Monday 15th June 2026
(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberSocial Housing Bill [HL] 2026-27 View all Social Housing Bill [HL] 2026-27 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 2-I(b) Amendment for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (15 Jun 2026)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, before I address the amendment, perhaps I may declare an interest, and in doing so apologise that I neglected to declare it at Second Reading. One of my daughters works for a housing association. I should have said that at Second Reading; it is in the register of interests. I also add my congratulations to those offered to my noble friend Lady Curran, who is appearing on the Front Bench for the first time today. I have already had a chance to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, to her new role, but I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. She is not in her place today, but we have worked together for all the time I have been in the House on some very long and complicated Bills, and I am very grateful to her. I would like to put that on the record too.
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. Before I respond on the specific amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, let me say that I am pleased to open this first day in Committee on the Social Housing Bill. As I set out at Second Reading, this is critical legislation that goes right to the heart of our current housing crisis. More than 1.3 million families in need of a home languish on local authority housing waiting lists and the number of children growing up in temporary accommodation continues to climb, so we must act now to turn around decades of losing more social homes than we are building.
This legislation brings forward measures to protect much-needed social housing and incentivise new building, as well as groundbreaking reforms to create a safer and fairer system for those experiencing domestic abuse. At Second Reading, I was clear that this Social Housing Bill sits within a much wider programme of social housing action which clearly demonstrates our Government’s ambition and commitment to deliver the hope for the future that decent affordable social housing represents. Together with the Government’s wider package of reforms and the £39 billion of investment, this Bill will ensure that we can provide decent, safe, secure and affordable housing for generations to come. I look forward to getting into the detail of the Bill’s provisions over the course of Committee, and to engaging with noble Lords on these important measures.
Amendment 1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, intends to abolish right to buy. The noble Baroness has also given notice of her intention to oppose all the right to buy clauses, with the exception of Clause 6, standing part of the Bill, making it clear that this amendment accompanies that intention. The Government have no plans to abolish the right to buy. The scheme provides an important route for social housing tenants, many of whom may not otherwise be able to access home ownership, to own their own homes, boosting social mobility and opportunity, and supporting aspiration for families across the country.
Following the commitment in our manifesto, we are reforming right to buy through this Bill. This will deliver a fairer, better-value and more sustainable scheme, where long-standing tenants who have lived in and paid rent on their homes for many years can buy their own homes—but, crucially, where councils can replace them and contribute to the urgent and rising need for social and affordable homes.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to the long called-for ability for councils to retain 100% of receipts, and this Government have facilitated that. By reforming the right-to-buy scheme, we will protect much-needed housing stock and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, more homes will be available to house those on waiting lists and those who are homeless.
We have committed to the biggest funding boost for social and affordable housing for a generation. I remind the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Jamieson, that many of the homes sold have never been replaced. Between April 2012 and March 2025, there were around 133,000 council right-to-buy sales, with only around 51,000 homes replaced over the same period. Not only has this depleted much-needed homes for households in need but it has reduced the motivation and confidence of councils to build, and it has restricted broader investment in council housing. I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that through the Renters’ Rights Act this Government have significantly strengthened renters’ rights, including with regard to rent increases.
We think we have the balance right here, making sure that we address some of the issues around right to buy but also continuing to give that opportunity and aspiration for those who want to purchase their own homes. We therefore oppose this amendment, and I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and everyone who contributed to this short but passionate Committee debate. I join others in welcoming the noble Baronesses, Lady Curran and Lady O’Neill, to the Front Benches.
I think the Minister agreed with me that right to buy and the way it has been implemented up to now have done enormous damage. We are in agreement about the loss without replacement of so much social housing. I also acknowledge her points about the Renters’ Rights Act, which is a step in the right direction, although the Green Party would like to see this going much further, with rent caps.
In saying that, I respond a little to the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for whom I have the greatest respect. He compared the percentage of social renters in the UK with other parts of Europe. Of course, the conditions and the arrangements for private renting in many parts of Europe give people far greater security of tenure and far greater security of life than our arrangements do, even with the Renters’ Rights Act.
A couple of other points from the noble Lord, Lord Young, really need to be referred to. On the idea that housing will be sold and then ploughed back, later we will come to Amendment 16 about buyback. If we see an extension of buyback, it is possible to imagine a home being sold under right to buy and, very quickly, the council buying a house so that another one is available immediately. But the more typical situation will probably be that a house is sold under right to buy and maybe 10 years later a new social housing unit appears as a result of that money. That is a very long gap, and of course there is still disruption to the community. It will not often be an immediate response.
In picking up a couple of points from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, I will not start a whole debate about where the rise in house prices comes from, but a study from King’s College London in 2018 estimated that, without foreign investment money coming in, prices would have been 19% lower then. Of course, we saw a great financial liberalisation—part of the whole right-to-buy scenario, where we have turned what had been secure and affordable places for people to live into something regarded primarily as a financial asset.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, who suggested that social housing should be only a short-term replacement until you move on with your life. We want people to have a secure and affordable place to live for life, if that is what they want. That should be the foundation of our communities. We are not stressing enough the impact on communities of right to buy; we are focused very much on the impacts on individuals. The turmoil that right to buy has brought communities should not be ignored.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Committee. I apologise to noble Lords that I was not able to be in your Lordships’ House for Second Reading. I declare my relevant technology interests as set out in the register, variously as adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc and Simmons & Simmons LLP, and as non-executive director of Avalanche (BVI), Inc and the Avalanche Foundation.
