people campaigned for, not against? Where are the stronger fiscal incentives for people to downsize from the family home as they age? This Bill is deficient in that it does not even look at the totality of the supply and certainly fails on the demand side. Partial supply without looking at the demand is no solution at all. The Bill is incomplete. It looks only at the home, not really at the people who live in it. It does half the job, and in Committee we will attempt to make it whole.