Social Housing Bill [HL]

Committee (2nd Day)

16:32:00

Amendment 53

Moved by

53: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause— “Local authority registers of social housing stock change(1) Each local housing authority must maintain a register recording—(a) the number of dwellings sold by the authority under the right to buy in each financial year,(b) the number of new social housing dwellings provided by or on behalf of the authority in each financial year, and(c) the net change in the authority's social housing stock resulting from the figures in paragraphs (a) and (b).(2) A local housing authority must publish its register under this section annually and make it available to the public in such manner as the authority considers appropriate.(3) The Secretary of State must publish a summary of the information contained in registers under this section across all local housing authorities in England.(4) The summary under subsection (3) must identify authorities where the number of dwellings sold under the right to buy exceeds the number of new social housing dwellings provided in the same period.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment requires local housing authorities to maintain and publish annual registers recording dwellings sold under the right to buy against new social housing provided, enabling public scrutiny of whether authorities are failing to replenish lost stock.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)My Lords, I open this group—which is a considerably better position than we were in on Monday, when I thought I would be closing it—by proposing Amendment 53. This group goes to the heart of the Bill’s central test: whether we are serious about ensuring that right to buy does not continue to deplete our social housing stock faster than we can replace it. Amendment 53 is about the transparency and accountability of that process. It requires annual local authority reporting of homes sold under the right to buy against homes newly provided. We need to look particularly at net loss and net gain. This way both the public—and the public are important—and the Government can see a trend within a local authority over time.

I decided to table this amendment because I was recently asked to speak at a housing conference, and I tried to ascertain information about social homes in Hertfordshire. It was more difficult than it should have been. Data is not easy to obtain, nor is it cumulative, so we cannot see trends. Of course, there is also the dilemma of affordable versus social, which we discussed at length on Monday. If we do not have the quality data that tells us on an authority-by-authority basis what is going on, we cannot know whether a policy is working and, more importantly, the Government cannot determine when it is appropriate to intervene.

It is worth saying that it is very clear that all housing providers are now having to deal with those with far more complex needs, disabilities and mental illness. It is tough having to ration a scarce resource on a daily basis. Housing officers are unsung heroes, in my book.

We went through the statistics at length on Monday, so let us just say that, whichever estimates you look at, we are nowhere near building either the amount or the right type of social housing needed. It is evident that demands for social housing vary considerably from area to area, and that the challenges of meeting those varied needs, with increasing homelessness and families in temporary accommodation, are bringing more councils into a precarious financial position, while others remain relatively unaffected. We believe that the responsibility to meet those needs should be spread fairly, as much as is practically possible, and that every council should take its responsibility seriously. I regret that I do not believe that is the case, which is why Amendment 53 matters. If there is no clear, consistent public record of what is happening locally, it becomes impossible to monitor trends and to direct change.

I turn briefly to the other amendments in this group. While I have some sympathy with Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, I believe it could possibly be unworkable in practice due to land availability, planning delays, and so on—all legitimate reasons for delay—so putting a time limit on it would not be helpful. We would prefer to encourage creative compliance than pinpoint an actual delivery date.

Clearly, Amendment 56 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is almost a duplication of my amendment; likewise their Amendment 58B. It is interesting that across both Committee days we are going to be looking at collective amendments that clamour for more data of one kind or another. Obviously, it is up to Ministers to know whether they have the data they need to inform policy and make judgments on whether or not a policy is working, and we need that same data to be able to scrutinise it. In my heart, I hope the Minister tells me, “Yes, the data’s actually there, Lady Thornhill, you just weren’t looking in the right place”, but if it is available somewhere, it is probably not publicly or easily.

On Amendment 55, I am interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has to say, but I hope the Government are more aspirational than one-for-one replacement, given the scale of need. But I say again that without knowing what each local authority is actually losing and delivering—hence my Amendment 92 on our first day in Committee regarding conflation of the terms “affordable” and “social” housing—we will not know what is happening on the ground. Trends over time are important, not just averages on a national level but over local authority areas, which, as we have also discussed previously, are going to get much larger. Accountability, in our view from these Benches, therefore needs to be stronger in these new mayoral authorities and the larger unitaries. I beg to move.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, I was going to say I was grateful to all noble Lords who had spoken in the debate, but I am certainly most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for doing so. She identifies a couple of critical issues: the need for more housing and the need for clarity and information. That is important.

It is important that we keep a sense of perspective here about right to buy. It does not mean that that home disappears, or that the family living in it disappear; they are still in that home, and in many cases they will remain in it for many years, irrespective of whether it is a social home or they actually acquire it. The issue is therefore not about the loss of physical dwellings but about the change in tenure and the availability of social housing for other tenants. That is precisely why the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the amendments that we have tabled address the serious discussion about replacement. We need reliable, current information and data.

Equally, if there is a case for one-for-one replacement which we believe, that should be examined openly and supported by evidence rather than assumptions. We have now had the opportunity to look at the impact assessment for this Bill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, rightly raised the issue of how we can reduce housing lists by increasing supply. If you look at table 4, what is the impact of removing right to buy? After five years or so, when it settles down, it means that over 3,000 fewer houses every year are built. That is 3,000 fewer homes for families and 3,000 more families on the council waiting list every year. We need more homes, and right to buy is an opportunity to increase that.

Think what would happen if the Government were to focus on building more homes rather than stopping families having the opportunity to own their own home. As we seek a minimum of one-for-one replacement, we could be seeing over 5,000 extra homes every year. That is 5,000 more families given the opportunity for a social home and 5,000 fewer people every year on housing waiting lists.

The amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill do not seek to prescribe a particular outcome; they seek to ensure that Parliament and the public have the information necessary to assess the effectiveness of the policy and make informed decisions about its future.

I was going to say that this has been a constructive debate—maybe I should say this has been a constructive discussion—but we all recognise the need to increase housing supply and the opportunities for home ownership. I hope the Minister will reflect on the arguments made, the case for greater transparency and the need for more homes.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab): My Lords, before I speak about the Social Housing Bill, may I just wish our team England—well, it is “our team England” for some of us—all success this evening, and I hope we will be finished in time for some of us to see some of it.

I thank everyone for the lively and constructive debate we had on this Bill on Monday; it is a pleasure to be back to continue discussing it. Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, would require the Secretary of State to reconsider our one-for-one replacement policy. Relatedly, Amendments 55 and 56, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, would require a report assessing the viability of this requirement. Amendment 53, put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, would insert a clause requiring reports to the Secretary of State on sales and replacements. Separately, Amendment 58B from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, would require a report to Parliament within a year on the impact of Clause 5 specifically.

We announced in our response to the consultation on right-to-buy reforms that we are removing the formal one-for-one right-to-buy replacement target. However, and I say this very specifically, this does not mean we are complacent about replacing homes sold. Far from it: we call on councils to go over and above replacing sold stock and to play a central role in the Government’s commitment to deliver a generational increase in social and affordable housebuilding. The one-for-one target was introduced in 2012, when the only social and affordable housing delivery that councils were asked to do was to replace homes sold under right to buy.

Our ambition far surpasses this now. We want to see more than one-for-one replacement and do not want a target that limits that ambition. As I set out my letter following Second Reading, this Bill is not the extent of our delivery ambition. Our ambition is to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes over the course of the programme, and we are taking decisive action to reinvigorate council housebuilding, including supporting councils in our £39 billion social and affordable homes programme. We also invested £17 million last year to boost council housebuilding skills, and we have permitted councils now to combine their right-to-buy receipts with grant funding.

The Government’s impact assessment for the Bill forecast that England was on course to lose 26,000 social homes between 2026 and 2036. However, through our package of right-to-buy reforms, including allowing councils to keep all the receipts from sales—something we have long campaigned for from local government—and reducing cash discounts, alongside the provisions in the Bill, we now expect a net gain of around 18,000 homes over the same period, instead of what would have been a loss.

16:45:00

The Government will continue to monitor right-to-buy sales and council housing delivery to ensure that—to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson—we are consistently delivering more social rent homes than we are losing. On this, I refer noble Lords to the annual right-to-buy sales and replacements statistics, and the statistics on the delivery of new affordable housing supply, which are published on GOV.UK. I agree with both the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lord that data is key to ensuring that we meet our ambition. I would want to see that, as I know all the Committee would.

In these statistics, noble Lords will be able to find the number of right-to-buy applications and of completed right-to-buy purchases and replacements, broken down by local authority, as well as the discount and bedroom number for properties sold. They will also be able to find the number of new social and affordable homes delivered each year, by tenure and by provider. The continued publication of these statistics will provide a sufficient overview of the impact of the Act, when it comes into force, and robust monitoring of right-to-buy sales and replacements.

On right-to-buy discounts, it is difficult to assess the impact of discount changes in isolation. We will, however, keep discount levels under review and ensure that the right balance is being struck between protecting social housing stock and enabling tenants to access home ownership. On these grounds, and on the basis that we do not want a replacement target that limits ambition, we are going to resist these amendments, but we will continue to work in partnership with councils to reinvigorate council housebuilding and ensure we are consistently replacing more homes than are lost through right to buy. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Lord Jamieson (Con)May I ask for some clarification from the Minister? Clearly, table 4 in the impact assessment shows that under the pre-November 2024 baseline, if we take the 2034-35 figures, 4,750 homes would be built from the right-to-buy receipts and, under the new baseline, 1,550 would be built. That is 3,200 fewer homes. The assumption that we are going to have more homes available for social tenants relies on the fact that those tenants who might have bought their home will leave that home anyway. If they stay there, we will have fewer homes for new social tenants.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)I think the figures stated relate to what happens once we have enacted the Bill. As I have said many times, the ambition to deliver more social homes is not just about the replacement of right-to-buy homes. Right-to-buy sales may go down, but we still anticipate that the measures being taken in the Bill will result in a net increase of 18,000 homes over the period; whereas, because the sales were going up, we would have lost 26,000 homes. With the social and affordable homes programme adding to the overall total and the net increase in homes that we are seeing through the right-to-buy programme, which is 18,000 as opposed to a 26,000 loss, we will see an increase in social housebuilding.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)I thank the Minister for her response, which was very much as I would have predicted. My main point to make to her was that it was not easy to find that data—on GOV.UK you have to look for a bit here and a bit there. Where is all this information on what is such a major plank for the Government, which we totally agree with? Where is it easy to see who is doing what? Where is the analysis and where is it drawn together? Who are the shirkers and who are the leaders? It is a challenging thing. Without meaningful, accurate and localised reporting, councils cannot be properly scrutinised, which is important, and policy failure is harder to challenge. For example, we actually had net losses last year. Again, you can google that and it will tell you, but it is not easy to see it within the mountain of data. In the meantime, I have to say the magic words: I will withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.

Amendments 54 to 56 not moved.

Amendment 57

Moved by

57: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause— “Social housing estates: regeneration(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a document setting out proposals to support the regeneration of existing social housing estates.(2) The document under subsection (1) must include proposals relating to—(a) funding to deliver alternative housing for existing tenants during the redevelopment of social housing estates,(b) support for increasing density as part of social housing redevelopment where appropriate,(c) the use of public land and housing assets to facilitate regeneration, and(d) grant funding for energy efficiency improvements as part of redevelopment schemes.(3) In preparing the document under this section, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to increase overall housing supply within existing urban areas.”Member's explanatory statement This amendment would require the Government to bring forward proposals within 12 months to support regeneration of social housing estates, including decant funding and densification opportunities.

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, I add my best wishes to the England team tonight: even if we are not finished in time, we will no doubt get a nice, quiet journey home because everyone will be watching it.

I speak to Amendments 57, 58, 75, 83 and 107 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson. Much of the debate around housing understandably focuses on building new homes. That is undoubtedly important. However, if we are serious about tackling housing need, we must also focus on how we effectively manage, maintain and utilise the housing stock that already exists. These amendments are intended to probe whether sufficient attention is given to the condition, management and efficient use of existing social housing assets.

Amendment 57 would require the Government to bring forward proposals to support the regeneration of social housing estates. Estate regeneration is often difficult, sometimes controversial and takes many years. The noble Lord, Lord John, sitting over there, will know that from pain in Elephant and Castle; I certainly know it from the years dealing with Thamesmead, and I am sure many others in this Chamber will know it too. It takes a long time, but there are opportunities.

Amendment 75 raises the crucial issue of illegal subletting in our social housing system. I note the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act, which passed through this House in 2013 under the watch of my noble friend Lady Eaton. It provided important powers to tackle this problem, but it is reasonable to ask whether those powers are being used ineffectively and whether enforcement activity is sufficient. Given the pressure on waiting lists across the country, every property recovered through anti-fraud activity represents an opportunity to house someone who is legitimately entitled to that support. In 2024-25, there were just 476 evictions for illegal subletting. However, the Tenancy Fraud Forum’s 2023 report, Lost Homes, L ost H ope , estimated that 148,000 social homes were subject to tenancy fraud in 2023. In a separate report in 2025, it estimated that there were 50,000 tenancy frauds in London alone. This is shocking and urgently needs addressing. Rather than curtailing right to buy, this is the issue that the Government should prioritise to bring housing forward quickly.

Amendment 83 would require a national audit of social housing stock. It is difficult to manage assets effectively without a clear understanding of their condition, occupancy, utilisation and future investment requirements before making major policy decisions. Government should have the clearest possible picture of the stock already available. Similarly, Amendment 107 seeks a broader strategy for improving the management of existing social housing stock. Better stock management can often deliver benefits more quickly and at a lower cost than new construction alone.

I should also mention Amendment 117D in the name of my noble friend Lord Evans of Guisborough. This is a probing amendment, but it raises an important question about accountability. Across England, elected mayors are being given increasing responsibility for housing, planning and regeneration. If powers are increasingly devolved, it is reasonable to ask how performance should be measured, and how local people can judge whether housing commitments are being delivered.

The country faces substantial housing pressures. There are now around 1.33 million households on local authority waiting lists—the highest figure for a decade. Against that backdrop, transparency regarding housing delivery matters. Noble Lords may have different views on the mechanism proposed by my noble friend, but the broader principle remains that where significant powers are devolved, there should be clear accountability for the outcomes, and that these are the right outcomes.

I would also be interested to hear from the Minister how long social housing properties typically remain vacant between tenancies. Every week that a property sits empty is a week in which a household remains on the waiting list. Understanding void turnaround times is therefore an important part of understanding the efficiency of the system as a whole. Taken together, these amendments seek to ensure that we make the best possible use of the housing stock we already have, while continuing to build for the future. I beg to move.

Baroness Eaton (Con)My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 75, tabled by my noble friends Lady O’Neill of Bexley and Lord Jamieson. As my noble friend noted, I oversaw the passing of the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 through this House. This criminalised the unauthorised subletting of social housing dwellings and gave landlords stronger powers. Back then, the number of unlawfully sublet social housing dwellings was estimated to be approximately 98,000. The statistics my noble friend referenced are shocking and show that, while the laws are there, swift enforcement to crack down on fraud is severely lacking. Indeed, it begs the question of why the Government are pursuing what appears to be an ideological assault on the right to buy when a determined crackdown on fraud could return many thousands more homes to the social housing stock. Those 148,000 dwellings my noble friend referenced are, in effect, withheld from those on waiting lists, who are in genuine need. I urge all noble Lords to reflect on this. If the Government published a review, as proposed by Amendment 75, we would understand not only the rates of prosecution and recovery of properties but exactly what the barriers to proper enforcement are. Given the estimates, the Government should be much more proactive on this issue, which should be a much greater priority in this Bill.

I emphasise that we must consider different forms of tenancy fraud. It is not just illegal subletting; it can include providing false information as part of a tenancy application, failing to use a property as a principal home, leaving it empty or selling the keys to a third party. Between now and Report, I hope we can look into this, and I hope the Minister will give this issue the attention it certainly deserves.

Lord Young of Cookham (Con)My Lords, very briefly, I will speak to Amendment 57, moved by my noble friend. My noble friend started by making a very valid point: if the Government have a firm commitment to build, say, 1.5 million new homes and a certain number of new social houses, there is a real risk that, when looking at the capital programme within the department, that commitment trumps funding for existing estates and the regeneration of existing housing stock. That is why Amendment 57 is important: it would make sure that we do not ignore the needs of the existing housing stock.

I draw attention to housing action trusts—an initiative under the Housing Act 1988 that focused very sharply on the most difficult-to-let estates in the country. This was an initiative from my noble friend Lord Heseltine, and, as one might expect, it was highly interventionist. A housing action trust was a time-limited body that took over the management and redevelopment of a local authority estate. However, before that could happen, there was a vote of the local authority tenants to seek their agreement to that time-limited transfer. Speaking from memory, I think there were seven housing action trusts, including one in Stonebridge, in Brent; one in Tower Hamlets; one in Castle Vale, in Birmingham; one in Liverpool; and one in Hull. They were highly successful, and they transformed those estates.

It was interesting that, at the end, the tenants were given a votethey could either go back to the local authority or transfer to a resident-run or tenant-run association of their own. Speaking from memory, I think they all decided to stick with the alternative to the local authority. If one is looking at ways of transforming the most challenging estates in the country, it is worth looking at the history of housing action trusts, which, by common consent, were highly successful. They were expensive, but we should not ignore that model when deciding how to take further the regeneration of social housing estates.

17:00:00

Lord Bird (CB)I will speak to my Amendment 116. The Government are charging us all with getting behind the idea that there will be 1.5 million new houses by the end of the Parliament. I suggest that one way you could achieve that is by being serious about the number of empty homes in the United Kingdom, particularly England. There are 250,000 empty homes in England and, at the same time, 164,000 children and 124,000 families are caught in temporary accommodation. I am not saying it would be easy, but you could be wise and do nationally what Manchester, Plymouth and Wales are trying to do: incorporate empty homes into the fabric of their housing strategies. If that could be done, it would be a real plus.

I was born in Notting Hill, which was full of empty homes in the post-war period, along with Bayswater and that area. The middle classes did not go off to the colonies any more; they went to Bayswater and to Notting Hill, and they started to convert these voids into precious homes. Environmentally and socially, it was wonderful. It got too wonderful: the house that I was born into, which was a slum, would now cost about £20 million—if they have not pulled it down because it was such a slum.

Overall, it would be a good idea for the Government to say that they are going to empty our temporary accommodation and look at new ways of doing that that incorporate buildings that are left empty for over six months. Some 250,000 houses are screaming out, in my opinion, for us to intervene. There would be all sorts of problems because some people would find it inappropriate, but, if the Government were serious about this, those homes could be put to much more use. You could start kicking a hole in that required 1.5 million.

What the noble Lord, Lord Young, said was wonderful. If we spend all the money on new houses, what are we going to do about those failing estates and the voids? What are we going to do about the fact that many local authorities and housing associations cannot afford to convert void houses that are boarded up? This Government have to have a strategy on empty homes. I do not see that in the strategy at the moment.

Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)My Lords, I intervene briefly to say that the regeneration of some of our social estates is a high priority. The last Labour Government spent a lot of money regenerating city centres. I hope that, if they have long enough, this Labour Government will give a similar high priority to the regeneration of some of our social estates.

It has not been easy, and more difficult in some respects, given the right to buy. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said, regeneration takes a long time— 10 or 20 years—so it is difficult to see easy or quick returns, and resources are a huge problem. To achieve the regeneration of these estates, often you need partnerships, not just the local authority but housing associations and private developers. There is obviously an important role for mayors in this as well as we progress. The main experience that I have had is of the Rowner estate, in Gosport, which was a Royal Naval estate. It was in huge dereliction after the Navy left its responsibilities. The regeneration of that estate has taken 30 years, with a genuine partnership that involved quite difficult decisions, such as the decision that to regenerate it would require it to be turned into an estate that was one-third owner-occupied, one-third private rented and one-third social housing. The transformation has been remarkable. There are many estates up and down our land that are neglected and need an initiative from the Government. In the rush to get high numbers of new houses, we must not forget the regeneration of our older estates.

Lord Evans of Guisborough (Con)My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 117D, which I have tabled. This is the first time that I have tabled an amendment in Committee, so it is a momentous occasion, for me at least.