In my set of Committee amendments, I want to assist the Bill by bringing the strands of inclusion and innovation and talent and technology through every possible supportive clause of the Bill. In this group, I speak to Amendments 3, 10 and 13 in my name.
Amendment 3 sets out provisions to establish a digital life-cycle service for right to buy. In doing so, it would provide greater empowerment, knowledge, connection and communication to those who may wish to avail themselves of the right-to-buy service. This would be an effective and important use of digital technology and, through that, could play a positive part in enabling digital inclusion. Critically, the amendment does not seek to rely just on digital; it sets out provisions for alternative means of connection to ensure this life-cycle service could be achieved through systems such as text messaging. Amendment 10 would develop this in the context of fraud requirements, clearly supporting the measures in new Section 124A inserted by Clause 4.
Amendment 13 further seeks to use the benefits of technology to provide an immutable record—an audit trail—which is tamper-proof for all Section 122 applications. In 2017, I wrote a report on blockchain called Distributed Ledger Technologies for Public Good. At that stage, I wanted to set out not just the potential public use cases but the public value cases in which the distributed ledger and other technologies could assist across the state. My fear was that, if these potential use cases and value cases were not set out, the debate would get stuck and, whenever blockchain was mentioned, it would naturally be assumed that it meant just Bitcoin, which had nothing to say on beneficial provision for operations of the state across potentially all government departments and local authorities. Amendment 13 is therefore one such potential use case or value case, where there could be a clear audit trail, available for all, of use to the department, and indeed the regulator, with the safety, security and knowledge that it is a clear, accurate, immutable record of applications and any potential fraud hearings and investigations that have happened around right to buy.
These three amendments look to deploy the benefits of such potential technologies. I believe they would greatly support the provisions set out in the Bill.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to government Amendments 4, 6 and 122 in my name now and then come back to close at the end, if that is all right with noble Lords.
The Government clearly set out in our response to the consultation on reforming the right to buy that we would prevent existing property owners or those who have previously benefited from the scheme exercising right to buy unless there are exceptional circumstances. This was supported by 91% of respondents to the consultation, including 86% of social tenants who responded. We have already drawn up the latter part of this commitment through Clause 2 of the Bill and intend to add to this by including a provision in new Clause 2 to prevent existing residential property owners exercising the right to buy. The Committee will appreciate that defining residential property ownership is complex, given the many forms that property ownership can take. Capturing this complexity in legal drafting required additional time, meaning that this clause was not present at introduction. Given that the intent behind the right to buy is to enable tenants of social housing to become home owners, preventing existing property owners using the scheme is a fair and rational approach.
We have set out in this amendment what we think is a reasonable definition of a residential property owner. The new clause will apply to anyone who owns a residential property, whether owned outright or with a mortgage. Leasehold and freehold properties will be captured, with exceptions for short-term leases under 21 years, as will joint ownership and any properties owned outside England, including those held in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and abroad. As in Clause 2, exemptions will be made for victims of domestic abuse who have moved from the accommodation that they were occupying for reasons connected to the abuse.
As part of the application process, tenants will be required to declare to the landlord whether they own another property and landlords will be able to check the information that the tenant provides. If tenants are seeking exceptionally to buy under a right-to-buy scheme, where they already own a residential property, because they have been a victim of domestic abuse, they will be required to provide evidence of that to the landlord. Amendment 4 thus follows through on our commitment to exclude existing property owners from using right to buy and is accompanied by Amendments 6 and 122, which are consequential and enable the new clause to operate as intended. I commend these amendments to the Committee.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I want to hear from the Minister about government Amendment 4, to try to understand a bit more about cohabitees. There are other legal rulings which have been made and I am led to believe that the Lord Chancellor will be bringing forward legislation about cohabitees, but the definition is not particularly strong. I want to understand how, in practice, the Government intend to put this in place. The new clause is suggesting that it is somebody who lives with somebody else as if they are married, but there are other benefits rulings where that entitlement was brought in only because of children involved. I want to get a better understanding because, in that particular case, the ruling is that you have to have lived with somebody for only a single day. I hear that the Lord Chancellor may be talking about something like three years. I would be grateful if the Minister, in her final wind-up, would elaborate further on how they will determine accurately whether somebody is a cohabitee.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, it is very convenient that my noble friend Lady Scott is in the Chamber, so I can say many thanks for all that she has done and how she helped me come into the House. It is great following someone who is so good, because there is so much to learn and, fortunately, I am still able to access that learning, so I thank her very much.
My noble friend Lady Eaton rightly raises concerns regarding changes to the qualifying period, removing opportunity for many. What is the Government’s evidence that this will work and why is the change being made from three to 10 years? In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who made either a compliment or a back-handed compliment—I am not sure which—it fundamentally comes down to our view that retaining a house with a family in it and not giving them the opportunity to buy it and stay in it, with the proceeds being used to build more social housing, does not remove anyone from the waiting list. Using that resource to build more housing, which could be temporary accommodation, social housing or specialist housing, is an opportunity to reduce the housing waiting list. It is about more homes for more people, and more opportunity.
