Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Rook Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour to speak on the Second Reading of the Social Housing Bill. I will share a story about Carla and Chloe. Some time ago, Carla became homeless following a relationship breakdown. The traumatic aftermath of this personal tragedy is hard for many of us to imagine. Two decades of homelessness ensued, with Carla searching night after night for a safe spot to sleep on London streets. She would often pick a place near to a restaurant with outdoor heaters, in a desperate attempt to find some kind of warmth in an otherwise cold world. We need this Bill for Carla and many like her.

We have rightly heard from noble colleagues about the scale of our housing crisis: 4.2 million citizens in need of social housing; 1.3 million stuck on waiting lists; and, more worrying still, 175,000 children who will go to bed again tonight in temporary accommodation. Jon Kuhrt from Hope into Action says that it is surely right to say that

“housing injustice is perhaps the greatest social policy challenge we face”.

There are communities across this country where a lack of adequate social housing is the prime reason that families are trapped in poverty and communities are struggling to thrive. By increasing the qualifying period for right to buy and introducing a 35-year exemption for newly built social homes, the Government are protecting housing stock and giving confidence to councils to build more social housing.

Also to be welcomed, as many noble Lords have mentioned, are the strengthened protections for those suffering domestic abuse. This will finally prevent victims from being forced to choose between their personal safety and the place they call home. In all this, the Bill offers a timely response to a deeply human problem.

However, there is another lesson to be learned from Carla’s story, and that is where Chloe enters. Carla’s problems went beyond matters of bricks and mortar. Although housing is an essential part of the solution that she is looking for, the most decisive need for her was pastoral care and practical support. At this point, Chloe comes in. As a caseworker for the Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, just down the road, Chloe built a relationship with Clara. She earned her trust, helped her to access a wide range of support and services, and ultimately helped her to secure a room in a women-only hostel. The combination of a safe place to stay, if only temporarily, and someone she could depend upon has been life-changing for Carla.

In the words of Bonnie Williams, the CEO of Housing Justice,

“a home is sustained not only through tenancy law, but through relationship, trust, community and belonging”.

Complex human problems require deeply relational solutions. Alongside the Connection, the charity that helped Carla, St Martin-in-the-Fields runs the Frontline Network—the UK’s largest network of professionals and volunteers working with the vulnerably housed. The Frontline Network is generously supported by public donations to the BBC Radio 4 Christmas appeal, the world’s oldest fundraising media campaign. A recent survey of those working with people who are homeless showed that 80% of them believe that homelessness is getting worse, 50% say that they themselves are at risk of burnout, 51% say that the immense challenge they have in supporting clients is having a negative impact on their well-being, and 34% are struggling to pay their bills due to the salaries they receive not covering their cost of living.

To maximise the social and economic return on the investment outlined in this Bill, it is vital that His Majesty’s Government increase funding to those in housing associations, local authorities, charities and faith communities who provide the essential human infrastructure that will enable this legislation to change lives. It is not only flats and houses that we need. The Government should not wholly rely on charitable giving and the good will of charities to provide the decisive human interventions for those in the greatest need. Committing just a fraction of the overall budget to the human support that brilliant caseworkers such as Chloe provide would radically increase the number of sustainable tenancies while radically reducing the number of individuals and families who find housing only later to find themselves homeless all over again. This tragic back and forth comes at a crippling cost to the state and does untold damage to the lives of individuals and families. Miriam Morris of the Church Homeless Charity points out that, by investing in innovative local interventions and human-to-human support for people, we deliver much better outcomes and radically reduce our costs, both economically and socially.

Carla needs this legislation to pass. For now, Chloe is continuing to support Carla in temporary accommodation and hopes shortly to help her move into a safe and warm home of her own. She will then no doubt continue to support Carla as she sustains that tenancy. Few of us in your Lordships’ House have shared Carla’s experiences, but all of us know what it is to go through difficult times in our lives and to find someone we can truly rely upon.

I am wholly supportive of the Government’s attempts to deal with the social housing crisis through the legislation put before this House. In doing so, I look forward to hearing how we will help people like Carla by backing workers like Chloe. Alongside bricks and mortar, how will we invest in those wonderful front-line workers who provide a beautifully relational solution to a deeply human problem? If we can do that, this legislation will change many lives. What is more, we will join heroes like Chloe and play our part in helping Carla and many others both to find a house and to turn that house into a home.