I apologise for not having taken part in the Second Reading debate as I was unavailable. Clearly, I missed something because the debate so far on the Bill has been extremely well informed and knowledgeable. It is a privilege to contribute, and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who has done so much to help homeless people in London. As a former Deputy Mayor of London, I can say that we are very grateful for the work that he has done over the years. I am not sure whether I support his amendment, but I certainly support his efforts.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Young, who reminded us of the housing action trusts, not least because one of those first trusts was in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. I can well remember the Chingford Hall estate, because it was in my ward, and the trust started its work in my first year as a newly elected councillor in 1990. I stayed in that ward for 12 years, so I was able to see the work continue and conclude. That estate has been transformed. There is clearly a lesson here for all of us.

I move to my amendment. As a former deputy mayor, I understand that housing is a challenging and complex issue for us to deal with, and many factors affect whether a mayor can achieve their targets. My noble friend Lady O’Neill reminded us that there are now 1.3 million households on the social housing waiting list. I am very much aware that the construction industry and the property sector in this country provide an underpinning for general economic activity. If we can get homes being built, we will provide jobs and skills for people, and we will feed more money into the economy. It is vital not just for providing homes for people but for growing the economy.

In London, I am afraid that the story recently has not been so good. In 2022-23, there were 26,000 starts, which was a pretty good performance, but, by 2023-24, that had fallen to just over 3,000. In response, the mayor has reduced the amount of social housing that he requires in developments from 35% to 20%; that will bring some developments within a range where it is profitable for the builders to build them, which was clearly not the case before, so it is a step forward, but even with that concession, London is still struggling. The most recent figures that we have, from the JLL Partners survey that took place earlier this year, was that in the first three months of 2026 only 7% of housing starts were achieved, which leaves London’s government with 93% to complete for the rest of the year, which I think noble Lords will agree is a challenging target.

It is against this background that I am promoting this amendment, which would provide a mechanism to ensure accountability not just for the Mayor of London but for mayors and authorities around the country. At this stage, we are just asking for a feasibility study, but I think the possibilities may range beyond housing targets: the results of the study could be applied to other targets and to democratic accountability for mayors in future. I place the idea before the Committee, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.

Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)My Lords, I support Amendment 117D, tabled by my noble friend Lord Evans of Guisborough, which is about a simple principle: if elected mayors are given strategic housing powers, receive billions in public funding and repeatedly fail to deliver, there must be proper accountability. This is an amendment that challenges the rhetoric.

If you take the basket case which is London, the Mayor of London endlessly talks about housing figures and about delivery, has the cheek to use the word “record” quite regularly, yet has failed to deliver on a spectacular scale, to the point where the Government had to step in and ask him to change his figures on the amount of social housing he would ask for on any given development. That was a good idea by the Government, which is why I support this probing amendment.

The housing need in London is around 88,000 units a year, as determined by the Government, yet in our best year recently we delivered only 31,000 units. The mayor’s own affordable housing target was 52,000 a year and he failed to hit that by a wide mark, getting to only 32,000. The affordable housing target under the current programme was originally 35,000 starts—just starts. Londoners cannot live in a start; a human being cannot live in a start. I think we need to start looking at completions: that is when a house actually becomes a home. The target was 35,000 originally, and that has been lowered to between 17,800 and 19,000, but in 2024-25, there were only 3,991 affordable housing starts. Again, I refer to the point that we need completions, not starts. That is only starts.

Of course, the cost is paid by Londoners, who are living in poor and expensive accommodation. We have over 100,000 children living in temporary accommodation and 210,000 Londoners are actually homeless. I have been homeless. It is an absolute blight on your life. It is impossible to move forward if you are homeless. You need a base to operate from, and that base is commonly known as a home, so when we have mayors who have been given great support by Governments of all colours, they need to be brought before some kind of reckoning if they are not delivering on that.

Again, I refer noble Lords to the basket case that is London. London cannot keep its place as a world-leading city if we cannot afford to house people here. If you are a police officer, a nurse, a factory worker, a youth worker—name any job that keeps this city going—you cannot afford to stay here; you are being pushed out. If you are an international employer, you cannot set up in London, because you know staff cannot afford to live in London. So, of course this amendment needs to be supported.

Accountability must follow power. Amendment 117D asks the fair question: what happens when mayors fail repeatedly to deliver on social housing delivery? At present, the answer is “Not enough”. This amendment would allow the Government to examine proper thresholds on repeated failure over years and the level of required public support for a recall petition.

17:15:00

This is not an attack on devolution; it is a defence of it. Devolution cannot mean power without responsibility. It cannot mean taking credit when things go well, which our current Mayor of London is very good at, but blaming others when it goes wrong, which he is also very good at. He never takes responsibility for what is going on. A Government with this power could force him to do so. London councils need help, not rhetoric. London workers need homes, not fancy words. I commend this amendment and will personally be supporting it.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)My Lords, I acknowledge the cogent contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Evans. It was his first contribution, but I hope it will be the first of many, and I mean that sincerely.

In principle, we welcome the intent behind this group of amendments because they speak to something that is all too often overlooked in housing debates: not just how many homes we have to build and targets but the condition and use of the homes that we already have. I will do my best to stick to the amendments in front of us, but I hope Conservative noble Lords will forgive me if I suggest there is a pattern running through this group and others today, and from Monday, which is pushing towards more centralisation and, ultimately, more regulation, which we would be instinctively against.

Take Amendment 57 on regeneration, which makes an important point. It asks the Government to bring forward proposals to support the regeneration of estates. There is no doubt that this is vital, but local authorities are already leading regeneration in so many areas, often very successfully. The best examples of those are councils that are not only working with their communities —which is absolutely essential; try doing it without it—but also attracting private sector investment to get a top-notch scheme. I know that it needs both government and local government to undertake such major work, not what is proposed in these amendments.

The regeneration of an older estate is a significant investment and a major project. It can, as the noble Baroness said, take years, and I have experience of that too. However, what I believe it does not need is direction from the centre, with a national strategy or proposal. In my experience, it is usually the other way round: the council saying to government, “Hey, this is what we want to do. We’ve got great plans, we’ve talked to our community, but—help, please”. That help can be with whatever obstacles are in the way, not just money. As I know also from experience, these can be many and varied, and very often local. You need government to act as Dyno-Rod to help you move things forward, as I am sure the Minister will know from her own experience of the regeneration of Stevenage town centre, on which she battled for many years.

Again, in my experience there are significant pots of money for regeneration to access, but they are often in too many different pots, their use is too restricted and nobody is looking holistically at what a council needs to achieve in total. You might get some money for this bit but not for the bit that would really make it add value. I know that work has been done on these aspects so I hope the Minister will update us, because I think the grant applications for regeneration are important.

Likewise, Amendment 83 would require a national audit of existing stock. Noble Lords will know from my other amendments that I believe better data is clearly helpful and necessary, but we should also recognise that councils already have a good understanding of their housing stock, as do registered social providers. They know where the problems lie. The real issue for them is that they have competing priorities at the moment—do they do the safety work? Do they have new build? Do they retrofit or improve existing homes? The real question is: how do we move from knowledge to funded action on the ground? Noble Lords will begin to see the drift of my theme on these and other amendments.

I will say a final word on Amendment 116, on empty homes, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bird. It is a particularly important issue, and I strongly support the ambition to bring more of these properties back into use. Councils have the powers to deal with this issue; there is no doubt about that. Again, the issue is not the lack of a five-year plan but other barriers to bringing these homes into use. These are well known. They are often around the capacity of the courts and the rights of the home owner, and how they can hold up the process through the courts and make getting one single house back into use take years.

That brings me to a wider point of capacity. After many years of financial pressure, local government is often operating in a space where it has to be reactive rather than proactive. I believe councils and all their partners would universally want to do more on regeneration, empty homes, illegal subletting—very well articulated by the noble Baroness—and enforcement on landlords in general. But that requires the capacity to get ahead of the problem and not just respond to it.

We respect the sincere intention behind these amendments but feel that the actions asked for are not going to make the significant difference that we would all like to see. Local government knows the issues, and it is often other measures that are needed, which are well out of the scope of the Bill.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, the Government recognise the importance of regenerating existing social housing estates and the potential this can have to improve housing quality, energy efficiency and the overall supply of housing. Following Second Reading, I sent a letter to noble Lords outlining the Government’s intentions in this area; I hope noble Lords have had a chance to look at that. I will respond first to Amendment 57, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. While I appreciate the intention behind her amendment, we do not consider it appropriate to place a requirement of this nature in the Bill. As she will know only too well, estate regeneration is complex and highly place-specific. Decisions about funding, density and redevelopment are best taken through existing programmes and planning frameworks that can respond flexibly to local circumstances. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, it is very important that this is dealt with on a case-by-case basis at local level.

The amendment would also cut across existing policy development and spending decisions, including those taken through the spending review process, by mandating the production of proposals within a fixed timeframe, regardless of wider fiscal or delivery considerations. Therefore, while we share the objective of supporting effective and sensitive estate regeneration, we believe it is better taken forward through existing policy levers and funding mechanisms than through a new legislative duty.

I will make two further comments; first, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham. The social and affordable housing programme supports regeneration where it delivers a net increase in social homes—which I set out some details of in the letter I sent out—as well as introducing wider reforms to standards, designs and quality. We can definitely support regeneration through that programme.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to my efforts around regeneration—the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, was incredibly helpful to me during that process, so I recognise his significant expertise in that area.

There was also the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, about the housing action trusts. The noble Lord may be aware of the announcements made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State on Monday this week, on the right to manage and how we intend to extend it more widely and try to promote it to tenants, so that where a landlord is failing, they can exercise their right to manage. I know the Secretary of State is very keen to promote that. That said, I ask that Amendment 57 be withdrawn.

On Amendment 58 from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the Government are clear that supported housing has a vital role to play in supporting some of the most vulnerable in our society to live as independently as possible. We want to see the new supply of supported housing grow, which is why the social and affordable homes programme allows flexibility on grant rates, to help support accommodation where design and adaptation can result in higher costs.

In addition, the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 places a new statutory duty on local housing authorities to develop supported housing strategies. That will include a delivery plan setting out clear, time-bound actions for implementation. Any new requirement to set out a national strategy on the provision of supported housing will be duplicative of something that—as I see it—sits within the remit of local supported housing strategies. It would lack the detailed understanding that our local authorities have of specific needs in their local areas. For those reasons, I cannot support the amendment. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for Amendments 83 and 107, which both seek to improve the understanding, and strengthen the management, of existing social housing stock. On Amendment 83, a substantial amount of data is already published on the condition and use of social housing, including through the English Housing Survey and the Local Authority Housing Statistics , covering many of the issues raised in the amendment. More broadly, and relevant to both amendments, the Government have already launched a review into how effectively social housing providers are managing and making best use of their stock.

In response also to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, this work is examining underoccupation, overcrowding, long term voids, tenant mobility, and how landlords can maximise the use of the homes they manage. The review is already under way, and we will report its outcomes later this year. In light of that, the Government do not consider it appropriate to legislate now for a further national audit or a statutory strategy.

Turning to Amendment 75, I want to be clear that illegal subletting is unacceptable. As the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, rightly said, it deprives those in genuine need of a social home and undermines confidence in the system. Tenants are responsible for fulfilling their obligations and complying with the terms of their tenancy agreement. They are also responsible for making sure that, when they apply for social housing in the first place, the information they give is accurate. Now that social landlords have much more access to online systems for checking applications on registers, I suspect that they are now rejecting far more applications where the information does not match up with the application concerned. Where a tenant has breached a term in their agreement, landlords may seek a possession order from the courts on the basis that there has been a breach of a term of the tenancy agreement, or housing fraud, or where one of the other statutory grounds for possession has been made out.

Where there are concerns about tenancy fraud, councils and landlords already have strong powers to investigate and take action—I believe that the noble Baroness opposite put those in place. We expect social landlords to manage their stock effectively, and anyone with evidence of a fraudulent tenancy should report it to the relevant local authority so that appropriate action can be taken. The Government are looking at this issue as part of the wider stock management review that I referred to. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, asked me how long properties are left vacant in between tenancies; I do not have that specific information to hand, but I will write to her on that point. We do not think that further legislation is needed here.

I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for Amendment 116 and his powerful advocacy for it. I fully recognise the strength of feeling around the need to bring empty homes back into use. We do not believe that placing a new statutory duty on all local authorities to produce a detailed five year plan on empty homes is the right approach. Local authorities already have powers to identify and acquire empty homes and to bring them back into use. Many are actively doing so through locally tailored strategies that reflect their housing markets and priorities. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, there are many reasons why that takes longer than it should, and we should look at those obstacles. As the noble Lord said, we should not have empty homes while families live in temporary accommodation, and we are working with our councils to make sure that that does not happen.

However, the amendment would risk duplicating the existing planning and reporting requirements and would impose a significant administrative burden, regardless of whether empty homes are a material issue in a particular area. We are clear that progress on empty homes is best delivered through local flexibility, supported by existing powers and funding, rather than through a one-size-fits-all statutory process.

17:30:00

We also have a great citizen army out there—I do not know whether it exists everywhere. Certainly, when I was a councillor, when any home was empty for longer than a couple of weeks, I would get phone calls about it, asking me why it had not been let. Sometimes it is justified, because there are structural issues that involve the need to leave properties empty, but it is very important that councils follow up on that as quickly as possible. We are clear that this should be done through local flexibility. For those reasons, although I respect the intention behind the amendment, I ask that it not be moved.

On Amendment 117D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, while I understand his intention, there is currently no recall mechanism for mayors. Introducing one on this basis would be a significant and complex change. Existing recall arrangements, for example for MPs, are limited to serious circumstances, such as criminal conviction, not to policy performance. The approach could also risk creating perverse incentives, with mayors driven towards short-term decisions, and would raise practical and cost issues, given the scale of mayoral electorates.

The Government recognise the issues of housing delivery in London, which was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Bailey. Indeed, in my letter following Second Reading, I set out some of the action that we are taking to address the issues in London and to help accelerate London housebuilding, implement planning reform and unlock large-scale housing developments. This includes working collaboratively with the mayor on housing.

Up to 30% of the £39 billion social and affordable housing programme will be delivered by the Greater London Authority to use in London. That follows on from a £4.16 billion grant in funding for the GLA to deliver the 2021-26 affordable homes programme in London. The Secretary of State and the Mayor of London announced a new package in October last year to support housebuilding in London. There is progress on this. We announced an initial allocation of £324 million of grant investment to establish a City Hall developer investment fund to unlock and accelerate housing delivery. We are doing our best to make progress on that.

Mayors already have significant powers and a growing role in driving housing delivery, including working with Homes England to shape development priorities, identify sites and support investment in their areas. Over time, we are moving towards a fuller devolution of housing funding and delivery for our mayors.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, was saying that we need accountability. We are strengthening the accountability mechanisms, including local scrutiny arrangements and an updated devolution accountability framework. Taken together, these reforms will provide the certainty, flexibility and accountability needed to deliver new homes, rather than introduce a new and untested recall mechanism based on performance that might result in perverse incentives. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord not to move the amendment.

Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate and, of course, to the Minister for her response. I especially mention my noble friend Lord Evans, as he saw this as an important debate to make his first contribution in.

The discussions highlighted an important point. Although much attention is devoted to increasing housing supply, making best use of the homes that we already have has to be equally important. The amendments in the group have approached the challenge from a number of angles, including regeneration, supported housing, stock management, fraud prevention and the utilisation of vacant properties. Although they focus on different aspects of the system, they all ask whether existing housing assets are being used as effectively as they could be.

I remain particularly concerned that, at a time when housing waiting lists remain high, we should do everything possible in our power to ensure that social housing properties are occupied by those who are entitled to them and that homes do not remain vacant for longer than necessary. I appreciate the Minister’s comments about turnaround times and look forward to seeing that information. Effective management is not an alternative to new supply, but it is certainly an essential component and should not be forgotten.

I was interested in the discussion around regeneration. Done well, regeneration can improve housing quality, strengthen communities and increase housing supply simultaneously. It is therefore important that the Government continue to think strategically about how existing estates can contribute to meeting future housing need. The need may change. It is not easy. We all know that, at the start of a regeneration project, you have decamped people. If you have not got the empty homes, it is difficult to make that happen.

On Amendment 116, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, concerning empty homes, I agree that long-term vacant properties can represent a missed opportunity, particularly where housing need is acute. However, I sound a note of caution. Property rights remain an important principle. We should be careful about any approach that assumes that the state should have an ever-expanding role in determining how privately owned homes are used. The challenge is to strike the right balance between encouraging properties back into use and respecting legitimate private ownership. That does not mean that we could not address the empty ones in social housing—about 92,000 homes, according to the House of Lords Library.

I thank my noble friend Lady Eaton for her contribution and hope that we can work together ahead of Report to tackle fraud in the social housing system. We need to make use of the powers and encourage others to use those powers. We know that, in a lot of these cases, these are the tenants who are not going to raise their head above the parapet because they are not going to want to be seen. I heard of a case at the weekend in which a key worker thought that they were privately renting a property for £2,000 a month but had a knock on the door from the council. It was actually a council property, costing the council tenant £800 a month. Someone is making a nice amount of money while the wrong person is living in the property. We need to concentrate on this.

I have listened carefully to the Minister’s response and will reflect on the points that were raised in the debate.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Rather than the noble Baroness waiting for a letter from me, I can give her the answer to her question about the time spent between tenancies now. It is a median of 30 days.

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 57 withdrawn.

Amendments 58 to 58B not moved.

Clause 12Protection for victims of domestic abuse

Amendments 59 and 60 not moved.

Clause 12 agreed.

Amendment 61

Moved by

61: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause— “Duty to ensure continuity of secure tenancy in cases of threat to safetyAfter section 86 of the Housing Act 1985 (periodic tenancy arising on termination of fixed term) insert—“86ZA Duty to ensure continuity of secure tenancy in cases of threat to safety(1) This section applies where—(a) a registered provider of social housing has granted a secure and assured tenancy of a dwelling-house in England to a person (whether as the sole tenant or a joint tenant), and(b) the registered provider is satisfied that there is a threat to the personal safety of that person or of a member of that person’s household which means there is a risk to their personal safety unless they move.(2) When subsection (1) applies, the regulator must ensure that the registered provider grants the tenant a new secure tenancy which is— (a) on terms at least equivalent to the existing tenancy, and(b) in a dwelling where the threat to the tenant’s personal safety does not apply.(3) In this section, a “threat to personal safety” means any threat of violence, including in circumstances of—(a) domestic abuse where the perpetrator does not live at the same address as the victim;(b) an escalating neighbour dispute;(c) a threat of targeted youth or gang violence.(4) In assessing the threat under subsection (1)(b), the registered provider must act in accordance with any relevant police advice provided to—(a) the registered provider,(b) the tenant, or(c) any member of the tenant’s household.(5) In the event that a registered provider is unable to ensure the provision of an appropriate new secure tenancy pursuant to subsection (2), the regulator must ensure that the registered provider concerned co-operates with other registered providers to ensure an appropriate new secure tenancy is provided in a timely manner.””

Lord Best (CB)My Lords, Amendments 61 and 62 are in my name. Amendment 61 would ensure that social housing providers—councils and housing associations—offer a new secure tenancy to a tenant forced out of their social housing by threats of violence, including domestic abuse and gang violence, in accordance with police advice.

The amendment has its origins in the debates on the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. It was proposed by Helen Hayes MP, supported by the National Housing Federation and Shelter. Helen Hayes’s constituent, known as Georgia, was forced out of her housing association home of nine years when her eldest son was threatened by gang members. The police told Georgia that her son’s life was at risk and that she should move immediately for his safety. If anyone thinks that the risks in such a case may be exaggerated, they should note that later the younger brother in this case was brutally murdered in a separate unrelated incident. Having moved swiftly to temporary accommodation, as advised by the police, when the moment came to return to a secure tenancy, Georgia found herself at the bottom of the housing waiting list once again, despite paying rent on both her original home and the temporary placement.

Georgia spent a year in dreadful temporary accommodation but then found she had no right of return to a secure home until the housing association finally relented. Amendment 61 seeks to rectify this deficiency in the protection afforded to social housing tenants, giving them a right of return where their move resulted from police advice. The Regulator of Social Housing would ensure that the social landlord granted the displaced tenant a secure tenancy. In the event of the registered provider being unable to do so, the regulator would have to ensure that the social landlord concerned co-operated with other social landlords to ensure an appropriate new, secure tenancy. Although an enlightened housing provider might ignore the administrative niceties and allow a return to a secure home, the amendment makes this obligatory, not a matter of discretion, for the social housing landlord. This would seem to be a matter of righting an injustice in the current system and would seem only fair.