I will use, if I may, the same pleading as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that I do not fully understand what my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is proposing. But, certainly, his expertise is far greater than mine and using things such as digital lifecycle services, better technology and encryption technology to support tenants to provide information and to reduce levels of fraud is, surely, a good idea. I look forward to the Minister’s response on those matters.
We have the same concerns about Clause 1, and we are opposed to it until the Government have outlined sufficient evidence on what impact extending the qualifying period will have, not only on housing stock but on tenants who want to own their own home. To many, this, along with other measures proposed in the Bill, would appear to be a deliberate government strategy to undermine right to buy: death by a thousand cuts, so to speak.
Amendment 5 proposes a mechanism to protect existing tenants, and as a result these changes would not affect those who have entered a secure tenancy before this clause comes into force. There is precedent for retrospective protection in legislation, as was done in the Housing Act 2004 passed by the previous Labour Government. There are tenants currently under the impression that they will have the opportunity to own their own home after three years and we should realise the impact that this will have. Alternatively, Amendments 120, 121 and 123 would delay the commencement of Section 1 by three years, thereby giving tenants who are just now entering secure tenancy the opportunity to exercise their current right to buy should they so wish, rather than suddenly snatching it away.
Amendments 7 and 8 reflect our concerns about Clause 2. These probe whether right to buy should be restricted on the basis that a spouse or civil partner, living or deceased, has exercised it in the past.
Amendment 9 also questions the ability of a landlord to be satisfied that persons not married or in civil partnership were none the less living together in that way. These provisions raise key questions about how the state treats two people living together and whether that should affect their property rights. How do the Government plan to communicate these changes so that tenants are aware how their relationships could affect their right to buy? This is particularly pertinent in relation to the Cohabitation Rights Bill, which has been brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and the Government’s consultation on reforming inheritance for unmarried couples.
Furthermore, the Government have tabled Amendments 4, 6 and 122 to introduce a new clause to prevent the right to buy being exercised if a person, their spouse, civil partner or cohabitee already owns other residential property. There are various scenarios I ask the Government to consider. First, as my noble friend Lady Coffey raised, how are the Government defining a relationship in this instance?
As we have seen recently in Scotland, a wife claimed to be completely unaware of a £125,000 motorhome owned by her husband for three years and parked on her mother-in-law’s drive. In all seriousness, it is an optimistic assumption that all those entering relationships are aware of their partner’s current finances and assets. So, how will the Government be able to justify taking away the right to buy from someone who is unaware of a separate asset that they have no stake in? Do the Government accept that there may be additional and unexpected complexities to this proposal?
It also seems to be a contradictory rationale to ban right to buy for tenants in this situation while simultaneously permitting a lifetime tenancy at below-market rates. That seems slightly puzzling. We are not willing to accept these amendments at this stage, and not until further scrutiny of these proposals has taken place on Report.
Finally, Amendment 35 would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance promoting the right-to-buy scheme and financial literacy among young people. People need to be aware of their options and rights, and young people especially need to be given roots to stand on their own two feet. As the Minister herself has previously said, young people need to be more aware of opportunities that are out there for home ownership. Of course, it is not just the case that young people are unaware; they need to be given the financial skills to help navigate the housing market.
I therefore hope the Government will consider our amendments on how we can better support young people to own their own home and look at delaying Clause 4 until such time as this House has had a greater opportunity to scrutinise it.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I will first refer to Opposition comments about government amendments, as that will probably be the most helpful. Tenants who own another property are, by definition, already homeowners, and the right-to-buy scheme was introduced to support tenants who otherwise would be unlikely to access home ownership. Therefore, they should not be given a discount to buy a second home when so many others have not been given the opportunity to purchase a first home. Existing homeowners can generally not join the housing register for the allocation of social housing, including those who own property outside their local authority or abroad, meaning that the measure to exclude such property ownership aligns with existing allocations guidance.
In response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, there is a very detailed explanation of the exclusion in the amendment itself. I will not read it out, because everyone can look at it in the amendment, but the cohabitee part of the amendment refers to
“the co-habitee of the person, or any of the persons, to whom the right to buy belongs; and, for that purpose, one person is the co-habitee of another person if they live together as if they were a married couple or civil partners”.
However, I will reflect on the noble Baroness’s comments if it is not as clear as we hope it is. But, from looking at it again, though, it seems very clear to me in the amendment we have tabled.
I will now tackle the question of whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. Clause 1 increases the minimum tenancy length required for tenants to be eligible for the right-to-buy scheme from three to 10 years. The core aim of the right-to-buy measures in the Bill is to prevent social homes from being sold off without being replaced. Maintaining the eligibility period at three years would contribute to council homes continuing to be sold off at an unsustainable rate and would reduce the ability of our councils to replace those homes.
Furthermore, increasing the minimum eligibility period has received strong support from stakeholders. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, asked me about evidence. In our consultation on reforming the right to buy, 81% of all respondents, of which 62% were tenants, supported increasing the minimum period of tenancy required to at least 10 years. In fact, the majority of respondents, 54%, supported someone having to be a public sector tenant for longer than 10 years before becoming eligible for the right to buy.
