Social Housing Bill (Second sitting)

Patrick Spencer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me start with new clause 40, which seeks to clarify that social landlords can continue to grant fixed-term tenancies.

Fixed-term tenancies will no longer be available within the assured tenancy framework once the relevant Renters’ Rights Act 2025 reforms take effect. I therefore understand that the proposal is aimed principally at ensuring that local housing authorities and other secure tenancy landlords can continue to grant fixed-term tenancies when appropriate.

I want to be clear that the new clause is not needed. Nothing in the Bill prevents secure-tenancy landlords from granting fixed-term tenancies. As I have said, the Bill repeals uncommenced provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which would have required most new secure tenancies to be fixed-term tenancies. As we have just debated, those provisions were never brought into force and we are now removing them in order to provide clarity. Secure-tenancy landlords will still be able to offer fixed-term tenancies where they consider it appropriate to do so; as I have said, the Bill does not change that. The proposed measures risk repeating what is already the case in law for secure-tenancy landlords and would create confusion by suggesting that the Bill removes flexibility in this area when it does not. For those reasons, I ask the shadow Minister not to press new clause 40.

New clause 58 would require local housing authorities to review lifetime secure tenancies every five years. I made it clear when speaking to clause 17 that the Government support the use of lifetime tenancies because they provide stability and security for households and help people to put down roots in their communities. That is precisely why we are repealing uncommenced provisions in the 2016 Act that would have phased out lifetime secure tenancies in favour of mandatory fixed-term tenancies.

We expect local authorities and other social landlords to make the best and most effective use of their stock to meet housing need. However, we do not believe that a statutory requirement for local authorities to review every secure tenancy once every five years would be an appropriate way to support them in doing so, given the administrative burden that that would entail. We also believe that it would have detrimental impacts on tenants and communities. Those are some of the reasons why the previous Government did not commence the provisions they had legislated for in the 2016 Act.

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I am losing track of the narrative in this debate. The Government do not want to sell the unit to the tenant, but that means they will forgo all the long-term health, economic, social and community benefits of home ownership. At the same time, you want to lock them into lifelong tenancies, which would take their house out of action and reduce its availability to other households that are more in need. Perhaps I have misunderstood the Bill, but that is the narrative that I understand the Government are setting out. Can the Minister confirm that for me?

[The Chair]

Order. I remind Members that I am not involved in any way with this legislation. Members should not refer to the Minister as “you”.

[Patrick Spencer]

I apologise, Mr Western.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman does misunderstand the Bill in a number of respects. First, we are not abolishing or phasing out the right to buy. As I have persistently made clear, we want to ensure that the right to buy is available for long-standing tenants who have lived in—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman can intervene once I have answered his first question. I refer to those tenants who have lived in and paid rent on their homes for many years.

I have already made it clear in a previous debate that landlords can already consider the changing needs of tenants through a variety of methods, ranging from tenant surveys to direct engagement. They can already support tenants to downsize, to transfer or to mutually exchange their home if their circumstances change. The new clause would mandate, through primary legislation, a review of every secure tenancy once every five years. I simply put it to the hon. Gentleman—this picks up on the precise reason why the previous Conservative Government did not bring into force the provisions in their own 2016 Act—that that would entail huge administrative burdens for local authorities. We think, because we believe in the principle of secure tenancies in social housing—in terms of the benefits for tenants and for communities more widely—that we should not impose such a statutory review every five years. I am struggling to see how that is incompatible with trying to place the right-to-buy scheme on a fairer and more sustainable footing.

The Government are reviewing how effectively social housing providers are using their stock. That work is considering issues such as under-occupation, overcrowding and how landlords are supporting tenant movement. We will set out findings from that review and the next steps in due course. We think social landlords can, in some instances, make better and more effective use of their stock. That does not necessarily require, as a means to support them to do so, a statutory requirement to review every secure tenancy every five years.