I turn to Amendment 62, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. I am grateful for the important work done on this amendment by the Chartered Institute of Housing. Amendment 62 clarifies the legal position for social landlords who need to gain access to their property to carry out safety checks and works. Social landlords must fulfil a widening range of health and statutory duties following the increased regulation of the sector over recent years. However, they are finding increased difficulty in gaining access to some tenants’ homes for checks, particularly the annual servicing of gas boilers, periodic electrical safety checks and fire safety checks, including smoke and carbon monoxide alarm checks. If these checks are not done, the occupiers and their neighbours face potential dangers and the landlords themselves can be accused of regulatory failure and may face criminal prosecution.

Amendment 62 aims to clarify the law and provide an acceptable route for forced access where, in a minority of cases, this is necessary. The aim must be to prevent cases being taken to court, as well as to be clear on what happens when this is the only option in no-access cases. In 2025, bodies representing social housing providers, led by the Chartered Institute of Housing, commissioned a consultancy, HQN, to consider these issues. The resulting report, Opening the Door , provides sound advice on good practice for gaining access to tenants’ homes by consent. However, there remains the need for landlords to go to court to obtain permission to enter a tenant’s home in persistent no-access cases.

For forced entry, the social landlord currently relies on the tenancy terms and can seek a county court access injunction. Section 12 of the Housing Act 1988 applies, along with Section 11(6) of the Landlord and Tenancy Act 1985. The problem is that two conflicting county court judgments have created confusion over whether landlords really can force access to a property despite the dangers of not doing so; for example, from faulty gas or electrical installations. The social landlords have no desire to start possession proceedings for eviction, which would represent a disproportionate and unhelpful way of resolving the safety issue. Tenants might be failing to give access because of mental health difficulties, including hoarding behaviours, while others might simply struggle to make appointments. These tenants need help and support, not eviction. Amendment 62 would clarify the law, providing for compulsory access after the issuing of clear notice requirements, prior reasonable engagement and strict safeguards. It is a necessary response to a growing problem. I commend the amendment and I beg to move Amendment 61.

Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 63 in my name. I apologise to the noble Lord: I was just coming through the doors as he rose to his feet. It took me longer to get down the stairs than I was intending. It would have been easier if I had been swimming. Amendment 63 simply extends the statutory provision to include a wider group of potential beneficiaries. In no sense does it seek to dilute the critical importance of the primary purpose of the intention around those suffering domestic abuse, but it seeks to include other groups who would benefit and whom it seems appropriate to fit within this statutory provision, not least disabled people, those coming out of care situations and those coming out of custodial situations. It seems a logical extension of the statutory provision that does not in any sense dilute the primary purpose but is very much in the spirit, intention and purpose of the Bill.

17:45:00

Baroness Neate (CB)My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 65 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hussein-Ece, Lady Teather and Lady Lister, who have supported it. I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Abri Octavia housing association. This is my first time speaking in Committee, so I apologise to noble Lords for having to be prompted to rise to my feet.

This amendment would ensure that domestic abuse survivors were not made ineligible for a social home as a result of debt incurred in the context of abuse. This speech will be short because I do not have criticisms to make of the Bill. I merely hope to strengthen further the very welcome changes that it proposes for survivors of domestic abuse.

As I know noble Lords are aware, and as I saw time and time again as chief executive both of Women’s Aid and Shelter, domestic abuse survivors who manage to leave their abuser are often systematically robbed of their financial independence. The fact that they might become homeless is a threat frequently wielded by perpetrators to maintain control: “If you leave me, you’ll have nowhere to live”. Or even worse: “If you leave me, the children will be homeless”. All too often, the housing system makes these threats come true, preventing victims gaining safety and not allowing survivors and their children the safe space they desperately need to rebuild their lives together.

The Bill as it stands is already life-changing for survivors. It takes important steps towards shifting the system so that it is on the side of the survivor, not the perpetrator. My amendment is one more step in the same direction, which I believe would strengthen the Bill still further.

In just one month in 2023, research found that 1,500 children were trapped living in temporary accommodation as a result of housing-related debt, which according to local authority rules meant their mother could not get a social home. The housing crisis has grown only worse since then and so has the dangerous shortage of refuge accommodation for women fleeing abuse. This is exacerbated when women cannot move on from refuge into a social home and are therefore occupying a space that could literally save another woman’s life.

At Shelter, colleagues working in front-line services and on the helpline saw daily that a gatekeeping culture exists in many local authorities. For a start, survivors are not believed. Then, rules governing housing allocations are used to make the gateway to a social home as narrow as it can possibly be. Yes, there is guidance, and I am aware that the Government believe that statutory guidance can be used to achieve the ends that this amendment would achieve. I am sure that in the best local authorities that is true, but I have seen guidance disregarded many times and colleagues at both Shelter and Women’s Aid having to intervene to get a survivor’s rights upheld. The problem is that a minority of survivors have a powerful advocate on their side; most are struggling on their own. For them, all too often, guidance is not enough.

It is also not urgent enough, nor is it guaranteed. The time and uncertainty of consultation is time and uncertainty that survivors and their children cannot afford. This is especially true in the context of a desperate shortage of funds in local government, an even worse shortage of social homes, the imminent local government reorganisation, and the disruption and local shifts of emphasis following the local elections, not to mention the current political instability, which means timetables can vary. In this context, it is appropriate that priority matters are dealt with urgently by legislation. We are in the middle of a housing emergency, a funding crisis in women’s refuges and major upheaval in local government. Domestic abuse survivors are caught in the eye of this storm.

The truth is that no family should be in temporary accommodation, but that is not the reality we are in. No local authority should be gatekeeping social homes in a way that denies people their rights as enshrined in guidance, but that is not the reality we are in. This Bill, which places domestic abuse survivors at the centre of the social housing system, can be an even bigger opportunity for this House to demonstrate that we believe that domestic abuse survivors and their children, who have been systematically deprived of their financial independence, simply must have every chance to recover and that a safe and secure home is the foundation of that.

I am grateful for the hard work done by the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Shared Health Foundation and researchers from King’s College London and Oxford Brookes University on this amendment, which is supported by Women’s Aid, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse and other expert organisations.

Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)My Lords, I support Amendment 65, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, who has brought to this amendment her considerable experience in dealing with domestic abuse and homelessness.

It is not that long ago that the expectation was that, when somebody was the victim of domestic abuse, they had to leave their home and the perpetrator could be left in possession of the home. Thankfully, we have, in a number of ways, changed that thinking. Domestic abuse protection orders and domestic abuse protection notices in the Domestic Abuse Act have given powers to ensure that it is the perpetrator who leaves. I welcome Schedule 1 to the Bill and the efforts that the Government are making to provide greater stability and security to the victims of domestic abuse.

It is also not that long ago that we thought that domestic abuse was purely domestic violence and always had a physical violence element. As we know now, there is complexity to domestic abuse, which can include coercive control and economic control. It is in that sense that Amendment 65 is so important. It recognises that there are victims of domestic abuse who may be victims of economic coercive control and find that debt has been racked up by their perpetrator, unbeknown to them. When they are trying to leave, and trying to secure social housing for themselves, they find that that debt is against their name as well, perhaps as having been joint tenants, and find themselves in an impossible situation that has been created because they were a victim of the actions of the perpetrator.

I hope that the Government are going to look favourably on the amendment. An effort is being made by the Government through this Bill to change the scenario for those who are the victims of domestic abuse, but there is this loophole. The Government need to look at this element, given the knowledge we now have of the forms that domestic abuse can take and the greater understanding we have of the circumstances in which people can be left that are nothing to do with their behaviour, but purely because they have been the victim of a perpetrator.

Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)I apologise that I was unable to contribute at Second Reading, but I am pleased to speak now in support of Amendment 65 and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady May, who made such a strong case. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, for tabling the amendment. Given her experience at Shelter and Women’s Aid, I can think of no better person to take up this important issue.

The relationship between homelessness and debt resulting from economic coercion and abuse, which we have just heard about, was brought to my attention last year in a briefing on a book by Professor Katherine Brickell and Dr Mel Nowicki, Debt Trap Nation . This provided evidence on the general problem of domestic abuse survivors unable to qualify for housing because of restrictive housing allocation policies. They found that fewer than one in five local authorities specifically exempts survivors from housing-related debt rules. Indeed, significant housing-related debt is sometimes bracketed with being a perpetrator of domestic abuse under the rubric of unacceptable behaviour that provides grounds for exclusion from housing. Some debt is what the researchers called coerced debt, generated through financial transactions that the victim is told to make or is aware of the abuser making in their name. They cite the organisation Surviving Economic Abuse, which discovered that victims of economic violence were at high risk of having rent arrears. As Brickell and Nowicki note, debt chips away at women’s autonomy to make decisions in their own interests.

Moreover, as the Chartered Institute of Housing points out, children suffer as a result of these exclusionary policies. The researchers observe that adult and child domestic abuse survivors subject to them are, in effect, left in limbo in temporary accommodation until they can reduce or clear rent arrears. The effect on children can be traumatic. Reducing the number of children living in temporary accommodation is one of the main aims of the child poverty strategy as well as of the homelessness strategy, so the amendment would contribute to both. The institute explains why it believes action should be taken in this legislation, rather than await the statutory guidance promised in the announced allocations review, as legislation would be more appropriate and there is a strong case for not delaying the matter. This very much accords with the strong argument put by the noble Baroness, Lady Neate. A few local authorities already pursue this policy; for example, Bedford Borough Council states:

“A blanket policy will not be operated in relation to housing debt and each case will be considered on its own merits ...Where a housing related debt has arisen as a direct result of a person being a victim of domestic abuse the debt will be disregarded for the purposes of assessing the application”.

This is to be applauded, but survivors should not have to rely on the discretion of individual local authorities.

The Bill is so positive when it comes to the position of domestic abuse survivors that it would be a real shame not to include this amendment, or one that achieved the same aim. At Second Reading, my noble friend the Minister made it clear that this Bill should not be viewed as a Christmas tree Bill. That is understandable, but I believe that this amendment is no bauble to add to the tree but rather that it would strengthen the very roots of the Bill. It is totally consistent with the existing welcome provisions, as the noble Baroness made clear. Therefore, I hope my noble friend will be able to look upon it favourably before Report.

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)My Lords, Clause 12 and Schedule 1 introduce important new protections for social housing tenants experiencing domestic abuse. I welcome these measures, which will help ensure that victims can leave unsafe accommodation or remain in their homes safely without losing their tenancy rights. I also support Amendment 61, tabled by my noble friend Lord Best, which seeks to guarantee continuity of secure tenancy where a tenant’s safety is at risk. No one should be forced to forfeit their secure tenancy as a result of violence or intimidation.

It is the case that the availability of adequate social housing is often a critical determining factor in cases where a victim of abuse or intimidation is unable to access a new secure tenancy. A lack of safe, secure, high-quality housing can put people experiencing domestic abuse at risk of homelessness and can therefore make them hesitant to speak out. Improving partnership working and best practice between housing associations and local authorities, as well as clear guidance for social housing staff, will be vital for these important new protections to work effectively.

I am also speaking in support of Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Best, relating to access for safety, to which I have added my name. I welcome the broad support for this amendment from the housing sector, including the Chartered Institute of Housing, the National Housing Federation and the National Federation of ALMOs. Housing associations are spending more each year to invest in existing homes but report increasing difficulty in securing access to residents’ homes to carry out essential inspections, repairs and safety works. This reflects a growing mismatch between duties and powers. Providers rightly face stronger statutory obligations to identify and remedy hazards, yet they lack clear and consistent legal routes to gain access in the small number of cases where residents just do not engage.

18:00:00

Concerns about the sustainability of the current position are shared right across the sector. The Association of Safety Compliance Professionals, for example, launched a national campaign in May highlighting the risks to resident safety. In cases where social landlords make repeated and comprehensive attempts to secure entry for statutory checks but are still unable to do so, the court remains the only route of last resort. However, court backlogs and delays, as has been said, can significantly hinder this process and the legal position itself remains unclear, leading to inconsistent outcomes. Recent case law, including Southern Housing v James Emmanuel in October 2025, has underlined this ambiguity, confirming that courts cannot grant access unless Parliament has clearly conferred such a power.

Without action, ongoing access challenges risk undermining both resident safety and the quality of homes, placing continued strain on housing association resources and, most importantly, exposing residents to avoidable harm. My view is that the access for safety amendment represents a proportionate and effective solution. It is modelled on an analogous power in Section 97 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which allows for access to premises to be ordered in certain prescribed circumstances. It established a structured three-stage request process for limited but important cases where access is required to ensure safety, applying only a narrow set of statutory checks, and over a period of three months. I hope the Government will consider whether this approach strikes the right balance between enabling social landlords to keep homes safe and respecting tenants’ right to quiet enjoyment.

Regardless of the mechanism by which such changes are enacted, it is clear that Parliament must provide a proportionate and lawful access framework that supports safety-driven access where needed, while protecting residents’ rights through clear safeguards and the ability to challenge decisions. I know that representative bodies across the housing sector stand ready to work in partnership with the Government to develop an appropriate and effective solution.

Baroness Teather (LD)My Lords, I am a co-signatory to Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, but I am also going to make a few remarks to wind up this group on behalf of our Benches. We are trying hard not to duplicate speakers, aware that everyone is desperate to see the football—all right, not everyone, but most people—and we have an awful lot to get through.

There have been a number of powerful and helpful contributions on this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Neate, has huge authority and experience in this area, and it is notable that the sector supports the amendment she has tabled, arguing that it is really needed. The heart of the Bill is around protection for victims of domestic violence, and my concern is that, without an amendment like this, we leave out one hugely important plank—an area that gives abusers the power to continue to exercise control and leave women without access to the protection we want to provide. I remind the Minister that this amendment has cross-party support, and it was good to hear the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, a former Home Secretary, advocate for it. I hope the Government will take this away and consider how it might be brought forward, perhaps at a later stage. As others have said, without this measure, child maintenance could be withheld—coercive control around money is often at the heart of abusive relationships—so I urge the Government to consider this amendment.

I listened carefully to the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, about Amendments 61 and 62. These amendments seem to us to make good points, particularly about access for safety checks. I was going to refer to the legal case the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, referred to— Southern Housing v James Emmanuel in October 2025 —arguing that, without parliamentary action, it is not clear whether housing associations have the power to force access for safety reasons. In the light of so many recent issues around fire, for example, we really have to tackle this issue and make it clear to social housing providers whether they have the power to take such action. We are also supportive of Amendment 61 and urge the Government to think about how we might ensure continuity for secure tenancy in cases where, on police advice, people are forced to leave their homes because of violence.

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed so thoughtfully to this sensitive and highly important debate. As my noble friend Lady Scott said at Second Reading, we welcome the Government’s efforts to empower landlords and the courts to protect all victims of domestic abuse.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his amendments, which focus on the issues concerning tenants’ safety. His Amendment 61 asks us to consider threats to personal safety due not only to domestic abuse but to escalating disputes with neighbours or targeted youth and gang violence. It is right that we consider how tenants can be protected from those other threats, and Amendment 62 seeks to give providers greater powers to carry out legally required safety checks. I hope the Government will give those amendments their due consideration.

Amendment 63, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, seeks to ensure that vulnerable groups such as older tenants, veterans, care leavers, disabled people, those with mental health conditions and families with children in temporary accommodation have the necessary statutory provision. We will also touch on prioritising veterans in another amendment later today, but my noble friend is right that we should consider the specific needs of these groups too, and that we expect local authorities to do so as well.

Amendment 65, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, and was responded to by many others, raises a very important issue. I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on this. Victims of financial abuse should be protected, not prevented from bidding for social housing. I would be interested to hear from the Government how that could be implemented by working together with local authorities, and how we can ensure that such protections are not themselves abused.

Amendment 64, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, seeks to ensure that the court system has the capacity and resources to effectively determine whether domestic abuse has taken place within a household with a social housing tenancy, an issue that a few of the speakers referred to. Court readiness was debated at length in relation to the Renters’ Rights Act, and it is important that the Government ensure that landlords and courts are ready for these changes too, so that victims are protected effectively.

Amendment 108, also in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, raises the issue of which local authority is responsible for safeguarding needs when a tenant is moved out of an area of one local authority to another. Our amendment suggests that, where a local housing authority secures accommodation for tenants outside its area, that authority retains responsibility for safeguarding oversight and the costs involved. We welcome the insights of other noble Lords on this issue and what scenarios must be taken into account, but I hope the Minister will look into it and how the Bill could address it. I look forward to her response.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this very thoughtful debate on these amendments. I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, for tabling Amendment 61, which addresses an important issue around the safety and security of tenants facing violence. I am very sympathetic to this amendment’s aims to protect all tenants of social housing providers registered with the Regulator of Social Housing and thank the noble Lord for bringing this important issue forward. I want to be clear that tenants should never fear losing their security of tenure if they need to move because of the threat of violence and abuse.

While I am supportive of the intent of the amendment, as drafted it will mean a fundamental shift in the role of the Regulator of Social Housing as currently set out in statute. The regulator’s statutory remit does not include intervening in individual tenancy decisions. The regulator focuses interventions on systemic issues, and this amendment would change this and risk cutting across established principles of regulatory best practice. Furthermore, the consumer standards set by the regulator already place on registered providers several requirements relevant to this amendment, including to work with partners to support victims of domestic abuse and to demonstrate how they deliver the outcomes of these standards.

In addition, there is already legislation in place that seeks to protect people at risk of violence in need of urgent rehousing. If a local authority grants a victim of domestic abuse a new tenancy for reasons connected with the abuse, it is required to give former or existing secure tenants another secure lifetime tenancy rather than a fixed-term tenancy. The social housing allocations framework dictates that where people are homeless or need to move on welfare grounds and apply to be rehoused through a local authority waiting list, they must be given reasonable preference—priority—for social housing. By extension, these protections can also engage private registered providers through the duty to co-operate with their local authority in housing people with priority. Homelessness legislation is also clear that, where appropriate, victims of serious violence are able to access support from homelessness services should they need to relocate, and that a vulnerable victim of domestic violence has priority need for accommodation.

Measures in the Bill to protect victims of domestic abuse also seek to achieve a similar aim to this amendment by ensuring that a joint tenant remains housed either in their original home or in suitable alternative accommodation where this is available. While it does not oblige a registered provider to act, it does empower it to do so. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. However, I recognise that this is an important issue and have asked my officials to consider this matter further. I or my officials or both would be happy to meet the noble Lord before Report to discuss this matter.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for Amendment 62, which would introduce a new statutory route for registered providers of social housing to gain access to homes to meet statutory safety duties. I absolutely recognise the importance of ensuring that landlords are able to carry out essential safety checks, including gas and electrical inspections, and to ensure that smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are installed and functioning properly. I also recognise that access to homes is a growing concern. However, I am not persuaded that creating a new statutory access route is necessary to achieve this.

Landlords already have established routes for enabling access to homes. In addition, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Housing Act 1998 imply a right of access to tenancies where landlords are required to meet repairing obligations. Where a tenant refuses access, landlords can seek to remedy this through an injunction from the court. I reassure the Committee that, following a joint consultation with the Ministry of Justice on housing disrepair claims, we are currently analysing the responses to deepen our understanding of how the current process works, including what does not work or is unclear, so we can make sure that that process is as effective as possible.

Extending the needs of landlords to enable them to force access must be balanced, of course, against tenants’ existing rights, including the right to respect their private and family life and their home under Article 8 of the ECHR. Where a landlord has taken appropriate steps and cannot gain access, the Government made it clear in our response to the decent homes standard consultation that guidance will set out steps providers should take, and we will work with the sector and tenants to develop this guidance.

This amendment would introduce a separate, highly prescriptive statutory process alongside the existing routes and work we already have under way to consider access to homes for emergency safety reasons. In particular, the provision to authorise the use of reasonable force raises concerns about tenants’ rights and the potential impact on their sense of security in their own home. The amendment would also impose detailed procedural requirements that could reduce flexibility and delay action where timely access is needed to meet critical safety obligations. However, I recognise that this matter needs further consideration, so I intend to convene interested stakeholders to discuss access in emergency situations and identify the next steps.