This takes me neatly on to Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, which seeks to extend the eligibility period under the scheme to five years, instead of the proposed 10. The Government firmly believe that 10 years strikes the right balance between allowing longer-standing tenants the opportunity to own their own home and protecting our much-needed social housing stock. Increasing the eligibility requirement to 10 years will better support councils to rebuild the stock of council homes and will ensure that it is tenants who have lived in and paid rent on their social homes for many years who are able to own their own home through the scheme. Ten years is also the average length of tenancy of someone buying under the scheme currently, meaning that this will not substantially change the average eligibility period of those buying under the scheme.
Amendment 5, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, seeks to amend Clause 1 of the Bill so that the provision only applies to secure tenancies entered into after the measure comes into force, which would mean that existing secure tenancies would still be eligible for the right to buy after only three years of tenancy. Excluding existing tenancies from the eligibility change would mean that the existing three years’ eligibility would continue to apply to the vast majority of council housing tenants and that we would continue to see homes being sold as early as three years after a tenancy is secured. As set out in the Government’s response to the consultation on these measures, we have been clear that the intention is that this change would apply to both existing and new tenants to protect existing social housing stock. For these reasons, we cannot accept this amendment.
Amendments 120, 121 and 123, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, seek to delay commencement of Clause 1 by three years. It is imperative that we increase the eligibility requirement for right to buy as soon as practicable to ensure we support long-standing tenants in retaining the right to buy, while ensuring that our councils are not losing homes at an unsustainable rate. As such, we intend to bring Clause 1 into force on Royal Assent. This ensures that we act quickly to protect council housing stock and that we prevent a potential spike in sales as a result of these changes. Allowing a three-year lead-in time for Clause 1 would only increase the loss of social homes to the right to buy. I hope that the noble Baroness will understand the reasons I have set out and withdraw her amendment, and I commend this clause to the Committee.
I turn now to Clause 2, which has been opposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Repeat purchases through the right to buy go against the core aim of the scheme, which is to support tenants into long-term home ownership. It also undermines the objectives of maintaining and expanding social and affordable housing stock. The vast majority of respondents to the government consultation stated they would support preventing someone who has previously benefited from the right to buy from being able to exercise the right to buy again. Clause 2 delivers on this, with exceptions for victims of domestic abuse and in cases of irretrievable relationship breakdown. The terms of these exceptions are set out in the clause and will be reinforced by updated guidance when the Act comes into force. It will be for social landlords to be satisfied that the exceptions apply, for which they will be able to ask for evidence from the applicant as part of the application process. This is something councils are well practised at doing, as under the current rules those who have previously exercised the right to buy have their discount reduced if they seek to exercise the right to buy again.
I now turn to Amendments 7 and 8, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, which intend to probe whether the right to buy should be restricted if a spouse or civil partner of tenants have exercised the right to buy before. The Government have carefully considered these restrictions and feel it is appropriate that this policy should include where spouses and civil partners exercised the right to buy in the past, as the household in question can therefore be assessed as having already benefited from the scheme. Allowing repeated purchases within married couples or civil partnerships could lead to the gaming of the system and would undermine the objective of preserving and expanding social housing stock.
Amendment 9 seeks to probe how social landlords could be satisfied that, where a tenant is seeking an exemption to be able exercise the right to buy again due to relationship breakdown, the tenant was not married or in a civil partnership but were living as such—that is, that they were cohabiting. As part of the application process, applicants seeking an exemption will be required to provide evidence of their previous situation. If the landlord is satisfied with that evidence, the right to buy could then be exercised. To reiterate and reassure, we will be providing additional guidance to landlords on Clause 2 and how it will operate. With this explanation, I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendments and commend Clause 2 to the Committee.
Amendment 35, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, intends to create a separate piece of guidance for the right to buy specifically aimed at promoting the scheme and financial literacy among young people. I point noble Lords to the existing guide Your Right to Buy Your Home, which is accessible on GOV.UK to all tenants regardless of age. This provides comprehensive guidance on the right-to-buy scheme, including on the costs of home ownership. The guidance will be fully updated in light of the reforms to the scheme. The guidance also includes information on how to access the Money and Pensions Service, which provides free, impartial advice to help people make informed choices about managing their money. This service is accessible to young people. As we do not wish to duplicate any existing guidance, the Government cannot accept this amendment. As I have already alluded to, we will continue to update and promote guidance to tenants on the right to buy through usual channels, notably GOV.UK. We will also share relevant information about the scheme and changes to it with local authorities so that they can disseminate it to their tenants.
Finally, I turn to Amendments 3, 10 and 13. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for these amendments, and for his technical knowledge which enabled him to bring them before the Committee today. They seek to introduce a centralised digital lifecycle service for the right to buy, alongside new requirements for audit and fraud tracking. I recognise the intention behind these proposals—improving transparency, supporting tenants through the process and strengthening safeguards against fraud are all important objectives. However, the Government do not consider that a centrally mandated digital service is the right approach to achieve these aims. The right to buy is fundamentally a landlord-led process. Individual social landlords hold the relevant tenancy information, determine eligibility and manage applications directly with tenants. This reflects the fact that eligibility depends on detailed, case-specific information—such as tenancy history, property type and previous use of the right to buy—which sits with the landlord, not with central government.