18:15:00

Amendment 63 from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, seeks to require priority social housing allocations to be given to vulnerable households. However, as I have just set out, the allocations framework already requires that local authorities give reasonable preference or priority to homeless households and people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds, including grounds relating to disability. An additional preference is for former members of the Armed Forces with urgent housing needs. These categories cover the groups most in need highlighted by the noble Lord, so we do not think it is needed.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for Amendment 64. The Bill will strengthen protections for victims of domestic abuse who are social housing tenants. We are putting victims first by closing a long-standing gap in housing law that has left victims of domestic abuse with no safe way to keep their social housing, which the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, mentioned, as did the noble Baroness, Lady May. This will give victims certainty and stability. We are working in partnership with the Ministry of Justice to assess the impact of the reforms on the courts, and will make sure that the justice system is ready for the changes and any new processes and procedures which will be required.

More broadly, the Government are investing up to £50 million to modernise our civil courts to ensure justice for both renters and landlords with a case to be heard. In respect of this Bill, we are committed to monitoring and evaluating the reforms, so it is not necessary to commit to undertake any further review. We recognise the importance of making sure that these measures work effectively for all victims and will continue to engage with other government departments, the courts and the sector to make sure that that is the case.

I turn to Amendment 65 from the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, and thank her for raising this very important matter, and thank the noble Baronesses, Lady May, Lady Lister and Lady Warwick, for reminding us of the dreadful impact of financial abuse and coercive control. I have a great deal of sympathy with the intent behind this amendment and take this opportunity to praise the work of Katherine Brickell and Mel Nowicki, which first brought this issue to our attention. I dealt with an example myself where the abuser had forged a signature on a second mortgage of over £80,000. When the relationship broke down, that debt, in effect, rendered the victim bankrupt and her and her four children homeless. It was a really shocking case, so I understand, in a very front-line way, the importance of this amendment.

Government regulations last year mean that victims of domestic abuse moving as a result of that abuse no longer need to meet a local connection or residency test in order to access social housing. We also have statutory guidance in place for local housing authorities to improve access to social housing for victims of domestic abuse. This guidance has not been substantially updated in nearly a decade so I am sorry to say that it does not cover the treatment of debt incurred as a result of domestic abuse. We want to put that right. In the national plan to end homelessness we committed to address the barriers, such as debt, faced by survivors of domestic abuse, as part of our update to statutory guidance on social housing allocations. These can be very sensitive cases and this amendment, as tabled, would introduce a rigid statutory rule in an area that is inherently complex and case-specific. We also need to be mindful of unintended consequences that the blunt tool of primary legislation may cause.

Updating statutory guidance allows us to set clearer expectations nationally, while ensuring that authorities can take account of individual circumstances. Should this approach prove not to be sufficient then, in effect, we already have the necessary primary powers to take action. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, for highlighting this important issue. I hope that she will accept our commitment to tackle it and not press her amendment for now. I am very happy to discuss this further with her before we get to Report.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 108, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, requiring local authorities to retain safeguarding responsibilities when they place households outside their area. Our starting point and focus must always be how to best protect the most vulnerable people, with practical arrangements and responsibilities designed to ensure continuity in safe- guarding. Wherever possible, local authorities should avoid placing households subject to safeguarding arrangements outside the local area, but where such placements are necessary then social care services must work together across boundaries to ensure that the individuals continue to be protected, by whichever local authority is best placed to deliver effective safeguarding.

Housing legislation should support rather than interfere with safeguarding legislation and practice; it does so through existing requirements on notification. It is therefore not necessary to accept this amendment, as our legislative framework and guidance on what should happen when households are placed out of area is clear. However, I share the noble Baroness’s concern about reports of authorities placing households out of area without notifying the receiving authorities, and the safeguarding concerns this can create. Ministers have already written to local authorities about this issue, to remind them both of their responsibilities under the legislation and of the importance of safeguarding what are often very vulnerable households in a very challenging situation.

To deliver long-term improvement, this Government have committed in A National Plan to End Homelessness to tackling out-of-area placements and driving out those unsuitable practices. This includes poor practice when it comes to safeguarding vulnerable children and adults. With this reassurance, I kindly ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.

Lord Best (CB)My Lords, this has been an incredibly rich group of amendments. I think we have all appreciated the contributions of all noble Lords on these six amendments. Perhaps I could confine my closing remarks to Amendments 61, 62 and 65, on all of which the Minister has expressed not just sympathy but a willingness to do something further.

I know that Amendment 61, on where people have to forfeit the right to a secure tenancy when they have been advised by the police to move out to temporary accommodation, has struck a nerve. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, Lady Teather and Lady O’Neill of Bexley, for their support for this amendment. All of them also supported Amendment 62, where we are seeking clarification of the law on gaining access for safety checks that are for the benefit of the occupiers, but where access is being denied.

The Minister said that further consideration will be given to both these amendments. It is clear that existing provisions are not working, even if they exist. She has generously agreed not just to meet in relation to the forfeiting of rights to secure tenancies when moved on by the police, where a meeting will be held with myself and colleagues, but to convene a session, on the guidance that is evolving, with the Ministry of Justice on the opportunities to gain access where that is, at the moment, being denied. These are helpful concessions from the Minister, and I am very grateful.

This brings me to Amendment 65 and the very powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Neate. I think we are all deeply grateful to her for bringing her lifetime of experience and understanding of these issues to the debate. I am grateful, too, to the noble Baroness, Lady May, for supporting this amendment, as did the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Warwick and Lady Teather. I think the Minister has agreed to take this away and, in considering the updating of guidance, which is clearly out of date on these issues, to have another go and, again, to convene a session at which further debate can take place on this crucial issue, which has been very well explored in the Committee today. It is a tribute to the Committee to have been part of this debate. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 61.

Amendment 61 withdrawn.

Amendments 62 to 64 not moved.

Schedule 1Protection for victims of domestic abuse

Amendment 65 not moved.

Schedule 1 agreed.

Clause 13 agreed.

Schedule 2 agreed.

Clause 14Vacant higher value local authority housing

Debate on whether Clause 14 should stand part of the Bill.

Member’s explanatory statement

This is to probe the rationale behind repealing these powers.

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, it appears that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, withdrew from this section at a late time so, if it is the Committee’s pleasure, I will listen to the debate and the Minister, and save my comments till the end.

Lord Young of Cookham (Con)Would it be in order to speak to Amendment 66?

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)For clarification, the question before the Committee is that Clause 14 stand part.

Lord Young of Cookham (Con)Amendment 66 in my name is a probing amendment relating to the paragraph which abolishes the provision in earlier legislation to phase out tenancies for life. It has much in common with Amendments 77 and 78, which are in the names of my noble friends.

There were two speeches at Second Reading which made me think the time had come to review the assumption that life tenancies are the best way to allocate a scarce resource. Neither speech, as it happens, was from these Benches. One was from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and this is what he said:

“Why is it that social housing is now nothing like what it was? Having been brought up in the slums of Notting Hill, I was stuck in a Catholic orphanage for a few years and then moved to Fulham ... there we had our own beautiful piece of social housing. In that block of flats were trainee police officers, trainee teachers, drivers and all sorts of people, including disabled people and those who were old. It was sociable and socially mixed”.

He went on to say:

“Unfortunately, what has happened to social housing is that it is under threat. It is under threat because the bar has been raised by local authorities and now it takes only the most desperate, largely, whereas in the good old days it was a reflection of the working class, the upper working class and even the lower middle class ”.—[ Official Report , 1/6/26; cols. 722-23.] The other speech was from the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, and this is what he said:

“There are some policies pursued by Governments which are very much of their time. Perhaps regrettably, we do not review those policies sufficiently regularly and they become enshrined in our body politic, but they were the answer to the question of a different era”.

He was talking about the right to buy, but it struck me that the same might be said of security of tenure. It was the right policy at the time, but that does not mean it is the right policy for today. The noble Lord went on to make the point that times had changed, saying:

“Councils have ever-increasing waiting lists for council housing, and they face the massive financial and social challenge of dealing with the need for and cost of temporary accommodation. There is no spare housing, let alone properties which are hard to let; there is a housing shortage ”.—[ Official Report , 1/6/26; cols. 693-4.] Times have indeed changed. I looked at the speech which Nye Bevan gave on 16 March 1949, when he introduced the Housing Bill. He said:

“We shall, of course, go on providing additional homes until we have reached the position of providing a separate home for every family in the country. The House must reflect that when that is done—and we shall do it before very long—it will be the first time that any nation has done it in the recorded history of mankind”—

would that he had been right about that. But he went on to say that

“we should try to introduce in our modern villages”, and towns, housing where

“the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and farm labourer all lived in the same street … in ... the living tapestry of a mixed community ”.—[ Official Report , Commons, 16/3/1949; cols. 2124-27.]

18:30:00

Council housing was to be part of the welfare state—a universal service. In hospital you would be in a mixed community; likewise on a local authority estate. I can remember the time when a young couple would put their name down on the waiting list and within a reasonable time they would get a council house. Not so today. Even in 2015, when I was an MP for a rural constituency, you had to be in real difficulty to get a council tenancy. A young married couple sharing with their in-laws would not get the points required to be anywhere near the head of the queue. It has now become a safety net. Just look at the guidance issued by this Government on 10 July 2025:

“The government has made clear that we expect social homes to go to people who genuinely need and deserve them. That is why the Localism Act has maintained the protection provided by the statutory reasonable preference criteria which ensure that priority for social housing continues to be given to those in the greatest housing need”.

The doctor and the grocer, therefore, are unlikely to qualify.

Today, the greatest need probably means the statutory duty to rehouse a family in emergency accommodation, for instance in a bed and breakfast, or a family granted asylum now living in a hotel. It could be, as we have just heard, a mother and her children fleeing domestic violence, a family whose illegal HMO’s licence has just been cancelled by the local authority and closed, or someone whose health is seriously prejudiced by their poor housing conditions. There is not even enough housing for them, and that is before you get to the groups that might previously have expected to go to our social housing.

You get social housing today because you are in greatest need, to quote the government circular. The question then arises about what happens if you are allocated a tenancy because you were in the greatest need and then, with the help of that tenancy and perhaps wider support from a local authority, you have put your life together. Let us say you have a good job and the ability to move on—should you then make way for someone who is now in the same desperate position as you were and give them the opportunity to rebuild their life in the same way? That is the question behind my amendment and others. It should be seriously considered by any party that claims to look after the most vulnerable.

There are arguments the other way, of course. Why should local authority tenants not have the same security as owner-occupiers? At a time when private tenants are being given more security through the Renters’ Rights Act, should we reduce the security of social tenants? Registered social landlords, or RSLs, want very much to manage stable communities rather than a series of families who need a lot of support.

There may be a third way, which leaves security where it is but encourages a dialogue between the tenant and the landlord, outlining the options once it is clear that the family can afford to move. It may be shared ownership, it may be help with a deposit, it may be help with the cost of moving. The legitimate point is that there are other people who desperately need that home.

I will make one final point to support the case—one which has not been made before. If you are on the housing waiting list, the number of new social homes is relevant, and the more the better. But someone in housing need is eight times more likely to be rehoused through a re-let than through a new build. Increasing the number of re-lets is a key ingredient for helping those in need, and a new re-let can be secured at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time of a new build. Focusing our social housing on those in greatest need, to use the Government’s own words, means a good, hard look at how social housing is used at the moment and, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, asking whether life tenancies are the answer to a question from a different era.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)My Lords, I was busy trying to think of counterarguments; the noble Lord, Lord Young, has caught me there. We feel that what unites these amendments is an attempt to drag social housing policy backwards, and to revive a model of insecurity that simply did not work. We have heard this argument before—that fixed-term tenancies somehow make the system fairer or more efficient—but in reality they created uncertainty for tenants, instability for families and churning communities, without coming anywhere close to solving the real problem, which, as we all acknowledge, is a chronic shortage of social housing.

With the exception of Amendment 70, which we have not heard about yet, and while my brain is still thinking about the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, these proposals feel less like a serious answer to today’s housing challenges and more like a re-run of policies that were already tested and found wanting. Take Clause 16, the power to give housing providers the right to raise rents as tenants get higher wages. I can imagine the dinner table conversation: “Great news: I’ve been promoted! I’m getting some extra money. We’ll get above ‘just about managing’. It might give us the cushion we need. But wait: won’t they put our rent up if they find out we’re earning more? Perhaps I won’t take that promotion”. We could not support a measure that would dampen self-improvement and aspiration, let alone the logistics of administering it. With regard to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young, how does one logistically monitor those sorts of things within a tenancy?

As Liberal Democrats, we took a very different approach from the Conservative Benches in supporting the renters’ rights reform. We believe that people deserve a secure home, not a tenancy that comes with a built-in expiry date and the constant threat of upheaval. It cannot be right that, just as we strengthen security for private renters, we simultaneously ask social tenants—who, as has been amplified, are those in the greatest need of stability—to accept less.

Of course social housing must be used fairly and responsibly, and we are getting into that dialogue now, but fairness is achieved not by making tenancies more precarious but by building more homes and supporting tenants to move when it is right for them. I know that is tricky, but it can be done. One area where it needs to be done most is in the freeing up of family homes. Usually, this means a widow occupying a three-bedroom family house, when she could move down to a nice ground-floor, one-bedroom flat. This can be done, but we must ensure that the system works with people and not against them.

In our view, these amendments would take us in the wrong direction. They would revive a failed approach and undermine the progress that is trying to be made. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that the people whom we now house are very different. The statistics support that many people in social housing receive benefits, even though they are working. Therefore, I am not sure about what the noble Lord says with regard to private sector rents and whether people’s lives would improve so much that they could pay them in the same area. The cohorts that we are housing now do not seem to bear that out.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I will respond first to the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, to oppose Clause 14 standing part of the Bill. I understand that this is a probing amendment seeking more detail on the Government’s rationale for repealing the powers. It is essential that local housing authorities have flexibility to manage their stock in a way that best enables them to meet the needs of their local communities. Clause 14 therefore removes provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 that would have forced councils to sell their highest-value council homes whenever they became vacant. I say “would have forced” because these provisions were never implemented.

Even so, the presence of the provisions on the statute book had a very negative effect on local authorities’ spending plans, since they could not be certain of the income streams from these properties. The policy was intended to raise capital to supply new social homes but would ultimately have led to a net loss in social housing. The last Government chose never to implement these measures due to the negative impact they would have had on local authorities. We are now going one step further by repealing the provisions altogether. That time is now, and Clause 14 fulfils that commitment, so I commend it to the Committee.

I turn to Clause 15 and Amendments 66, 77 and 78. All these relate to the Government’s intention to repeal uncommenced provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which would have required most new secure tenancies offered by local authorities to be fixed term. I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has just said. The Government fundamentally believe that people, families and communities all benefit from secure homes. That is why we enabled this for private renters through the Renters’ Rights Act. It would be entirely counterintuitive to remove that security from social housing tenants.

The probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, explores alternatives to lifetime tenancies, and Amendment 77, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, seeks to clarify that social landlords can continue to grant fixed-term tenancies. Nothing in the Bill prevents local housing authorities from granting fixed-term tenancies where they consider it to be appropriate—for example, to support time-limited resettlement schemes for Afghan and other refugee cohorts. The Bill does not change that. Schedule 3, paragraph 1 repeals uncommenced provisions that would have required most new secure tenancies to be granted on a fixed-term basis. Those provisions were never brought into force, and we are removing them to provide clarity. We want to make it clear that we support lifetime tenancies because they provide stability and security for tenants and help people put down roots in their communities. It is not right to require that most new tenants be offered fixed-term tenancies, as this would reduce their security.

Amendment 78 would require a review of the provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 which would have replaced lifetime secure tenancies with fixed-term tenancies for new tenants. However, as we discussed, those provisions were never commenced, and the Bill repeals them. It is therefore not possible to review the measures. The Government already collect data on new social housing lettings, including tenancy type and length of fixed-term tenancies. We therefore already have an established source of information on how fixed-term tenancies are being used. The stock management review, which we are currently undertaking, is the right place to consider the issues highlighted for proposed review, rather than requiring a separate statutory review of provisions that were never brought into force. For those reasons, I ask that the amendments be withdrawn.

Turning to Clause 16, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for Amendment 80, which would allow higher rents to be charged to higher-income social housing tenants. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has set out her intention to oppose Clause 16 standing part of the Bill. The Government are reviewing both the statutory social housing allocations guidance and how social landlords are making effective use of their existing stock. Taken together, these amendments would, in effect, reintroduce the pay-to-stay policy, which was included in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 but never implemented. In fact, Amendment 80 would go even further than the current provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 by requiring registered providers, as well as local housing authorities, to charge higher rents to higher-income tenants.

As I previously noted, these pay-to-stay provisions were never implemented, and the original provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 received strong objections from noble Lords during the passage of that legislation. Indeed, the previous Government chose not to commence them as the costs outweighed the benefits. Social landlords already have flexibility to run discretionary schemes for higher-earning tenants, and it is right to maintain that approach. I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said: we want to avoid creating disincentives for tenants to increase their earnings, and avoid curtailing their aspirations and ambitions, through this process. For those reasons, these amendments are not necessary. I ask that they be withdrawn, and I commend Clause 16 to the Committee. Finally, I turn to Amendment 70, from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. This would require a social landlord to conduct a tenancy review where a tenant is engaged in persistent anti-social behaviour. During the passage of the Renters’ Rights Act, I spoke about the challenges of tackling anti-social behaviour and drew on my 27 years of experience as a local councillor. No tenant should feel unsafe in their home as a result of the behaviour of others. Where behaviour is persistent and has a serious impact on neighbours and communities, landlords must be able to respond quickly and appropriately.

18:45:00

Social landlords already have a wide range of tools to tackle anti-social behaviour, and the Regulator of Social Housing’s neighbour and community standard already requires registered providers to work with relevant partners to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidents. Recent legislation has strengthened these powers even further. The Crime and Policing Act, which received Royal Assent in April, has strengthened the powers available to the police and other agencies, including stronger measures to deal with the most persistent offenders. The Renters’ Rights Act has also shortened the notice period for the mandatory anti-social behaviour eviction ground; once implemented in the social rented sector, landlords will be able to make a claim to the court faster in cases of anti-social behaviour. In that context, much of what this amendment seeks to achieve is already available through existing powers and regulatory requirements. The amendment risks duplicating existing routes. For those reasons, the amendment is not necessary, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)I thank all those who have contributed to this debate, especially my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I thank the Minister for the response. I hope she realises that these amendments were tabled in view of our previous amendments and in light of trying to make best use of the stock available. However, we accept what the Minister is saying. These amendments are probing ones to explain some of those options, but I accept the Government’s response.

Clause 14 agreed.

Clause 15 agreed.

Schedule 3Secure, introductory and demoted tenancies: uncommenced legislation etc

Amendment 66 not moved.

Schedule 3 agreed.

Clause 16 agreed.

Amendment 67

Moved by

67: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Health and safety lead: Parliamentary procedureIn section 320 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (orders and regulations), in subsection (7)(d), for “sections 70 and 72” substitute “those sections referred to in subsection (3)(d)”.” Member’s explanatory statement Section 320(3)(d) HRA 2008 applies affirmative procedure to regulations under section 126A of that Act. Section 126A is not expressly excepted from section 320(7)(d) (which applies negative procedure), and so there could be uncertainty about which resolution procedure applies. This amendment would prevent any such doubt.

Amendment 67 agreed.

Amendment 68

Moved by

68: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Local connection requirements(1) The Secretary of State must, using powers under section 166A(7) and 167(3) of the Housing Act 1996, require that local housing authorities ensure that reasonable preference in allocations policies takes account of local connection.(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), local connection includes—(a) residence,(b) employment,(c) family association, or(d) service in His Majesty’s Armed Forces.(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations issue guidance on the implementation of subsections (1) and (2).(4) 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 would strengthen local connection considerations in social housing allocations.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 68, 69, 74, 81, 82, 84 and 113 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. All amendments in this group are united by a simple principle: social housing is a scarce and valuable resource. As we have heard in previous debates, demand exceeds supply in many parts of the country. It is therefore essential that allocation policies are fair, transparent and command public confidence. Data from the House of Lords Library shows that each new social rent home requires a grant of between £80,000 and £100,000 in order to be built. Those figures are for outside of London; I do not have the figures for London, but I suspect that they will be higher.