These amendments would require a significant shift away from that established model, creating a national service to replicate functions that are already carried out locally. To operate effectively, such a service would depend on the continuous input and standardisation of very large volumes of data from social landlords across the country. That would not be a simple enhancement. It would require the design and delivery of complex digital infrastructure, the resolution of significant data-sharing and governance issues and the ongoing maintenance of accurate, real-time information across a highly diverse sector. In practice, this creates a substantial delivery risk. There is a real danger that such a system could become burdensome, duplicative and inflexible, placing new administrative burdens on landlords while not improving the core experience for tenants.
Similarly, mandating specific technologies, such as a blockchain-based audit trail, risks imposing disproportionate cost and complexity without clear evidence of additional benefit over existing systems. Landlords are already required to maintain accurate records and have processes in place to identify and investigate potential fraud. For these reasons, while I understand the objectives behind these amendments the Government consider that they would introduce unnecessary complexity, cost, and risk into a system that is best administered at the local level. We therefore cannot support these amendments and I kindly ask the noble Lord not to press them.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I would like some clarification about government Amendment 4. This is an issue of principle, to some extent. This is an amendment of more than two pages; it is not a small technical correction. As the Minister will have heard from me and my noble friend Lady Coffey, we have some concerns about understanding issues such as what is a cohabitee and when is it defined, and so forth. We genuinely believe that there is a principle here that this House should have the opportunity to properly scrutinise government amendments, and this government amendment has come just after the Bill was published. Why was it not in the original Bill, and why should we not be given the opportunity, given that it is quite a large amendment, to take it to Report, which would give the Government and us the opportunity to clarify some of these issues that have been raised here today?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I set out in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, a clear definition is set out in the new clause. I accept what the noble Lord says. Perhaps, if he would rather reflect on this between now and Report, I will have further discussions with him on that. Is he suggesting that I should not move the amendment at this stage?
Lord Jamieson (Con)
Yes; we would be very happy if the noble Baroness did not move the amendment. We would prefer that that amendment is moved on Report after we have had the opportunity for clarification and conversations.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Forgive me, but it was my understanding that it had been agreed through the usual channels that we could move this amendment today.
“Exercise of the right to buy by residential property ownersBefore section 121A of the Housing Act 1985 insert—“121ZC Exercise of the right to buy by residential property ownersProhibition on exercise of right to buy(1) The right to buy may not be exercised if any of the following persons owns other residential property—(a) the person, or any of the persons, to whom the right to buy belongs;(b) the spouse or civil partner of the person, or any of the persons, to whom the right to buy belongs (if they are living together at the relevant time in relation to the right to buy);(c) the co-habitee of the person, or any of the persons, to whom the right to buy belongs;and, for that purpose, one person is the co-habitee of another person if they live together as if they were a married couple or civil partners.(2) But that prohibition does not apply if—(a) the landlord is satisfied that—(i) the person or any of the persons to whom the right to buy belongs (“A”) has at any time within the relevant period been a victim of domestic abuse within the meaning given by section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and(ii) within that period A has for reasons connected to the abuse moved from the accommodation that they were occupying (whether or not more than once), and(b) the right to buy is being exercised by A (whether alone or with other persons).Residential property(3) In this section—(a) “other residential property” means residential property other than the dwelling-house to which the right to buy relates;(b) “residential property” means a building or a part of a building (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) that consists of, or includes, property that—(i) is being used wholly or partly as a dwelling, or(ii) is constructed or adapted for use as a dwelling, but is not being used wholly or partly as a dwelling.Ownership: England, Wales and Northern Ireland(4) Subsections (5) to (7) apply for the purpose of determining whether a person owns other residential property that is in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.(5) The person owns the other residential property if the person is the beneficial owner, or one of the beneficial owners, of a qualifying interest in the other residential property.(6) For the purposes of subsection (5), any of the following is a “qualifying interest”— (a) the freehold;(b) a lease that was originally granted for a term of 21 years or longer.(7) For the purposes of subsection (5), a person (P) is a beneficial owner of a qualifying interest if—(a) the qualifying interest is not held on trust and P holds, or is one of the persons who hold, the qualifying interest, or(b) the qualifying interest is held on trust and P has, or is one of the persons who have, a beneficial interest under the trust;(and accordingly if P holds, or is one of the persons who hold, the qualifying interest on trust, P is not a beneficial owner unless P also has a beneficial interest under the trust).Ownership: Scotland(8) Subsections (9) and (10) apply for the purpose of determining whether a person owns other residential property that is in Scotland.(9) The person owns the other residential property if the person is the owner, or one of the owners, of the other residential property.(10) But where a person (“T”) holds other residential property in trust under the law of Scotland on terms such that, if the trust had effect under the law of England and Wales, one or more persons would be regarded as having an equitable interest in the trust property (the “notional beneficiary or beneficiaries”)—(a) the notional beneficiary or beneficiaries are to be treated as being the owner or owners of the residential property despite no such interest being recognised under the law of Scotland, and(b) T is the owner only if T is a notional beneficiary.Ownership: outside the United Kingdom(11) In determining whether a person owns other residential property outside the United Kingdom, regard must be had to the desirability of producing an effect that is as consistent with the effect produced by subsections (5) to (7) as is practicable (taking into account, in particular, any ways in which the law relating to the other residential property differs from the laws of the United Kingdom).Trusts and trustees: other provision(12) For the purposes of this section—(a) a qualifying interest (in relation to England, Wales or Northern Ireland), or ownership (in relation to Scotland), is not to be regarded as held on a trust created by a will unless and until the qualifying interest or ownership has been vested in the trustees;(b) a person is not to be regarded as holding a qualifying interest (in relation to England, Wales or Northern Ireland), or ownership (in relation to Scotland), if they hold it as a trustee in bankruptcy or otherwise in accordance with any legislation of any part of the United Kingdom relating to insolvency.””Member’s explanatory statement
This would prevent the right to buy from being exercised if any person to whom the right belongs, or their spouse, civil partner or co-habitee, already owns other residential property.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I move the amendment formally but I am happy to discuss it further with noble Lords if they have concerns about the definition.