Amendment 68 seeks to strengthen the consideration given to local connections when allocating social housing. If we are to build homes, we need to bring the communities affected with us. As a councillor in Central Bedfordshire, I have frequently experienced local concern that housing is being built for Londoners, not locals. In many cases, that is not the case, but it is the concern. The Minister has related stories of the difficulties she faced from the locals when Stevenage was originated as a new town. Communities are more likely to support new housing development when they can see that local people who have lived in, worked in and contributed to the area are given appropriate consideration. Strong local connection policies can help maintain confidence in the system while ensuring that housing is directed to those with genuine ties to the community in the area. Amendment 69 concerns eligibility for social housing among those who are not British citizens. Given the pressures that exist on housing waiting lists across the country, it is important that the Government are clear about who is eligible for social housing and that we ask whether reform is needed. Ultimately, this amendment is about the principles that underpin allocation of scarce public resources.

As of March 2023, there were approximately 1.33 million households on the local authority housing registers in England—the highest figures for a decade, and significantly higher than in recent years. Behind those statistics are families, pensioners, young people and vulnerable individuals, all waiting for access to secure and affordable accommodation. At the same time, 431,000 households in social housing had a lead tenant who was a non-UK national, representing around 10% of all social housing households. These figures inevitably raise legitimate questions about eligibility, prioritisation and fairness.

The purpose of this amendment is not to diminish the contribution that many non-citizens make to our country or to ignore the complexity of the individual circumstances. We are not saying that we should not support those who come to this country and contribute—but that does not mean that they should be entitled to potentially a lifetime council house at well below market rent. Indeed, that is why we want to have this debate—an honest and mature debate. When demand substantially exceeds supply, who should social housing be intended to serve? That reflects some of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s comments in the previous debate.

Many members of the public would reasonably expect that access to social housing should be closely linked to contribution, long-term commitment and belonging to this country. At the very least, Parliament and the public should have a clear understanding of who social housing is for. Public confidence in the social housing system depends greatly on the perception of fairness. I refer back to my comments that this requires a substantial upfront subsidy, which is particularly important at a time when waiting lists remain at historically high levels.

Amendment 74 similarly seeks greater clarity regarding the guidance on social housing eligibility in respect of certain foreign public officeholders and associated persons. This amendment arises in part from concerns highlighted by a recent high-profile case involving the First Lady of Sierra Leone. That case raised significant public concern and has rightly received widespread scrutiny. I appreciate that that has now been resolved, but it took 12 months from the public becoming aware. It is not about a single individual or a single country. Rather, where individuals hold senior public office overseas or are closely associated with those who do, is it not reasonable to ask whether existing eligibility rules are sufficiently clear and robust? We seek clarity from the Government on this. Are existing checks and information-sharing arrangements sufficient? Are local authorities equipped to identify circumstances in which an applicant’s position, assets or access to resources overseas may be relevant to eligibility decisions?

Amendment 81 would require regular reviews of income eligibility thresholds. It is important that eligibility criteria remain aligned with economic realities and reflect changes in incomes, housing costs and local circumstances. Thresholds that are not regularly reviewed risk becoming detached from the conditions they were designed to address.

Amendments 82 and 84 seek better information. One would require estimates of social housing demand arising from net migration. The other would require an assessment of the impact of temporary asylum accommodation on local social housing demand. Whatever views noble Lords may take on wider immigration policy, effective public policy depends on understanding demand. Local authorities cannot plan effectively unless they have a clear picture of the pressures affecting housing needs in their areas.

Amendment 113 would require housing register applications to be reviewed periodically to ensure that waiting lists remain accurate and up to date. Given the pressures on social housing supply, it is important that waiting lists reflect genuine and current need.

I was particularly interested in Amendments 93 and 94, concerning prison leavers and former offenders. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for his long-standing work on prison reform and rehabilitation. The cost of reoffending both to society and to the public purse is enormous. Amendment 94 is a measured proposal that seeks to improve the sharing of information between prisons and local authorities, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing this amendment forward.

Together, these amendments seek to ensure that social housing policy is informed by accurate information, fairer eligibility criteria and a clear understanding of housing demand, seeking to get local community support. I beg to move.

Baroness Teather (LD)My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendment 91 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. It is a modest amendment, asking simply that the Secretary of State conduct review of veterans’ access to social housing and report to Parliament within 12 months of this Act passing. It does not prescribe outcomes or impose new burdens on local authorities; it asks the Government to look and just tell us what they find. I recognise that much action has been taken here, but it is difficult for us to make reasonable judgments about what is working and what is not without us getting the data and being able to see how things are working out in practice.

I turn to the case for this amendment. Between 2018 and 2024, the number of homeless veteran households in England rose by nearly 25%, from 1,820 to 2,270, according to MHCLG’s homelessness data. The most recent figures, for 2024-25, record over 2,000 veteran households at risk of or experiencing homelessness, and those are only the ones who have approached a local authority for help. The ONS veterans survey suggests that the true number may be closer to 7,500 people, many of whom will never appear in any official count.

The Government have made some welcome changes in recent months, and I really acknowledge that. The December 2024 regulations removed the five-year sunset on the local connection exemption, ensuring that no veteran, regardless of how long ago they left service, can be turned away from a housing register simply for lacking local ties. Updated guidance now explicitly extends additional preference to veterans with service-related mental health conditions, including PTSD. Those are real improvements, and they deserve recognition, but guidance is not the same as accountability. Additional preference does not guarantee placement in the highest band and, in many authorities, even the highest bands involve long waits, because there is just not enough social housing stock. Shelter has noted that the rights veterans hold in practice depend heavily on individual local authority policy and can vary enormously from one area to the next.

There are particular concerns about veterans with service-related disabilities and complex needs. Around 16% of veteran households receiving new social lettings include someone injured or disabled as a result of their service. Specialist adapted accommodation is limited— I spoke about this at Second Reading. I feel particularly passionately about the need to improve the stock of adapted housing because my husband is disabled and we know how difficult it is to find any housing in the private sector or the social sector, which we have not benefited from. If there is simply not enough anywhere, it is difficult for anybody with any disability to do anything other than find themselves waiting for a long time on the social housing waiting list.

Operation Fortitude’s 900 units of veteran supported housing typically run at full capacity. A 2021 review found no new policy introductions for wounded, injured or sick veterans since 2016. The data picture is deeply inadequate. The Government do not publish national figures on how many veterans are on social housing waiting lists. MHCLG’s own lettings statistics acknowledge that between 18% and 44% of local authorities provide complete information on veterans on their registers—that is quite a variation. We cannot evaluate whether the system is working when we cannot see it clearly.

19:00:00

Without a comprehensive review, we are left with fragmented data, inconsistent local practice and no reliable national picture. This amendment would change that. A report of this kind, laid before Parliament, would give us for the first time a clear and authoritative account of the level of social housing provision for veterans across England. We would be able to see how the system is working, where it is falling short and what still needs to be done to change things for the better. That is the foundation for informed policy, and it is the least we owe to those who have served this country.

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 93 in my name and in support of my noble friend Lady Teather on her Amendment 91. My noble friend has made a compelling case for considering access to social housing for former service personnel who have served their country, often in foreign areas, moving from one posting to another. Their personal and home life will have been disrupted and sometimes their relationships have broken down, leaving them without a home to return to at the end of their term of service. Many service personnel will have suffered mental health breakdowns due to the level of stress they experienced in their postings. It is right that those who have served their country with bravery should be able to access a decent home on their discharge. I fully support my noble friend’s amendment.

I turn now to the support required by ex-offenders. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, also has an amendment down to support ex-offenders, and I look forward to his contribution. My amendment is a probing one. On being sentenced and imprisoned, many offenders find that their immediate family and relatives abandon them, sometimes because it is simply too far for them to travel to visit. The expense of a long rail journey and taxi fares at either end are too much for those on limited incomes. Sometimes the length of the sentence can mean that the offender loses all contact with the area they were originally living in. Their rented accommodation is lost, and they have no home to return to. On release, many find that they have nowhere to stay. There are, of course, probation hostels, but these are short term and may not be in a convenient area for those on release.

During the course of their sentence, an offender may have put a tremendous amount of effort into getting the basic grade qualifications in English and maths in readiness for his or her future life. On nearing the end of their sentence, and in preparing for parole, they may have applied for and been successful in getting an offer of employment, perhaps in Asda or another supermarket or outlet. They are essentially set up to be released, to be self-sufficient and to rebuild their life. However, if they have no accommodation, they are at a severe disadvantage. Even if they have a job offer, with no accommodation they are likely to end up sleeping rough, and within a very short period they will be picked up—possibly by criminal gangs, often drug dealers—and offered so-called “safe” accommodation out of the rain in return for what might be trailed as a “minor” drug deal. Within a matter of days of their release, they will be back in prison, with an additional tariff on their sentence. Instead of being able to support themselves and rebuild their lives, they are, despite their best endeavours, continuing to being detained at the taxpayer’s expense. This is a lose-lose scenario that is nothing like the win-win they had been working towards.

Unless statistics are collected on an authority-by-authority basis on how easy or otherwise it is for ex-offenders to access social housing, it will not be possible to be sure that their needs are being met. Ex-offenders, on release, have served their debt to society and help should be provided to allow them to rebuild their lives. Recording statistics will help local authorities and the Government to assess whether they are meeting this need and, thereby, preventing reoffending.

I realise that there are many claims for special treatment to be considered when allocating social housing. However, the category of ex-offenders should receive some consideration. The consequence of being detained, especially for a long sentence, has devastating effects on all involved. Often, those released after such a sentence feel exposed and uncertain about how to cope, and need help to take them forward. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this group, in particular to Amendments 91, 93 and 94.

Lord Farmer (Con)My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I will be following along with her arguments but will speak to my Amendment 94. I start by thanking the Minister for the helpful meeting I had yesterday with her officials.

Amendment 94 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. This is the point of the amendment. About 10 years ago, I started working with the Ministry of Justice on prison reform, specifically conducting two reviews on how prisoners could maintain family and other key relational ties to prevent their reoffending. I am still involved in the implementation of the recommendations of those reviews, but I am beginning to feel a little like an IPP prisoner with no set date for release.

My amendment would contribute to a collective refocus on offender rehabilitation, which is much needed if we are to have any hope of reducing our prison population and the criminal justice budget. Reoffending costs this country £18 billion a year. Releasing prisoners into homelessness, and especially rough sleeping, single-handedly undermines any rehabilitation activity they have ever undertaken. Their proven reoffending rate, 76%, is more than twice that for those released from custody into settled accommodation, at 36.4%.

I have been told that existing legislation to prevent homelessness is adequate. However, there appears to be very little accountability regarding local housing authorities’ compliance with that law, which I will touch on briefly. Some are far more effective than others at finding accommodation for ex-prisoners. This is not simply about available housing stock, but the processes they follow and how well they work in partnership with prison and probation. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman reports, for example, that several London boroughs are frequently problematic, while others with very pressured housing markets are not. Similarly, in 2025, the London Assembly Housing Committee reported inconsistent practice across London boroughs with weak co-ordination between prisons, probation and borough housing teams.

My amendment seeks to tighten up the rather loose legal framework, which is not delivering as it should. Ministry of Justice data says that almost 13,000 people left prison homeless or as rough sleepers in the year to April 2025—a 39% rise from the previous year. My amendment’s reporting requirements would reveal how local authorities compare with their statistical neighbours. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 introduced a duty on public authorities, including prison and probation, to refer those at threat of homelessness to local authority housing teams, because they would be released within about two months and have nowhere to go. Looking briefly at how that should work, statutory guidance says, rather weakly, that

“Housing authorities are encouraged to … acknowledge receipt of any referral”,

which

“may be in the form of an automatic email reply”. If that is all the prison is getting and there is no feedback loop, the referral may have simply entered a bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle. Non-statutory guidance says:

“The duty to refer will help to ensure that services are working together effectively to prevent homelessness … It is also anticipated”—

which, again, sounds a little weak—

“that it will encourage local housing authorities and other public authorities to build strong partnerships which enable them to work together to intervene earlier to prevent homelessness through increasingly integrated services”.

However, the local housing authority is merely required to contact the prisoner being referred. The guidance also states merely:

“It is good practice for local housing authorities to go beyond referral procedures and work with other public authorities to prepare a comprehensive assessment of need”

for the prisoner. Where is the grip on local authorities? They are paid from the public purse to obey the law. They are, or should be, accountable for spending and saving public money. Reducing reoffending by just 1% would save £180 million.

My amendment would enable regulations to specify how local housing authorities must respond to referrals. Regulations would specify response times they would need to work to, including when they would need to notify a final decision, and require them to inform the prison or the Probation Service as well as the prisoner. Prisons have a strong legal duty of care towards prisoners and are responsible for pre-release planning. They also need this information and cannot rely on prisoners passing it on to them. The London Assembly Housing Committee found that prisons are not consistently complying with the duty to refer, with late referrals from prison contributing greatly to uncertainty; hence, the regulations are tightening the process at their end as well.

To conclude, currently there are many gaps in the system that we need to close so that soon-to-be-released individuals no longer fall through them. Without accommodation, as we have heard from other noble Lords, they cannot seek work, restructure their lives or take ownership of their rehabilitation. It can be a matter of life or death. Just last month, a Guardian investigation reported record numbers of deaths within two weeks of release in 2025, a 28% rise since 2021. The primary driver, according to experts, is a rise in prisoners being released into homelessness and falling through “trapdoors to crisis”. The duty to refer was designed to prevent this wherever possible. Almost 10 years on from the Act that introduced it, we must acknowledge that it is not working as it should be for ex-prisoners. The Bill provides the perfect opportunity to fix it.

Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to these amendments, and it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Farmer: he is one of the most indefatigable and persistent champions of the family and of the education and rehabilitation of prisoners, and I commend the work he has done over many years.

As a constituency MP, I had a prison in my constituency. I was once critical of what I thought was the cushy lifestyle of the women’s wing of the prison—it was a coterminous prison, men and women—because it provided aromatherapy in the gym. I criticised this, as the local MP, and of course the Sun put it on the front page, with the immortal headline, “In for a stretch”, which was quite amusing. The serious point is that we can spend very significant amounts of money to make sure that prisoners can read and write, understand civic engagement and have meaningful work, but that is all completely wasted if, when they leave prison, they go back into the clutches of the nefarious and criminal classes, particularly drug dealers.

I commend both noble Baronesses on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The noble Baroness, Lady Teather, will not remember, but we worked together, many moons ago when she was Children’s Minister in the other place, on the rather niche subject of children with Tourette’s syndrome—she did a great job in that role in the coalition Government. Both noble Baronesses are absolutely right that we need to focus. These are permissive amendments to focus on collecting and collating as much data as possible on both ex-offenders and Armed Forces personnel. That is all that these amendments ask for and I heartily concur with all the later amendments in this group.

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I will be a little more controversial about the first two amendments, which are about collecting data on a local link and on British citizenship. I was rather disappointed, I confess, at Second Reading that we had some pearl clutching from the Liberal Democrat Benches, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Scott, about the number of people in social housing in Greater London who were born overseas. I have to ask the fundamental question, in supporting my noble friend on the Front Bench: in what other country in the world would we nonchalantly accept that people who have not paid taxes, who were born abroad, who are not British citizens, should have very valuable social housing?

I accept that the figure of 47.6% in London is extremely high. I accept that, of the 377,000 people in that group who are lead tenants, there are a significant number who have obtained British citizenship. That is fine: they should have access, if there is a housing need, to local authority and registered provider housing. I accept that completely. The beauty of Amendment 69, though, is that it is colour-blind. It is about fairness and equity. It is not about religion, ethnicity or background; it is about citizenship, and I think it is important to focus on that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said she found it disconcerting that that was brought up by my noble friend, but she might also recognise that in her own local borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, there are 19,000 households on the waiting list. The latest figures for Watford, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, will be aware of, is 1,322 households waiting for housing from the local housing association; Watford does not provide direct housing support in terms of council housing. Some 16% of the entire housing stock across the whole UK is rented by people who were not born in the UK.

Bear in mind that these are very scarce properties that are heavily subsidised by mainstream taxation in the first place, so I do think it is fair for us to look at that as an issue that at least needs to be reviewed, because we all accept that there has been a shortage of council house building over the years. My noble friend Lord Fuller would contest that that is not the case in south Norfolk, where he was leader of the council, but in most local authorities that has been the case. If we are focusing through the prism of fairness and equity, we have to accept that we have a duty to our own citizens, to working families, working people, and not to warehouse welfare dependency. That does not presuppose that we lock out everyone born abroad; this is not what that amendment is about.

As for Amendment 68, on local connection, in the name of my noble friends, it must be right that we support local people, local residents, local family connections, local employment, family associations and service in His Majesty’s Armed Forces. There was a time when this would have been a policy adopted by any Labour politician at a local level. When I was a councillor in a London borough, it would not have been an alien idea to have a local connection. In fact, when I was on the housing committee in the London Borough of Ealing, we had a very high score for those who had a local connection.

These are sensible amendments. Of course, it would be naive to assume that Amendment 69 is not controversial, because it is. There is a big political debate about citizenship, identity, culture and the provision of public services, and I accept all that. However, the Government certainly need to look at the two amendments. On that basis, can the Minister provide a reason why Amendment 68 would not be adopted, and why Amendment 69, in the name of my noble friend, would also not be looked upon favourably by the Labour Government?

Baroness Lawlor (Con)My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and I support all the amendments in this group, particularly those from the noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Bakewell, my noble friends Lord Farmer and Lord Jackson, and those on the Front Bench, which support a review of policy and better information for making policy on politically sensitive matters such as immigration and narrowing the eligibility clause.

In seeking information on accessing social housing and the demand for it, such as that arising from net migration and temporary asylum, we should not forget the context in which these demands are made. It is a question at the centre of our national debate, one which has too often eroded trust in politics and democracies. That is not limited to the UK. Right across stable western systems such as France, Germany and Italy, this question is at the heart of the erosion of trust and the changing shape of democratic stability, which many are worried about. That is the wider context for the immigration amendments. We should not brush this issue, and the pressure it puts on the demand for social housing, under the carpet.

In considering immigration and asylum, we are looking at particularly significant demands, which might, in time, come to outweigh current pressures, if the figures we see today are to lead in any way to a demand for social housing. In the year ending September 2025, 58,148 people were granted protection and leave to remain at the initial decision. Where will they live? Will they add to the pressures and burdens on social housing? We need to know the evidence and the figures and not brush this question under the carpet. In addition, 46,497 illegal migrants were known to have arrived in the year ending December 2025. They may end up being granted leave to remain, given that the Government are trying to process many of them as asylum claims, which will pose additional demands.

Then we have the student visa question. Some 443,000 visas were granted last year. Analysis by a Sky journalist recently showed that, in the latest year for which figures are available, the number of asylum claims by people who had originally come on student visas was 14,800 out of a total of 111,000, meaning that student visa holders have been switching to being asylum seekers. For some, there may be good reason. They may have come from countries in which they would be persecuted and seek asylum when they get here. Having a student visa is the only way to get out. However, for others, such as the Indian nationals this report particularly mentions, a scam operated. In one case, the papers were filled in fraudulently for one member of the family—the lady—and she and her husband came on student visas. However, she had no intention of studying. As a family, they had no money—certainly not the bank account figures that were in the papers. The local authority discussed their case and awarded benefits because they simply could not afford to live, and they have now made their asylum claim.

These kinds of hard-luck stories—and nobody denies that they are hard-luck stories—are pushing up the claims and the demand for social housing. We need evidence so that we can have an open and fair debate. For these reasons, I support the proposed prohibition on granting social housing to anybody but UK citizens, as my noble friends’ various amendments propose.

Before closing, I want to comment on the amendments that seek better information on social housing access for veterans, the case for which was very well argued by the noble Baroness, Lady Teather. I referred on Second Reading to the case of a homeless person at King’s Cross Station who lived hand to mouth and day to day because he was evicted from his council house when his daughter was run over by a cab driver, who was accused and convicted of dangerous driving. She was his sole carer. He had served in the Royal Marines for well over a decade, including in Afghanistan, and because of injuries sustained in serving, he had to be looked after all his life. They were in council housing, and he was evicted after his daughter died because she held the tenancy.

I support the amendments on greater information on offenders, who are some of the saddest cases we have. The literacy levels of as many as 56% of prisoners are less than the reading age of seven, meaning that they are excluded from any kind of literate society. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Farmer’s excellent work for offenders, but I also agree that unless we insist that they be given housing priority, they will go back to a life of crime. As much of the evidence shows, they will go back to crime, as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, explained, or to the people who were part of their previous crime network. They have been abandoned by their families—their husbands, wives, children—and others who looked after them. These are very good amendments and I support them.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)My noble friends have outlined their cases themselves, so I will just clutch my pearls and resist having a ding-dong with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—which I could, for reasons that will become apparent in my speech.

I will speak carefully on this group, because I have real concerns. I am not going to go into the detail of the individual amendments, but my concerns are the direction and tone that they take when looked at together. Looked at as a whole, they approach access to social housing primarily through restriction and exclusion, with a strong emphasis on immigration status and migration pressures. I understand the political context in which these amendments are being brought forward, but I do not believe this is a helpful or responsible way to address the housing crisis or solve immigration matters. The fundamental driver of pressure on social housing is not who is applying for it; it is the chronic shortage of genuinely affordable homes. Framing access as a competition between groups risks obscuring that reality and diverting attention away from the real task of increasing supply.

19:30:00

I am particularly concerned about the impact on vulnerable groups. Measures that tighten eligibility or add further barriers inevitably fall hardest on people already facing disadvantage: those fleeing domestic abuse, people in insecure work, care leavers, refugees with recognised status, and others whose lives are already marked by instability. Restricting access does not remove need; it simply makes that need more precarious.

Local authorities already operate carefully balanced allocation systems. We already do that and have done it for years—I remember I really had to think hard about local connection and extending it to five years. This is already done. Local authorities do this in complex circumstances and with limited resources. Adding further nationally driven restrictions risks making those systems more rigid and less humane, without solving the underlying problem.

I am also uneasy about the extent to which housing policy is being drawn into a wider political narrative around migration. We are seeing this not only in this country but across Europe, where housing and public services are increasingly politicised as proxies for much broader debates, sometimes with devastating consequences. Housing policy should be about meeting need and providing stability, not about signalling or blame.

Social housing did not create migration pressures and it cannot resolve them. What it can do, if properly supported, is provide secure homes to people, based on clear, fair and locally determined criteria. The Liberal Democrats believe in fairness, compassion and evidence-based policy. We believe that housing should bring communities together and should not be used to divide them. We also believe that politicians have a duty to show leadership in this regard and not abrogate responsibility for the consequences these issues provoke. It will be no surprise that we oppose these amendments.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, this group of amendments is about access to and eligibility for social housing. I want to make two opening points. First, it is important that debate on these issues is conducted carefully and respectfully, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said. Language that stigmatises or mischaracterises people living in or applying for social housing is simply not acceptable. Secondly, I remind noble Lords that there is an extensive review of social housing allocations statutory guidance currently being undertaken, which will consider many of the issues raised as part of this group.

I will address specifically Amendments 69, 74, 82 and 84, from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. In 2024-25, 89% of lead tenants in new social housing lettings were UK nationals, 4% were European nationals and 8% were from outside the European Economic Area—broadly the same as the previous year. Eligibility for social housing is tightly controlled. If a person’s visa prevents access to state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for social housing. Only eligible people can join waiting lists and receive a tenancy. Where foreign nationals are eligible, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other eligible applicants, in accordance with the local authority’s housing allocation scheme.

On 20 November, the Government announced the biggest reforms to the legal migration system in 50 years. These reforms will build a fairer immigration system for British people, while doing the right thing by migrants who have built their lives here and contributed to our community, the economy and public services. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, that I do not think we need to take lessons on asylum from the party opposite, which totally lost control of the system. That is still having an impact on housing and social housing now. We are addressing the system as a whole, which is the right approach, rather than stigmatising those who live in social housing. That is why we oppose Amendment 69. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, clearly outlined, the problem here is the lack of available social housing. We cannot blame other people for that —what we need to do is crack on and build some more.

Amendment 74, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, would give the Secretary of State power to issue guidance on eligibility for foreign public office holders and associated persons. That power and guidance are unnecessary. The Secretary of State already has a power under Section 196 of the Housing Act 1996 to issue guidance on social housing allocations. Foreign public office holders and associated persons are already subject to local authority allocation rules. Authorities can apply qualification rules such as local connection and income tests to reflect local priorities. I remember the very same debate in my own authority around the five-year local connection test. There is therefore no need for this power. It would not be appropriate for me to comment here in the Chamber on the specific case raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, but I draw Members’ attention to the statement from Southwark Council on that issue. Amendments 82 and 84, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, would both require assessments that we do not think are necessary. Amendment 82 would require an assessment of social housing demand arising from net migration. Social housing demand depends on many factors and the effect of migration is not direct, so a yearly assessment would not be proportionate. Demand for social housing comes from a multitude of factors that are likely to be correlated, including economic conditions and a range of government policies. It is artificial and potentially misleading to seek to neatly and reliably separate the impact of net migration from other factors.

Amendment 84 would require an assessment of the impact of temporary asylum accommodation on local social housing demand. It is important to reiterate that asylum seekers are not eligible for social housing, so they will not be adding to demand for social housing. Where an individual is granted refugee status, they may subsequently approach a local authority for housing support. Whether they access social housing will depend on meeting local authority allocation policies, including any local connection or residency tests.

I want to highlight the progress made on sharing asylum pressures more fairly across the country. Since 2022, the Home Office has shifted from a model where asylum accommodation was concentrated in a small number of areas to one where all local authorities share responsibility, with each allocated a defined, evidence-based share of demand.

Much of the data sought in the amendment is already available. My department collects and publishes extensive information on social housing waiting lists and allocations, including data on new lettings and household characteristics. The Home Office regularly publishes a breakdown by local authority of accommodated asylum seekers, and my department publishes the homelessness duties owed to those as a result of leaving asylum support as part of statutory homelessness statistics. With this explanation, I kindly ask that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, does not press these amendments.

Amendment 68, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, seeks to require local housing authorities to take account of local connection when considering if an applicant for social housing should be awarded reasonable preference for an allocation of social housing. Local connection tests help local housing authorities manage social housing stock and are best placed to set the rules to ensure homes meet local housing pressures and that policies take account of the local context. We seem to have a bit of a theme of wanting to centralise these issues, but local authorities can set out in their allocation scheme that they will consider local connection as part of prioritisation. The vast majority, 89%, are choosing to consider it at an earlier stage as part of the qualification for the housing register, and we do not see the need to remove this choice from local housing authorities. I ask the noble Baroness not to press this amendment.

Amendment 113 would require local authorities to review applications on their housing register every three years. I of course support accurate and up-to-date housing registers and expect local authorities to review data regularly. However, it is for local authorities to determine how best to do that as part of how they manage their local social housing allocations schemes. This enables them to design schemes in a way that fits local priorities. A full review of the housing register might not always be the most efficient way to maintain an effective register. An applicant’s eligibility and qualification for social housing will be reassessed at the point of a home being allocated, so having ineligible households on a housing register does not mean that they will get social housing. With that, I kindly ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.

Amendments 91 and 93, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Bakewell, would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on access to social housing for former members of the Armed Forces and former offenders respectively. This Government are committed to making sure that those who have served and their families have access to social housing. Current and former members of the Armed Forces community benefit from strong protections in the allocations framework, including receiving the highest preference where they have housing need. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, for recognising the work that the Government have done on that. Where local connection or residency tests apply, legislation exempts the Armed Forces community, regardless of when they last served, ensuring that they are not disadvantaged. There is also statutory guidance in place on improving access to social housing for members of the Armed Forces.

The noble Baroness, Lady Teather, referred to access to social housing even for those in the highest bands. I understand her point. That is why our Government have placed such a high priority on the delivery of new social housing. It is the lack of housing that prevents people in high bands getting it, not whether they are a priority. I will make further remarks on her valid points on adapted housing when they come up in a later group.

With our review of statutory guidance on social housing allocations already under way, we do not need to conduct separate reviews for specific groups such as former members of the Armed Forces or former offenders, so I kindly ask the noble Baronesses, Lady Teather and Lady Bakewell, not to press their amendments.

Amendment 94, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, seeks to ensure that local housing authorities get the information necessary to provide housing to prison leavers at risk of homelessness. This amendment focuses on an issue that my department and the Ministry of Justice are committed to tackling. I spoke to my noble friend Lord Timpson just yesterday about this, and my officials also met with the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, yesterday, as he said, to discuss his proposal in more detail. I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s work on this issue.

Supporting people into stable accommodation from their first night out of prison is critical to reducing homelessness and reoffending, as those without stable accommodation are more likely to reoffend, as we have heard. I support the intent of this amendment in reducing prison leaver homelessness. All prisons and probation services are already subject to the duty to refer under Section 213B of the Housing Act 1996. This requires them to refer anyone who is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless to a local housing authority of the person’s choice. We continue to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to ensure that this process works as effectively as possible. My department also already collects data on the number of prison leavers provided with social housing by local housing authorities on release from prison and publishes this annually. Therefore, I ask that the noble Lord does not press his amendment, but my officials remain happy to have further conversations with him, if that would be helpful.

Finally, Amendment 81 seeks to create a new statutory requirement for the Government regularly to review income eligibility thresholds for social housing. As I have made clear, eligibility for social housing is considered through the allocations process. The Government do not set income eligibility thresholds; they are set by local authorities and private registered providers. This allows them to set thresholds that reflect the local context. I do not believe that it would be an appropriate use of resources for the Government to review every one of those independently set thresholds. The evidence is that it would cost more to implement than it would raise in revenue. A regular review would also penalise tenants for earning more and could lead to incentives to reduce working hours to avoid higher rent.

Income should not be equated with housing need or a lack of housing need. Some households may have additional needs or circumstances that mean that social housing remains the only viable or appropriate option for them. This can be the case, even where their income may be somewhat higher than others on the waiting list. Therefore, I ask that this amendment is not pressed.

Lord Jamieson (Con)I would like to go back to one point that the Minister raised on the review of housing waiting lists. She made the perfectly valid point that someone may have registered on the housing waiting list with a certain series of circumstances and that those will be tested at the allocation point. I accept that. However, the point we were trying to make is that the housing waiting list includes data that is used in making a variety of decisions on the prioritisation of what should be built and so on. Our view is that that data needs to be accurate. What can the Minister say on that point?

19:45:00

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)In my experience, most local authorities do exactly what the noble Lord is suggesting: they very carefully take account of the information submitted by applicants for the waiting register when they apply for it. I think that those processes are already in place.

Lord Jamieson (Con)I am sorry; I must be talking at cross-purposes. My point is that, given the length of time that people will be on the housing register, circumstances will change, and therefore what was put on one or two years ago may no longer be accurate. This is about having up-to-date, accurate data on the housing register, so that the council can make good decisions on policy, not on a particular allocation.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Again, I place great trust in our local housing authorities; they regularly assess their applicants. That has been even more the case as the availability of social housing has become more and more scarce. Local authorities take these responsibilities very seriously. If there were a change to a circumstance that had not been recorded, that would certainly appear at the time of the allocation.

Baroness Lawlor (Con)Can the Minister say whether there is official evidence of when an application is made, and whether the authorities assess official documents supporting a request for housing? Just as a clarification, I certainly did not seek to stigmatise people who were seeking social housing. I asked for further evidence so that we could review the whole question in the round, but not stigmatise anyone.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Local authorities take a great deal of care when people apply for the social housing register, because they need to make sure that they meet their local provisions. That includes local connections, whether they have income eligibility and so on. They take great care in that respect. Most local authorities conduct regular reviews of the information they have—I will not say “all local authorities”, because I do not have the evidence in front of me to suggest that, but I think that nearly all of them do so.

Lord Jamieson (Con)I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. There have been a variety of views, so I will begin on the bits on which I think we generally agree.

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Farmer for his eloquent contribution, as well as to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. They looked at how we can better support former offenders and those leaving prison. We support the intentions behind both of their amendments, and we believe that local housing authorities should at least be given more information about prison leavers in need of housing.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, for her strong case on behalf of veterans. We too agree that those who have served in His Majesty’s Armed Forces should be prioritised in social housing allocation processes. She is right to highlight the needs of those with potential disabilities arising from their time serving in uniform. When I first became a councillor, one of the first cases I dealt with was a military family that fell between the cracks of the regulation and the allocation. That was before the Armed Forces covenant, so I was very pleased that we were able to change council policy to have much greater flexibility. That family was then housed to great benefit.

I raise the issue of disabilities. I am very conscious that we do not have enough good-quality social housing for people with high and complex disability needs. One of the points that I made earlier in the debate about right to buy is that it provides the resources to look at new housing. I give the example of Central Bedfordshire: we were using right-to-buy receipts to develop specialist housing. The Minister knows that we were doing that for older people’s housing, but we also did it for disabilities. It was an absolute delight when we went to see families. I know one person who was constrained in a wheelchair and had very little movement. He said that that was the first time he had ever been able to open the front door of his own home, because he had one of those little infrared buzzers. It can be transformational, and we need to look at that.

We are also in agreement, which the previous amendments reflect, that there is a need to look at prioritisation, whether for offenders, military or other groups. That is why we have some of our amendments in the group. We can all say the solution is more social homes, but we need to recognise that, for the moment, demand massively outstrips supply, and therefore, difficult choices will be made. For every family or person who gets a social home, there will be many who will miss out—all with good and deserving cases. We suggest that there needs to be an open and honest discussion on prioritisation.

As my noble friend Lord Jackson asked—and I thank him for his eloquent support, both for my amendments and for the other amendments in the group—where else do non-citizens get priority? Why should UK citizens not be a higher priority? Why should UK military personnel not be a higher priority than a non-UK citizen? This is a debate that we need to have. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 68 withdrawn.

Amendments 69 to 75 not moved.

Amendment 76

Moved by

76: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Standards relating to maintenance of social housing(1) The Secretary of State must publish guidance relating to standards for maintenance of social housing, in line with the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025 (S.I. 2025/1042).(2) Guidance under subsection (1) must include provision relating to—(a) damp and mould,(b) electrical safety,(c) response times for repairs, and(d) tenant complaints procedures.(3) Registered providers must have regard to guidance issued under this section.”Member's explanatory statement This amendment would require guidance relating to maintenance standards in social housing.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, the amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. As we seek to increase housing supply, how do we ensure that social housing is not only available but safe, well maintained, accessible and capable of supporting thriving communities? The debate about housing often focuses on numbers, and understandably so, when we face such a shortfall. However, quality matters just as much as quantity. People deserve homes that are safe, healthy and fit for modern living. Equally, they deserve neighbourhoods that are well designed and capable of supporting long-term community cohesion. Amendment 76 concerns maintenance standards in social housing. The purpose of the amendment is to probe whether the existing guidance is sufficient and whether tenants can have confidence that standards will be maintained consistently across the sector.

The importance of this issue has been brought into sharp focus in recent years following the tragic case of Awaab Ishak. His death exposed serious failures in housing management and highlighted the consequences when basic maintenance problems were not addressed quickly and effectively. The introduction of Awaab’s law was an important step forward, but it remains essential that providers have clear guidance and that expectations are consistently understood across the sector. Safe housing is not simply about the condition of a property when it is first built; it is also about how the property is maintained over the many years of occupation. Good maintenance protects tenants, preserves housing stock, and reduces costs in the long term. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond regarding his amendments. I beg to move.

Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 100 and the other amendments in my name. We have the Equality Act 2010, and the public sector equality duty, but it is clear that in social housing, as in so many other sectors of our society, these pieces of legislation and regulation, though well constructed and well intended, are not in every circumstance delivering for disabled people in their local communities, not least when it comes to their social housing needs and aspirations.

In Amendment 100, I suggest that it would be a thoroughly positive thing to have an inclusion by design standard set out in the Bill. Though it appears duplicative at first instance because of the previous legislation I referred to, it would be additive, clarifying, enabling and empowering, not just for disabled people but—by nature of being inclusive by design—for all people. Through that clarity, it would enable and empower the local authority and the landlords, who are working at the sharp end when it comes to the current social housing situation across the country. An inclusion by design standard would be something to rally around and a gleaming light that could focus attention and deliver for disabled people and all people, far more than what the current legislation specific to equalities achieves.

In Amendment 102, I seek to bring that starkly to life by suggesting accessibility and adaptive housing standards. There are standards that exist in this area currently, but to have something that brings together accessibility and adaptive housing in a clear statutory statement in the Bill would be empowering for all people, not least those who are trying to do their best to deliver on this provision. The amendment suggests a register which would clearly set out the list of adaptive and accessible housing countrywide. I know that the Minister will consider this to be centralisation, but I believe it would be empowering to all local authorities. In a sense, it is something that any other organisation and business would do. It is nothing more than having an asset register—a clear, up-to-date and real-time set of registers of what the provision is. It will enable local authorities to have clarity as to what might be available just across the way in enabling authority. I know that local authorities and landlords work incredibly hard with adjacent authorities and neighbouring organisations, but to have this provision in real time available to them would be assistive in that process. Because of new technologies, it would not need to be expensive, bureaucratic or burdensome. In fact, with some neat coding, it could very much take care of itself once established.

Similarly, on my amendment on accessibility of digital, it is right that local authorities and landlords seek to use digital means wherever they can, but it is critical that all those digital means are accessible to all in our local communities, and indeed that alternative means are always available.

The amendments are not duplicative, because what is more significant than housing? It is about the safety and security of having somewhere you can go, and when you close your front door, you can say, “This is me. This is us”. That provision, safety and security should be available and accessible to everybody across our communities, not least to disabled people. It cannot be right that just by dint of being a disabled person, for lack of accessible and adaptable accommodation, you have a longer wait on a list than a non-disabled person. These amendments would be assistive in that process. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

20:00:00

Earl Russell (LD)My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 85 in my name and respond to the other amendments in this group on behalf of these Benches. These amendments collectively address the design and accessibility of social housing. I am grateful to other noble Lords for their amendments in this important and interesting group.

I turn first to my Amendment 85. At Second Reading, I said that I was concerned not so much by what was in the Bill but by what was conspicuously absent. Our climate is changing faster than our policies. The Climate Change Committee’s recent report, A Well-Adapted UK , warns that 92% of existing homes are likely to over- heat by 2050. That is not a fringe projection but the central estimate of the best advice that is available to Parliament.

Social housing tenants are disproportionately elderly, often disabled and often living with chronic illness. They are more likely to live in urban flats that heat quickly and they cannot, in the main, afford air conditioning or to escape the urban heat island effect. In short, we are debating the homes of those most at risk of dying or suffering from extreme heat under a warming planet.

The UKHSA estimated that there were 2,803 excess deaths among people aged 65 and over in England during the summer of 2022 alone. Without action, heat-related deaths could increase sixfold, from around 1,600 a year today to some 10,000 a year by the 2050s. My amendment seeks to create a power requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations ensuring that all new social housing in England is designed and constructed to reduce the risk of overheating. It specifies that those regulations must address ventilation, shading and solar control, and the thermal performance of the building fabric. Critically, the regulations must secure at least equivalent protections to those already required for new residential buildings under the Building Regulations 2010 and be subject to affirmative procedures so that Parliament retains proper oversight.

The Government will point to Part O of the building regulations, and I acknowledge this, but Part O is a design floor, not a statutory duty tied to a social housing programme. It carries no enhanced standard for vulnerable people who disproportionately occupy social housing and it lacks the weight of primary legislation. The warm homes plan is genuinely welcome, but its passive calling commitments remain aspirations rather than duties. A simple provision in this Bill would cost a fraction of the retrofitting that will be needed if we fail to act at the design stage. Every home built today without these standards is a home that will need costly remediation later. I recognise that the Bill is tightly drafted, but these matters are critical. I look forward to the Minister’s response to them today.

Amendment 76, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is on maintenance standards. We are supportive of the intention and recognise the need. Our only question is about the language of the amendment. The requirement that registered providers merely have to “have regard to” guidance needs to be strengthened. Given that some 2 million people in England live in homes with significant damp and mould, this should be an enforceable standard, not merely guidance.

I will introduce Amendment 96, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, as she is unable to be in Committee today. We support this important amendment. It seeks for the Secretary of State, by regulations, to make provision requiring that new social housing developments mandate a minimum level of urban tree canopy cover to sufficiently address environmental health and climate inequalities. The benefits of this amendment would be multiple and directly relevant to the wider debate today. Trees cool urban environments, reduce the urban heat island effect and provide the passive, low-cost climate adaptation that complements the overheating protections in my amendment. They improve mental and physical health, reduce surface water flooding and address the profound environmental injustice that means that tree-poor neighbourhoods are, overwhelmingly, also poor neighbourhoods. The amendment is carefully drafted. It would require regulations on minimum levels of tree- planting, climate resilience, access to green infrastructure within reasonable walking distance and, critically, long-term maintenance, including replacements. We are pleased to support it.