“(1) After section 121ZC of the Housing Act 1985 (inserted by section (Exercise of the right to buy by residential property owners)) insert—Member’s explanatory statement
This would be consequential on the new Clause (Exercise of the right to buy by residential property owners) in my name.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on her return to the Front Bench. I declare my interests as vice-president of London Councils—I will be there tomorrow morning—and as a part-owner of a rented property in Bexley. I also put on record that my parents had a right to buy. My dad was a bus conductor, and I am proud of that.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate on what is ultimately a question of proportionality. The Government believe that the current level of discounts is too generous and that they need to be reduced. The question raised by these amendments is whether the reductions proposed in the Bill go further than necessary, and hence we have probed the inclusion of Clause 5. My noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendments do not seek to preserve the status quo; rather, they offer an alternative approach that would reduce discounts while retaining a meaningful incentive for tenants considering home ownership, as my noble friend Lord Fuller said. In that sense, they seek a compromise between the current arrangements and the considerably lower levels proposed by the Government.
Noble Lords have referred to the importance of preserving the viability of the scheme. That is a legitimate concern. If discounts are reduced to the point where the financial advantage of exercising right to buy becomes marginal, there is a risk that the policy ceases to operate as intended. The issue before the Committee is therefore not whether discounts should ever change but whether the Government have adequately justified reductions at the scale proposed in the Bill. Having listened to the debate, I am not yet persuaded that they have. For that reason, I hope the Minister will give further consideration to a more measured approach to better preserve the opportunities that the right-to-buy scheme has offered to many tenants over the years.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate: the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey, Lady Thornhill and Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Fuller. First, I will defend why Clause 5 should stand part of the Bill. The right-to-buy scheme continues to provide an important route for social housing tenants to own their own homes. However, we must ensure that the scheme remains sustainable. This includes ensuring that discounts are set at the right level to enable long-standing tenants to buy under the scheme but without depleting levels of social housing stock.
The Government has already taken action to reduce the maximum cash discounts in November 2024 by returning them to pre-2012 levels. We committed to revising the discounts available as a percentage of the property value so that they align better with the revised cash cap amounts. Clause 5 delivers on our commitment to do this by reducing the percentage discounts so that they start at 5% of the property value after 10 years of public sector tenancy, with an increase for every extra year of tenancy up to a maximum of 15%.
As is the case now, these percentage discounts will be subject to the cash caps which set out the maximum cash discount that a tenant can receive in their local authority area. Aligning the discounts available as a percentage of the property value with the cash caps ensures that those who have been in their homes the longest benefit the most, while also avoiding disproportionately large discounts in high-value areas. The revised percentage discount levels aim to strike a balance between the responses received during the right to buy consultation, where many respondents supported setting the percentage discounts lower than is proposed by this clause.
We are also simplifying the rules by applying a single set of discount arrangements to houses and flats, making the scheme clearer and more consistent for tenants. This clause also extends the discount repayment period to 10 years after the original sale from the current five years, during which a purchaser looking to resell the property will be required to repay all or some of the discount on a sliding scale. This measure was supported by 72% of all respondents to our consultation. It will ensure that there is less of an incentive for early resale, which can undermine the purpose of the scheme, and will encourage people buying under the scheme to retain the property and discourage some of the profiteering that we have seen. With this explanation, I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to withdraw her opposition to the clause standing part of the Bill.
I turn to Amendments 14 and 15, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. The intention of these amendments—to set the minimum percentage discount at 20% and the maximum at 30%—would undermine the core aims of the clause that I have just set out and would keep the percentage discounts too high. In practice, the lower maximum cash discounts would take effect over the percentage amounts, as the cash cap would often be the lesser of the two discounts and would determine the discount that the tenant would receive. This would also mean that tenants with longer tenancies would be less likely to benefit, because the cash cap would bite sooner on the actual discount received. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for her response. I do not think we can base every decision or amendment on exactly where one lives—recognising that there are parts of the country where there are significantly lower costs and low market prices to be had. I also go back partly to what I said at Second Reading; there is a risk that, as people retire, they will start to claim benefits to continue to live in the places where they are currently social housing tenants. I think it would be worth looking at the maths again, but with that I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, before I respond directly to the amendments, I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said about the issues around housing in rural areas. I might send her some of the Focus leaflets that I have seen objecting to rural developments.
I begin by focusing on Clause 6 regarding the right of first refusal for councils to buy back homes sold under right to buy. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to what has been a thoughtful debate on the amendments in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made a fairly sweeping statement about there being little ambition for increasing supply. I hope that she will have noted both the letter I sent in response to Second Reading and the annexe that was attached to that, which set out in great detail—I mentioned it at the start of Committee today—some of the action that the Government are taking to increase supply.