We support Amendment 100, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, on inclusion by design. I thank the noble Lord for how he introduced it. The principle that social housing services, allocation systems and digital tools should be designed from the outset to be accessible and equitable is one that we strongly endorse. However, I once again wonder whether “have regard to” is sufficient. We also support Amendment 102, in the name of the noble Lord, on accessible and adaptive housing design standards. A mandated standard, a national register of accessible properties and requirements for local housing authorities to use that register in allocations decisions is exactly the kind of system that we really need. On Amendments 117C and 119B, again in the name of noble Lord, on digital accessibility standards, we are supportive in principle.

Each amendment in this group seeks for Parliament to do something straightforward: to build homes that are safe, accessible, green and fit for the future that we know is coming.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I start by responding to Amendment 76, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson.

I am pleased to reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that the Government have already published guidance for social landlords on timeframes for repairs in the social rented sector, covering the first phase of Awaab’s law that came into force on 27 October 2025. This guidance includes information in relation to damp and mould hazards. This will be updated to include other hazards ahead of further phases of Awaab’s law coming into force. Guidance on implementing the revised decent homes standard will be published shortly; this will include further information about meeting a new damp and mould standard. Guidance on electrical safety was published in November 2025 and we have produced guidance that covers the operation and enforcement of the housing health and safety rating system. That guidance will be published this summer. The Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code sets out best practice that landlords are expected to follow to handle resident complaints effectively. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are reassured that work is under way to address each of the issues in their amendment and are content to withdraw it.

Amendment 85 was tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and he knew that I would mention Part O. Part O of Schedule 1 to the building regulations requires that new residential buildings in England are built to mitigate the risk of overheating, protecting everyone, including the most vulnerable, the elderly and the very young. These requirements already apply to newly built social housing, ensuring that residents benefit from the same standards of overheating mitigation, regardless of their tenure type. The noble Earl made an important point on that, but it is clear that building regulations apply across tenures. A separate additional regulatory standard on top of this would be likely to add unhelpful duplication and complexity to the design and delivery of new social homes. Therefore, the Government cannot support this amendment. I kindly ask the noble Earl not to press it.

I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, in relation to accessibility. First, Amendment 100 would introduce a new statutory “inclusion by design” principle. Tenants must be at the heart of our social housing system and, to achieve this, landlords must actively engage with tenants and provide a range of opportunities for them to influence and scrutinise decisions. To support the accessibility of services for all, first, I note that all social landlords are already subject to existing duties under the Equality Act 2010, including the public sector equality duty where it applies. In addition, the social housing regulatory framework already places clear expectations on registered providers that their services must be inclusive for all tenants. The regulator’s transparency, influence and accountability standard specifies that registered providers must take action to deliver fair access to, and equitable outcomes from, housing and landlord services for all tenants. They must also provide accessible support that meets the diverse needs of tenants.

The concern with this amendment is that it would create a broad new statutory duty across the whole Act, without clearly defining how it would interact with those existing equality, regulatory and housing duties. That would risk duplication and uncertainty, as well as additional administrative burdens, without necessarily improving outcomes for tenants. We also do not think it is necessary to require guidance to be published and reviewed on a fixed statutory timetable.

Formal work has already begun that will evaluate the effectiveness of the new regulatory regime by 2028, to make sure that it is delivering the improvements needed to fundamentally shift how residents are treated and to create a transparent and trustworthy system with residents’ views and needs at its heart. I am responsible for working with the Regulator of Social Housing as part of my ministerial responsibilities and I have spoken to it specifically on the issue of tenant engagement; I take it very seriously. For those reasons, I do not believe the amendment is needed.

On Amendment 102, the Government believe that everyone should be able to live in a home that is suitable for their needs. Building regulations are already in place, specifying the standards to which new or materially refurbished homes must adhere. Regarding accessibility, the existing M4(1) standard is the default, ensuring reasonable provision for access to and use of a dwelling and its facilities. The enhanced, optional M4(2) standard relates to housing meeting the different needs of occupants, including disabled individuals, and allowing adaptation to meet the changing needs of occupants over time. The M4(3) standard relates to requirements for wheelchair users, where provision must be made to allow simple adaptation of the dwelling for their needs.

These regulations, and the statutory guidance accompanying them, already apply to new building work or refurbishment work. I had a meeting with Minister Kinnock from the Department of Health and Social Care to consider what more we need to do in relation to this. We propose to go even further. The Government have recently consulted on revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework that will require local plans to set out the proportion of new M4(2) and M4(3) housing that must be delivered in new developments, to meet or exceed identified needs. In relation to M4(2), we propose to make it clear that these requirements should never be lower than 40%.

On the provision of an accessible housing register, we will be considering this further as we update the allocations guidance. I thank the noble Lord for his amendment, but we believe that our existing building regulations will help ensure the accessibility of new and materially refurbished homes, and any new standard risks duplication. For homes and households that require heightened adaptations, local authorities are best placed to understand and cater for the needs of people in their local area. Therefore, we cannot support this amendment.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for Amendments 117C and 119B. I fully recognise the importance of ensuring that services are accessible, inclusive and easy to use, and the Government are clear that tenants should be able to engage with their landlords through channels that meet their needs. To this end, there are already well-established accessibility requirements, including existing standards and legal duties, which apply to digital services and ensure that providers consider accessibility as part of service design.

20:15:00

The regulator’s consumer standards require registered providers to ensure that communication with and information for tenants is clear, accessible and appropriate to their diverse needs, and that landlord services are accessible. This includes supporting tenants to use online landlord services if required. Mandating new requirements in primary legislation risks duplicating or cutting across these existing standards and practices. In sum, the Government’s view is that these types of issues are better addressed through guidance, regulation and continuous improvement, rather than through a fixed statutory framework.

On Amendment 119B, the Government cannot support linking the commencement of the Act to the introduction of these regulations. While accessibility is a critical consideration, it should not act as a precondition that delays implementation of the wider reforms in the Bill. For those reasons, while I share the noble Lord’s commitment to accessible and inclusive services, the Government are unable to support these amendments and I respectfully ask him not to press them.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have contributed on this group. This debate has focused on the fundamental point that housing policy is not simply about providing a roof over someone’s head; it is about ensuring that people live in homes that are safe, healthy, accessible and capable of supporting a good quality of life.

The debate has also highlighted broader questions about design, accessibility and the environments in which people live. As we consider these issues, it is important to continue to focus on the creation of mixed, sustainable communities. Good design should not be reserved for one tenure or another. The aim should be to create places where people want to live, regardless of whether they are tenants, shared owners or owner-occupiers. I have listened carefully to the Minister’s response and will reflect on the points raised during the debate. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 76 withdrawn.

Amendments 77 and 78 not moved.

Amendment 79

Moved by

79: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Shared ownership strategy(1) Within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a strategy for increasing opportunities for shared ownership.(2) The strategy must include proposals relating to—(a) first-time buyers,(b) key workers,(c) housing association provision, and(d) staircasing arrangements.(3) The strategy must be laid before Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would require publication of a strategy for expanding shared ownership.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 79, 105 and 106 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. These amendments concern shared ownership, which for many years has provided an important route into home ownership for people who may not otherwise have been able to purchase a home outright. In a housing market where affordability remains a significant challenge, in particular with the difficulty of saving for a deposit, shared ownership has the potential to play an increasing and important role in helping individuals and families to take their first step on the housing ladder.

While the principle of shared ownership may enjoy broad support, concerns are frequently raised about its operation in practice. It is not only that the system can be difficult to navigate, with inconsistency between providers; the risk and cost splits between the shared-equity owner and the landlord are skewed in favour of the landlord. The rent on the non-owned portion is frequently more costly than either an affordable rent or a mortgage. The costs of ownership—including management fees, lease fees and so forth—tend to fall on the equity owner and not on the landlord. Yet, when the house is sold, the landlord gets their full share of any uplift in value and equity.

In the sales process, the equity owner ends up paying 100% of the sale costs, yet they may receive only 25% or 35% of the sale proceeds. As we have seen, particularly with flats, there are many unexpected costs. Rightly, with regard to fire safety, we need to do things to improve our blocks of flats. But we are talking about affordable housing for people who do not have much money and cannot afford to pay a sudden lump of money.

Some landlords raise additional administrative charges. When we look at the legal response times for landlords to the equity owner, particularly when they are looking to buy and sell, we need to recognise that these people are often in chains and that the response rate can be very important in order to secure a sale.

Right now, many people who are aiming for 100% ownership through staircasing face too many obstacles. For example, in designated protected areas you may be able to buy only up to 80%. We have to start shifting the balance. We need to be on the side of people who want a hand up, not a handout: people who want to mark their places on the housing ladder in their communities, for the security of their future and that of their family. We need to change the balance so that the shared equity owner gets a fairer deal.

Amendment 79 would require the publication of a strategy for expanding shared ownership. The purpose of this amendment is to understand the Government’s ambition in this area. Do Ministers see shared ownership as a central part of the housing offer in the years ahead? If so, what steps are being taken to increase its availability and attractiveness?

Amendment 105 seeks a review of the operation of shared ownership schemes and the barriers faced by shared owners, some of which I outlined earlier. We know that many people are attracted to shared ownership because it offers a more affordable route into home ownership. However, there are genuine concerns about service charges, maintenance responsibilities, staircasing and the practical experience of ownership, particularly with flats. Before expanding the model further, it is important that we understand where it is working well and where improvements may be needed.

Amendment 106 proposes the publication of a standardised model or template shared ownership agreement. One of the recurring criticisms of shared ownership is the variation in terms and conditions between schemes and providers and the differences in legal documentation. Greater consistency could help prospective purchasers understand their rights and responsibilities more clearly, improve transparency and strengthen confidence in the model.

These are probing amendments, intended to stimulate discussion about how shared ownership can be improved, simplified and expanded. If we are serious about widening access to home ownership, we should ensure that one of the principal affordable home ownership products is operating as effectively as possible. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

Lord Young of Cookham (Con)My Lords, I intervene to indicate a preference for Amendment 105, which calls for a review of shared ownership, rather than Amendment 79, which calls for a strategy for increasing shared ownership. This is because there are features of shared ownership that need addressing before we increase the opportunities.

The Minister will recall the problems facing shared owners in flats with safety issues post-Grenfell. I am grateful to her for agreeing to amend the Renters’ Rights Act to reflect that. But that indicated how the law on conventional tenures such as owner occupation, leasehold or tenancy finds it difficult to accommodate the special nature of shared ownership, which is in fact a combination of all three.

I welcome the recent changes to the scheme, particularly the 10-year guarantee against certain costs. But the review proposed in Amendment 105 should take as its starting point recent critical reports from the National Audit Office, the HCLG Select Committee report on the affordability of home ownership, and the findings of the Housing Ombudsman on shared ownership.

The NAO found that shared ownership helps many people buy a home who otherwise could not. However, it said the scheme is complex; many buyers do not fully understand its long-term costs and risks; affordability pressures can hinder progression to full ownership, and government lacks the data needed to judge whether the scheme is delivering good outcomes for consumers. While recent reforms have improved transparency and protection, the NAO concluded that important gaps in understanding and oversight remain.

The HCLG report was more critical. The committee found that legal and valuation fees made staircasing expensive. The buyers have to pay all those costs, which can run into thousands of pounds, and do so each time they staircase. It found that rising house prices can make additional shares unaffordable and many shared owners never reach full ownership. It questioned whether the scheme is genuinely delivering the aspiration for full home ownership for many participants.

Then we have the ombudsman. Complaints to the Housing Ombudsman regarding shared ownership properties have surged by nearly 400%, jumping from 324 cases in 2020 to 1,564 complaints more recently. That sharp rise reflects growing resident frustration with hidden costs, building defects and the difficulties of staircasing or selling.

The ombudsman highlighted several reasons for this escalation. Many residents face staggering increase in service charges and rent hikes, which can feel disproportionate. Landlords frequently fail to chase developers or effectively restore defects such as cladding or fire safety issues after they are raised. On the sales process, he found incorrect charges at the point of moving in, miscommunication regarding staircasing—buying larger shares of the property—and general delays from solicitors.

The ombudsman summed up the problems by saying that there is a “mismatch” between the expectation and understanding of the shared owner and the landlord. He concluded that the Government should address the

“fundamental inequities in the way in which shared ownership is designed”—

a point made by my noble friend Lord Jamieson.

Bringing all that together may explain why there is such a low satisfaction rate with shared ownership, and the largest providers have the lowest satisfaction rate—frequently below 30%. Any review should liaise closely with the Shared Ownership Council, Shared Ownership Resources, which has produced several documents indicating how the scheme might be improved and has first-hand evidence of existing pinch points. I very much hope that the Government will take this opportunity to review the scheme, put this form of tenure on a more secure foundation and rebalance the responsibilities as between the talent and the landlord.

Lord Fuller (Con)My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Young-of Cookham, and also the sense behind Amendments 105 and 106. There is an asymmetry between the risk and the reward involved in shared ownership—all the costs but only half the uplift, if there is one. The risks include very large unexpected costs, which my noble friend raised and I do not intend to repeat. There is 100% of the costs, but only half the capital.

This has been sold to people who one might say, without patronising, are less financially sophisticated, as a lower cost way of getting their foot on the ladder. But the facts bear out the assertion that mortgage costs on the whole would be less than the rent they are paying on the half. It is not necessarily low cost at all; one might go far as to suggest that there has been a degree of mis-selling here.

So, I support Amendment 105, which calls for a review. We cannot carry on as we are. My experience in my own council work when I was the leader showed that the popularity of this tenure has gone down and down. There is now very low take-up. It is possibly a tenure whose time has passed. But the review could reinvigorate it. There is a case for low-cost housing for people to establish and build capital in their society. With this review, which I support entirely, there is the opportunity to try to get it back on track.

Baroness Thornhill (LD)My Lords, because the noble Lords, Lord Jamieson and Lord Young of Cookham, have done such a brilliant job of talking about shared ownership, I will scrap most of my speech. We on these Benches have brought up the vexed subject of shared ownership many times, and I know that the Minister understands and absolutely appreciates that. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who has been a stalwart campaigner for reform. That deserves to be recognised.

If shared ownership is a pathway to home ownership, it is a very rocky one. It is definitely a home owner’s dream that turned into their worst nightmare. I could wax lyrical about automated 1% staircasing, proportional maintenance and a 15% valuation cushion, but I will not. But I am interested in what the Minister has to say, because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, I do not believe that this is something that has passed; in high-cost areas, it is essential. Therefore, we would really like to hear something about reform or at least a vision of how it might be reformed.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for her amendments on shared ownership and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for moving them.

Shared ownership has an important role to play in supporting households into home ownership who would otherwise struggle to purchase a suitable property. We had extensive debates on this during the Renters’ Rights Bill and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his work on this. That is why we have committed to continue supporting the delivery of shared ownership via the £39 billion social and affordable homes programme. Through the launch of the programme, we have introduced new measures to support the delivery of shared ownership and to set clear expectations for providers to improve the customer experience that we have heard about this evening.

20:30:00

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, mentioned staircasing. Importantly, full ownership is not the only measure of success. Many shared owners benefit from the stability, security and control of owning a stake in their home, even if they do not eventually staircase to 100%. We recognise that staircasing can be complex and costly, which is why the shared ownership model was reformed to introduce greater flexibility, including smaller staircasing increments. We continue to consider what more can be done to improve the staircasing process and the customer experience. As with the whole scheme, we keep it under review. While a shared ownership strategy or a formal review may appear complementary, we do not consider either necessary. Both would risk duplicating work already under way, and a formal review could disrupt a well-established and widely understood scheme.

Amendment 106 seeks to introduce a model shared ownership agreement. I do not believe this amendment is necessary simply because shared ownership model leases are already available. The model leases contain fundamental clauses that govern how shared ownership operates, including in respect of the provisions outlined by the noble Lord. Shared ownership providers offering grant-funded properties must use a lease containing these fundamental clauses, and it is expected that properties delivered via Section 106 agreements also do so. In addition, shared ownership providers are required to adhere to guidance regarding the provisions raised as a condition of receiving grant funding. For those reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Jamieson (Con)I thank noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. As ever, I am in awe of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s vast knowledge and the amount of work that he has done on this. I also appreciate the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who has also raised this issue many times. I think there is universal acceptance on this side of the Committee that something needs to be done. It is a little bit more fundamental than looking at the “customer experience”, which, if I may say so, feels like a glib marketing throwaway, although I know the Minister does not mean it as that.

The purpose of these amendments has been to explore whether the current arrangements are delivering. Quite clearly, we have the National Audit Office and so forth saying that they are not delivering. I do not think that we can be satisfied with, “We are looking at it”; I think this needs a fundamental review. The Minister said that it is a widely understood scheme. I think conceptually it is widely understood, but I do not think that the consequences of being a shared owner, particularly of a flat, are widely understood. The potential financial ramifications, where the risk lies and the risk-sharing between the equity owner and the landlord are not appreciated. I think many of the complaints that we have seen out of this are because people did not understand what they were letting themselves in for, particularly for flats. I press the Minister to think again between now and Report and to look at how we can formally come up with a thorough review that looks at all aspects of this.

I would be interested to understand a bit more about what the Minister said about model clauses. Some model clauses and a thorough template are quite different. I would like to take up the Minister’s offer of discussions on this. This is an area where we need to make significant improvements because it is a real opportunity, when done right, to get people on the housing ladder, particularly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, in more expensive areas, who otherwise may not have that opportunity, but that is going to work only if we have a scheme that works. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 79 withdrawn.

Amendments 80 to 88 not moved.

Amendment 89

Moved by

89: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Protections for adapted social housing(1) This section applies where—(a) a dwelling owned by the local housing authority or a registered provider of social housing has been substantially adapted for occupation by a person with a disability or support need, or(b) a Disabled Facilities Grant has been used to fund substantial adaptations to that dwelling.(2) Before such a dwelling is allocated through the general housing allocation process, the landlord must take reasonable steps to offer the dwelling to a person whose needs would substantially benefit from those adaptations.(3) In this section, “substantially adapted” has such meaning as the Secretary of State may prescribe by regulations made by statutory instruments.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would require social landlords to protect the pool of adapted housing by giving preference to applicants who could benefit from existing adaptations before allocating adapted homes through the general housing allocation process.

Lord Fuller (Con)My Lords, I am very disappointed that a Bill that purports to protect the supply of new affordable homes fails to consider the texture of protecting certain types of homes, particularly adapted homes. We are an ageing nation, we are getting fatter and nowadays many more premature babies survive into adulthood with life-limiting conditions. As a council leader, I spend about £1.5 million a year adapting homes for this ageing and impaired population. I remember that, when devising our local plan, there was a need for 3,500 adapted homes and supported living units; it was about 10% of the total housing need. It is an important issue, but not one you would gather from this Bill. At Second Reading, I explained how councils might install an adaptation so that a resident with an impairment could live comfortably. I explained that it might be a grab rail or a ramp. In one case, in my council, we spent £75,000 on a complete extension that was required to enable that family to live decently.

In preparation for this debate, and in pursuance of that simple truth, I sat down with Kevin Philcox, the officer responsible for housing standards at South Norfolk Council. He tells me that about half the improvements relate to wet rooms. That is important, because poor personal hygiene is a leading cause of infection and hospital admission among the elderly. Keeping yourself clean down there is not just about dignity; it keeps our hospital wards clean. Half the wet room adaptations are combined with wider doors so that someone in a wheelchair can shower hygienically. Together, cleaning and better access represent half the improvements for disabled facilities, grants and aids and adaptations.

Other examples might be a kitchen with low-level worktops—again, suitable for wheelchair use. Typically, it takes between six and nine months to deliver an adaptation: directionally two to three months for the assessment and the report by the occupational therapist, then a couple of months for the specification contracting and then the construction itself. In my experience, our district council delivered about 150 such projects a year at an average cost of about £10,000 each. I would say that one of my best interventions as a councillor was to ensure that a widow who lived in Mill Road in Seething was able to keep herself clean, by expediting the process of creating a wet room in her social home.