The first is the retention of 100% of right-to-buy receipts by councils. That was a big step forward—I campaigned for it for probably 15 years. There is the biggest boost to grant funding in a generation, rebuilding the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest; a road map for Section 106 delivery, which has been a constant theme of discussions in this House and elsewhere; a complete renewal of the planning framework; £16 billion of National Housing Bank funding; and an ambitious package of support for London. London has been mentioned a couple of times in this debate, and the Government have put in £11.7 billion of funding to support the building of housing in London. I do not consider that a lack of ambition for housing delivery. Of course, we are constrained by the finances available.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
The Minister has provoked me now. All those are positive moves, but how much do they add up to? That is the question. The enormous sum of money that the Government have made available for affordable—I hate that word—and social housing adds up to 180,000 new homes over 10 years, whereas Shelter advocates that 90,000 new social homes to rent are essential every year. That is the scale of the problem, which is why I used the word that I did to criticise the Government for a lack of ambition. We are desperate for increased numbers of social homes. I appreciate what the Government are doing, but I am pretty sure that it does not add up to anywhere near enough.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I accept to a certain extent what the noble Baroness is saying. No one would be more ambitious than me to deliver more social housing. We are in government and we have to deal with the financial circumstances that we inherited, which included an enormous financial black hole. In that context, the amount of funding that we have allocated for social housing is significant—it is the biggest amount of funding for a generation—as are the other steps that we have taken to move the housing market along, not just in social housing but in other areas as well.
When the economy starts to grow again—we have already seen green shoots—we will be able to put more in, but, for the moment, we have indicated the ambition for increasing supply through what we have done already. We continue to be ambitious, and we will continue to support the growth of affordable and social housing alongside growth right across the housing market, which is really important. I was delighted to see the wraparound on the Metro this morning from Lloyds Bank, talking about how, for the first time since 1996, it has produced a £5,000 starter mortgage for young people. That is brilliant. All the steps that we are taking to increase housing supply across the board show a great deal of ambition, so I wanted to challenge the noble Baroness’s sweeping statement about little ambition for increasing supply.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, proposes to remove Clause 6 entirely from the Bill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has tabled Amendment 16 regarding the resourcing and monitoring of the right of first refusal. Let me start by setting out that the right of first refusal offers an opportunity for social landlords to buy back homes that have been sold under right to buy, at full market value, when they are resold. The right of first refusal period is currently 10 years after the original sale. Councils have 8 weeks to decide whether to purchase the home when informed by the owner that they are planning to sell, following which the property can be sold on the open market. Under Clause 6, the period will be increased to in perpetuity, so that councils will have the opportunity to buy back the property every time it is resold. This will give councils much more opportunity to buy back future properties sold under the scheme.
The change will apply only to applications to exercise the right to buy after the measure comes into force. Homes already sold under right to buy will be subject to the terms of the covenants that were attached to them when they were sold under the scheme. Where the right of refusal is for 10 years, as it is currently, that will continue to apply. I hope that that clarifies the point. It is for local authorities to decide whether to exercise the right of first refusal, taking into account their local priorities and financial position.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As the noble Lord will be aware, we are moving to single-tier councils across the country, but he is quite correct in his assumption.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I thank the Minister for that clarification; it certainly would make it easier that somebody does not have to chase 15 different housing associations that have merged or demerged.
This has been an insightful debate, and I thank noble Lords for the points they have raised. There are evidently some concerns about the Bill’s implications across the Committee, not just about the practicalities but about fairness and things such as definitions of rurality. I am grateful to the Minister for her response to our concerns. However, we still have concerns about extending the right of first refusal in perpetuity and about how this will affect families in the future and former landlords. The clarification addresses some of the complexities, but it is still a basic principle that if you own a house for some period of time, it should truly become yours. I ask the Government to look again.
Clause 7 is certainly controversial, and a number of noble Lords have spoken about the definition of rurality. We have not heard many noble Lords in this Committee saying that they want to give the opportunity to the Secretary of State to define rurality without sufficient parliamentary oversight or without a proposed definition accompanying the Bill. We appreciate that defining rurality is not straightforward—I am pleased with my noble friend Lord Fuller’s definition, “Can you get an Uber?”, and on that basis I am definitely in a rural area. This requires further debate, and I am sure that we will come back to this at a later stage. The point is that, while we recognise the challenges of delivering homes in rural areas, we do not believe that removing the right to buy is fair on those tenants.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that we need to find ways of building new homes in rural areas because the demand is there, and without ensuring that we have a thriving community, the schools, pubs and shops will shut. As an example, in one of my villages, 100 new homes had been built on a new housing estate and when I was knocking on doors—as I do quite regularly—people were saying that the school cannot cope. I had to inform them that the school was half full and that, without that housing estate, it would shut. We are having fewer children per household, and we need to think about having a thriving community, which in some cases needs more houses. We need to think about that more.
On the question of the 35-year restriction for newly built social housing, there is a genuine lack of clarity. I appreciate that the Minister said that 30 to 35 years is often the period over which you recover the full cost of the house. But you are selling the house, and in doing so with the appropriate floor price, you would recover the funding anyway. So it is not clear to me why that is necessary.