I feel that I have laboured the point, but I tell that story with pride because the simple truth is that we just do not have enough of these adapted homes, and that is why the state invests in them. MHCLG distributes yearly funding of over £720 million to local authorities, and some councils, such as my own, and other RSLs top up that allocation still further. I ensured that we reinvested all the profits from our trading activities to top up that money. So, in total, it adds up to about £1 billion a year. That is a large chunk of change, ensuring that people of all abilities can have a home that they can get into and on with, maintaining personal pride and hygiene.

Here is the problem that my amendment seeks to remedy. When, as so often happens, the tenant passes away and the home is re-advertised, no credit can be given for those expensive and hard-won adaptations when a new family moves in. A 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, and it is bad for everyone, especially the taxpayer, who funds the work twice: once to put it in and once to take it out. I recall one example where we had built a brand new accessible home with wide doors and low kitchen units, perfect for a wheelchair-bound resident. As it happened, the first tenant was really tall, and by and by he tired of bending down to move the pots and pans around the hob, so the council was obliged by law to rip out that kitchen and put in a normal one—oh dear. That is absurd. It should have been let to a wheelchair user in the first place. So I ask the Minister directly: where are the provisions in the Bill to protect the supply of and investments in adapted homes for the ageing population? Why can we not offer rights of first refusal to those who need help to keep themselves clean down there?

I have heard it said, “Well, this is an allocations issue and we’re not going there in this limited Bill”. I profoundly disagree with that. That is why I asked for this debate to be de-grouped so it could have the importance it deserves without being clouded by other issues. My amendment is about protecting the adapted stock. It is about protecting a £1 billion investment— a significant sum that should not be lightly discarded— and it is about dignity for the most vulnerable in society. So I do not see this as an allocations issue, in the sense that preference should be given to an individual veteran or a certain type of local person. This is about protecting the pool of adapted homes, not least because we are all getting older. It is about ensuring that the wider cohort who carry an impairment have sufficient protected stock for them to have a go at, where they get preference, to make the best of their lives and to make their disabilities more bearable. If the state cannot recognise that, what is it for? Casually dismissing this as an allocations issue is wilful misdirection.

We must grab this sufficiency issue now. We are in Committee. I want to probe the matter more deeply between now and Report. Unless we make some progress, I anticipate that this is an issue on which I will seek to divide the House on Report, on the grounds that the Bill aims to protect the social stock for those in need, and my amendment seeks to achieve precisely that.

I have nearly said enough but I want to give Kevin Philcox, my expert on the ground, who has been around a long time in this space, the final word. He told me that, among the dedicated housing standards professionals, protecting the adapted stock in the way that I propose is both the Shangri-La and the holy grail of social housing policy in this country—it is number one on the wish list. That is quite a statement.

The opportunity to protect that £1 billion a year investment and look after some of the most vulnerable people in our society is before us here and now. If we fail to take it, there is no one else to do it in our place. As it is, there are no powers to protect those adaptations or to give those in need first refusal, but there should be. I beg to move.

Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Fuller for raising the important subject of adapted social housing. As we have argued throughout this day of Committee, we must improve how we manage the existing stock of social housing by making better use of what we have and what is being built. It strikes us as entirely sensible that, where possible and appropriate, homes that have been adapted are then given to applicants who would also benefit from those adaptations. That would save social housing providers money and ensure that we made the best use of resources and housing stock. I look forward to the Minister’s response and any details that she might be able to give us on how it might be implemented.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, we seem to have wandered a long way this evening from the straightforward purpose of the Bill: to adjust right to buy, to give confidence to local authorities to deliver social housing, and to protect domestic abuse victims. Anyway, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for his amendment. He says he is disappointed. I have probably been disappointing the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for most of the last 15 or so years that we have known each other, so I am just carrying on in that vein, I am afraid.

We recognise how important home adaptations are in enabling disabled people to live as independently as possible in a safe and suitable environment. Disabled facilities grant funding helps adapt over 55,000 homes annually, helping disabled people and their families live independently, reducing demand for health and social care support. It is also important that local authorities make the best use of the homes they have available, particularly any adapted properties.

20:45:00

Local housing authorities are already free to set their own social housing allocation schemes in accordance with the legislation and statutory guidance, and they will take different approaches to making the best use of accessible accommodation. For some, this may be done by maintaining a separate register of those who need adapted housing, while others may choose to do this by integrating this information into their main housing register, but they already have the choice to do that.

The Government fund an organisation to act as the national body for disabled facilities grants and the national body provides support and guidance to local authorities on the efficient delivery of the grant. That includes guidance on working with housing associations to make the best use of already-adapted stock through adapted housing registers. We agree with the importance of local authorities seeking to make best use of those properties and will explore and address this through our update to statutory guidance on allocations. This amendment also seeks to subject all subsequent regulations under this Act to additional parliamentary scrutiny through the affirmative procedure. We consider this disproportionate and an unnecessary use of parliamentary time.

I hope I have explained what local authorities are already doing, and I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Fuller (Con)I thank the noble Baroness for her comments—I will consider them carefully. Perhaps we could have a meeting between now and Report. All I would say is that I do not think things are quite as clear or clear-cut as she makes them out to be, not least because the problem can arise when someone has been allocated housing and has not necessarily made a full disclosure of their needs, and then, once they are in, they can move things out. I think there is a requirement.

I accept the point about statutory guidance, and I will, I hope, talk to the Minister or officials between now and Report, and consider my position. But in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 89 withdrawn.

Amendment 90

Moved by

90: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause— “Social purpose of registered providers of social housing(1) The Secretary of State must issue guidance on the social purpose of registered providers of social housing.(2) The guidance must include—(a) promoting tenant wellbeing;(b) effective state management; (c) the prevention and reduction of antisocial behaviour;(d) community engagement;(e) the provision and maintenance of safe and sustainable neighbourhoods;(f) the balance between development activity and social responsibilities of registered providers.(3) Registered providers must have regard to guidance issued under this section.(4) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the guidance before Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement This probing amendment would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the social purpose of registered providers of social housing and the wider responsibilities expected of them beyond housing development.

Lord Fuller (Con)As part of my ward work last month, I was surprised that a home in Brooke, in my ward where I live, under the Victory Housing banner, is actually owned by part of a much larger RSL headquartered in Gloucestershire. I mentioned it at Second Reading, and since then it has reached out to me to explain that it actually has a local team to manage these properties. That is reassuring, but the truth remains that the shots are called from miles away. It is a close-to-home example of the way in which the RSL landscape has consolidated, as small RSLs have bought up others and then in turn been taken over still further in the name of economies of scale.

I can understand why this has happened, but scale has not been good for tenants. Tenant reps have been excised from the landscape. There is a lack of local accountability, with national RSLs populating their boards with the great and good from out of town, the consequences being that a focus on local matters such as anti-social behaviour has been relegated to the subs’ bench—and I am conscious that the football starts in a minute.

At Second Reading, I suggested that the Bill could be stronger on anti-social behaviour to demonstrate that the Government are on the side of law-abiding residents, but it is not. That is one of the reasons that have prompted me to introduce Amendment 90 to mandate that and other desirable traits so that the social purpose of social providers is enshrined in law.

I explained how there has been a consolidation of actors in this space, but one of the reasons for liberalising certain financial powers in the Bill—which I do not oppose—is that it will drive financial engineering to new heights. It is the intended consequence of the Bill, but the liberalisation must come with strings attached. It should not be necessary, but it now has become so, to state what the social purpose of RSLs is, not least because there is £35 billion burning a hole in the Government’s pocket. Our job, it seems to me, is to ensure that there is conditionality attached to that largesse if RSLs are to be favoured with cheap money and government underwriting in a way that Berkeley, Norfolk Homes or Redrow—others are available—are not.

In too many cases, RSLs just do not grip the anti-social behaviour that blights the lives of neighbours. I know, because I have seen it myself, that others look away when the criminality is committed. We have the nonsense of community gardens left ungrown and untidy in the name of “No Mow May”, which lasts all year. It is lazy and slovenly, and impacts families miles away from the out-of-towners who sit on these boards.

It is telling that in a briefing on the Bill by the National Housing Federation, which explained that it runs more than 2.5 million homes, supporting 6 million people living in 62% of all the social homes in England, there was not a single mention of social purpose, save to say that the federation was driven by it without explaining what it means. Front and centre it certainly was not.

I know why this has happened. Candidly, among RSLs in particular, there has been far too great a focus on development. That has led to the loss of social purpose. The truth is that as RSLs have become overleveraged, they have been caught out by increases in build, finance and land costs, and there is no financial space for the social purpose—an omission the Bill should correct.

We are in Committee, so I have had a stab at defining what the social purpose could be. It is duplicated in Amendment 110. For those organisations that want to take the Government’s shilling in a way that is not available to other private developers, we need to look at the strings attached. My amendment would enshrine six key principles—I will not list them, in the interests of time, but they are there in the amendment—and regulations to codify them, along with success factors, would follow.

Too many RSLs have taken the wrong path. They have strayed from their original purpose. They have lost sight of the social purpose. Instead, they have been hooked on speculation and property development, on the back of cheap government finance, so we need to bring them back on track. If you take the money, my amendment would provide the hair on the deal. It is not too much to ask. If they want to take the cash in a way that is not available to private operators, they need to take their social responsibilities seriously—and if they cannot, they can go to Barclays, NatWest or Lloyds, or any other bank, just like the others. I beg to move.

Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)I am going to speak very briefly—there are matters of life and death about to start in 10 minutes, and I am not going to stand in the way of that—but I am surprised by these amendments. They have been tabled by Conservative Peers going for centralisation and more regulation. We want better people running housing associations; we want good chairs, good chief executives and effective boards. I have to ask: do you want social entrepreneurial spirit, creative drive and a commitment to efficiency in customer services to be suffocated by overregulation, interference and process? We need a balance. I do not believe these probing amendments aim to provide a balance.

Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this group. Amendment 90, in the name of my noble friend Lord Fuller, seeks guidance on the social responsibilities and purposes of social housing providers. As we argued in our Amendment 108, we need to understand the other responsibilities that providers have towards tenants and the boundaries that exist. My noble friend’s amendment is very similar to our Amendment 109; it is clear that we are united in our priorities, but we can look at the drafting more closely ahead of Report.

Community engagement brings me to Amendment 103, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which proposes tenant board representation of at least one-fifth, as well as mandatory tenant advisory panels for the codesign of allocation policies and a requirement to publish complaints data by protected characteristic. We agree that tenant voices should be heard, with their dreams and aspirations for the places and communities in which they live. That is admirable and we welcome the intention behind the amendment.

I turn to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson. Amendment 110 seeks a wider review of governance arrangements for social housing providers. This includes board composition, tenant representation and the role of elected councillors, but also their accountability to local communities, scrutiny arrangements and performance information. This is crucial. Community engagement should not be a box-ticking exercise or tokenistic; it should be rooted in existing democratic structures.

Amendment 111 would enable local authorities to require senior housing association representatives to attend scrutiny committee meetings. In my experience, I could always rely on my good relationships with local housing association representatives, but we realise this is not the case for everyone. Although we have argued for the independence of housing associations to be recognised, this should not prevent associations being held accountable to local elected representatives and having constructive conversations.

Amendment 112 would require housing associations to publish quarterly performance information, including performance in relation to repairs, complaints, tackling anti-social behaviour, tenant satisfaction and void properties. This would be useful both for tenants and for local authorities, and for the associations themselves to help focus on areas for improvement.

Finally, Amendment 115 would empower social housing tenants to request an inspection from the Regulator of Social Housing. The Secretary of State could make regulations outlining the grounds on which this could be requested, including how many tenants would be required to support such a request and in what circumstances a request could be refused. We believe this is a balanced approach but one that is tenant-led. We hope that we can work together with noble Lords to finalise amendments to be brought forward on Report. I would be interested to hear the response of the Minister to those amendments.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, this group of amendments concerns a range of mechanisms to strengthen the tenant voice and engagement across the social housing sector. It is a bit odd, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said, to be in this parallel universe where the Conservative Benches are arguing for more regulation—I find that a bit strange.

Matters relating to tenant voice and engagement are already central to the Regulator of Social Housing’s existing consumer standards. The regulator’s approach is proactive and outcomes-based, setting clear standards that providers must deliver, while allowing flexibility on how those outcomes are achieved. On that basis, my concern is that a number of these amendments would introduce new statutory requirements that would duplicate or cut across the existing regulatory framework. This would result in unnecessarily prescriptive requirements and potential confusion for the sector, without materially improving outcomes for tenants or communities.

I turn briefly to Amendment 90, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and Amendment 109, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I am not persuaded that additional statutory guidance from the Secretary of State is necessary. Core elements of these amendments and any subsequent guidance are already central to the regulator’s regulatory standards.

The consumer standards require providers to deliver safe and well-managed homes, to engage with tenants and take their views into account, to work with partners to tackle anti-social behaviour, and to support the well- being of the communities in which they operate. The regulator already has the power, through Section 195 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, to issue codes of practice on matters relating to its consumer and economic standards. These can be used to amplify requirements that registered providers must deliver, and the regulator exercised this power in 2024 in relation to consumer standards.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, raises the question of the balance between the development of new supply and the social responsibilities of registered providers. If he has not been notified of this, on 9 June, the regulator published a discussion document, More and B etter S ocial H omes , which explores how the regulatory framework can be adapted to support the delivery of more and better social housing. I hope the noble Lord is reassured that the objectives behind the amendments are already central to requirements placed on registered providers by the regulatory standards and is content to withdraw.

On Amendment 110, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, I recognise the importance of governance underpinning effective services for tenants. However, as I said, the regulator already has a proactive role in assessing how far providers perform for their tenants, including through the regulation of consumer standards and routine inspections. The areas identified in the amendment, including tenant voice, accountability, transparency and performance, are already core components of the framework.

I turn to Amendment 111, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. While oversight of registered social housing providers is important, it would be disproportionate to require a senior officer of a registered social housing provider to attend a local authorities’ overview and scrutiny committee. However, the Government will keep this under review, as part of the conversations we are having on local scrutiny committees, given their larger geographical footprint. It is important to establish scrutiny at the appropriate level. Imposing a statutory duty at local authority level, when a similar and more flexible function is being introduced at mayoral level, would be duplicative and may be unnecessary.

On Amendment 112, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, I recognise the importance of landlords being transparent and accountable to their tenants in supporting tenant voice and accountability. To that end, registered providers are already required to publish information through the tenant satisfaction measures. These measures have been carefully designed to ensure that tenants have the information they need to hold their landlords to account, and to ensure consistency across the sector while balancing the burden on landlords. In addition, private registered providers already submit data to the regulator through the annual statistical data return, and local authorities provide that information through the local authority housing statistics. We do not consider it necessary or proportionate to mandate the publication of quarterly void property performance metrics. This would introduce additional reporting burdens without any clear benefits to tenants.

21:00:00

Finally, I turn to Amendment 115, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. I am not persuaded that this approach is necessary. Since 2024, the regulator has implemented a proactive consumer regulation regime, including routine inspections of large landlords and the introduction of consumer gradings. Mandating tenant-triggered inspections risks cutting across this approach, potentially diverting regulatory resource away from higher-risk providers or issues and undermining the regulator’s ability to act independently. Tenants have clear and established routes to escalate concerns, from the internal complaints procedure to the Housing Ombudsman. The Housing Ombudsman can then refer a complaint to the regulator where they suspect an issue at the level of the landlord. Given these reasons, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

Lord Fuller (Con)My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for drawing my attention to the guidance published on 9 June. I was not aware of it, and I will look at it closely. However, the title was all about how you deliver more houses. My amendment is not about the number of houses; it is about the social behaviours, because they are not working at the moment. By following the money, we see that, without strings, too many RSLs are focusing too much on development and not enough on doing the right thing. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, enumerated a number of things. I could not write them down fast enough, but customer focus, innovation and other things were all there. However, left alone, these things are not happening.

I want a light touch, but, ultimately, I want to establish the principle of the deal: if the RSLs want cheap government money to expand their estates, there need to be strings attached, and those strings go with a rededication of RSLs to the social purpose, rather than focusing on financial engineering, because that is not in tenants’ best interests. On the ground, we are seeing that, when tenants do have genuine concerns, they are not being addressed promptly. The well-being of the estates is not at the forefront of the mind, and that is not good for anybody. So, if you want the money, you can have the hair on the deal; otherwise, go to Barclays. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 90 withdrawn.

Amendments 91 to 117D not moved.

Clause 17Power to make consequential provision

Amendment 118

Moved by

118: Clause 17, page 13, line 11, leave out subsection (2) Member’s explanatory statement This amendment removes the consequential power to amend or repeal provision made by an Act of Parliament passed before, or in the same session as, this Act by regulations.

Lord Jamieson (Con)My Lords, I will speak to this final group of amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley. Clause 17(2) gives the Secretary of State the power to

“amend or repeal provision made by an Act of Parliament passed before, or in the same Session as, this Act”.

Amendment 118 would remove this power.

Amendment 119 would require an affirmative parliamentary procedure for any regulations made under Clause 17. This would give Parliament stronger oversight of secondary legislation.

The theme of both amendments is to give Parliament stronger oversight of the Secretary of State’s powers. I would be interested to hear from the Minister why these powers were included in the first place and how the Government intend to use them in the future if this Bill is passed as currently drafted. The House deserves to know to properly consider these provisions, so I look forward to an answer from the Minister. I beg to move.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for the amendments on powers in Clause 17. I note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded:

“There is nothing in this Bill which we would wish to draw to the attention of the House”.

That conclusion gives important context for these amendments.

On Amendment 118, this is a standard consequential power that is found in many Bills and is limited to making a provision that is consequential on the Act. It cannot be used to introduce new policy; its purpose is to ensure that the legislation operates coherently once enacted, including by making any necessary technical changes to existing legislation. The Bill already provides an important safeguard where regulations under Clause 17 amend or repeal primary legislation. They are subject to the affirmative procedure, so both Houses must actively approve them. Removing the power entirely could leave technical inconsistencies or gaps on the statute book and make implementation less effective. It would mean that even minor consequential amendments to primary legislation would require further primary legislation. For those reasons, we consider the power necessary, proportionate and appropriately safeguarded.

On Amendment 119, the Bill already ensures enhanced scrutiny where regulations amend primary legislation. Applying the affirmative procedure to all consequential regulations would be disproportionate. Additionally, the power is limited to making provision that is consequential on the Act, and it is intended to be used only to ensure the effective implementation of the Act and to maintain a coherent legislative framework. I believe that the existing approach strikes the right balance. I hope the points I have made have provided some comfort to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and I ask them to withdraw their amendment—and come on, England!

Lord Jamieson (Con)I thank the Minister for her reply and her brevity, such that we can go and say, “Come on, England”. We still have concern about giving the Secretary of State powers without, in our view, proper parliamentary scrutiny, so we will continue to scrutinise the Bill in relation to secondary legislation and making provision for the affirmative parliamentary procedure. This is to protect the balance of power and to ensure that noble Lords continue to have oversight of changes made after this Bill becomes law.

We will review Hansard , and I thank the Minister again for her answers throughout Committee. We have had an insightful and worthwhile debate about this Bill’s provisions, and I look forward to working together with noble Lords ahead of Report.

As we close Committee, I would like to reflect on our key concerns. Our focus should be on building more homes, not restricting opportunity. We believe that right to buy not only provides an opportunity for families to own their homes but provides the resources to build more homes. This Bill not only denies the opportunity for families to move on in life but risks tens of thousands more families languishing on council housing waiting lists. We have also sought amendments to make housing allocations fairer and more transparent, to address issues with shared ownership, and to ensure better performance of registered providers. I beg to leave to withdraw our amendment.

Amendment 118 withdrawn.

Amendment 119 not moved.

Clause 17 agreed.

Clause 18 agreed.

Clause 19Commencement

Amendments 119A to 121 not moved.

Amendment 122

Moved by

122: Clause 19, page 14, line 6, at end insert— “(za) section (Exercise of the right to buy by residential property owners) (right to buy: residential property owners);”Member’s explanatory statement This would provide for the new Clause (Exercise of the right to buy by residential property owners) in my name to commence two months after Royal Assent.

Amendment 122 agreed.

Amendment 123 not moved.

Clause 19, as amended, agreed.

Clause 20 agreed.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendments.

House adjourned at 9.11 pm.