Amendment 16 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, raises some interesting questions. I appreciate that this is a probing amendment, and as a councillor I am all in favour of councils receiving more resources for the good work that they do, but I want to understand the implications of this amendment financially. How many homes would this apply to? What level of resource would it involve? Is it a few million pounds, or could it be billions of pounds a year? There are times when it will be right to buy an existing home. However, at a time when we have a housing shortage and desperately need to build more homes, should we really be focusing limited resources on buying existing homes rather than building new social homes? We need to do more than just think about how we move around the ownership. We need to look at how we increase the number of homes. That is one of the reasons that we are in favour of right to buy: it provides more resources rather than calling on the Government’s limited resources.
I hope that the Government will reflect further on the points raised across the Committee and ensure that these various amendments are duly considered before Report.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I was not planning to speak in this group, but, after listening to my noble friend and other noble Lords, and after reading Clause 9, it is clear that the Government are intending to take a power to reduce the amount that is payable to the Secretary of State under the regulations. I am not clear why that power is being taken and for what purposes? Under what circumstances would that payment be reduced? Clearly, there is going to be a method for making a determination, but I do not think we know what it is. It would be jolly helpful if we were told what it is.
In particular, it would be helpful to know why the Localism Act insertion into what is currently Section 11(6), which allows the Secretary of State to enter into an agreement with the local authority about this, has been taken out. An agreement of that kind is exactly the sort of way in which the Secretary of State might want to enter into a means of supporting particular use of capital receipts in particular local authorities.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I will first address the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, and moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson.
I would like to reassure the House on our intentions behind Clause 9 of the Bill, which relates to the use of receipts from the sale of homes under the right-to-buy scheme. Clause 9 simplifies and modernises how the rules on right-to-buy receipts are managed. Every stock-holding authority currently has an agreement with the Secretary of State allowing it to retain all its net right-to-buy receipts, provided it spends those receipts on replacement social housing. In practice, this is administratively burdensome for both councils and central government. Currently, whenever the rules on receipts change—for example, permitting councils to combine their receipts with grant funding—the department must reissue all the retention agreements to every stock-holding authority, which is around 160 individual agreements.
Clause 9 replaces this with a simpler approach. It provides the Secretary of State with a power to modify these requirements by determination, removing the need to reissue agreements many times over while maintaining oversight. This clause therefore reduces administrative burden, improves responsiveness and supports councils to deliver more homes. The rules on pooling of right-to-buy receipts will continue to be governed by the regulations and any significant changes to those rules will continue to need to be made through a statutory instrument, subject to the negative procedure.
I know it has been a concern of some noble Lords that we may be seeking to use this clause to require councils to start repaying a portion of their receipts to the Treasury. I reassure noble Lords that this is absolutely not the case. We have committed to allow councils to retain all their right-to-buy receipts indefinitely, and Clause 9 makes it clear that the power of determination cannot be used to increase the amount that local authorities are required to return to the Secretary of State.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for Amendments 26 to 32, which would replace the power Clause 9 introduces for the Secretary of State to make determinations on right-to-buy receipts with a requirement to use regulations in all cases. In July 2024, we were able to act quickly to give local authorities greater flexibility to spend their right-to-buy receipts to accelerate the delivery of new social and affordable homes. Importantly, this included permitting receipts to be combined with Section 106 contributions and removing the cap on the proportion of a new home that can be funded by right-to-buy receipts.
The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness would remove that flexibility and require all changes on right-to-buy receipts to be made through regulations. In practice, this would mean that the existing process would remain in place, with the administrative burden it entails for councils and central government. It would also result in delay and complexity in the system and make it harder to respond to the operational needs or make technical adjustments in a timely way. For these reasons, the Government cannot support these amendments. The current approach strikes the right balance between flexibility and oversight.
Amendment 33, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, would require the Secretary of State to consult local housing authorities before making any determination on the use of capital receipts. I reassure the Committee that the Government fully recognise the importance of engaging with local authorities on these matters. Where changes to rules governing the spending of right-to-buy receipts are proposed, it is standard practice to engage with the sector to ensure those changes are informed by local experience and delivery considerations. Placing a blanket statutory duty to consult in all circumstances would introduce unnecessary rigidity and could delay the implementation of technical or operational changes. It is important that we retain the ability to act flexibly and responsively while continuing to engage with our local authorities in a proportionate and meaningful way.
Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, proposes a new clause be added to the Bill to recycle right-to-buy receipts within the same housing market area before these are returned to the Secretary of State. Under the existing right-to-buy receipts framework, where local authorities are unable to spend the receipts on new affordable housing within the five-year period, the unused receipts must be returned to the Secretary of State. They are then given out as grant to other social housing providers by Homes England, or for receipts in London by the GLA.
Homes England seeks to redistribute those receipts where possible to the same geographical area in which they were generated, and all receipts generated in London are spent in London. Under the framework, local authorities are also able to work with other local authorities on the spending of right-to-buy receipts on new affordable housing and with other local housing providers. The Government are also extending the period in which receipts must be spent to 10 years for receipts generated from 2027-28 onwards, ensuring receipts are retained in the same housing market areas for longer. This is intended to support councils to plan and deliver longer-term and larger projects.
We therefore reject this amendment on the grounds that there is already flexibility with the right-to-buy receipts framework for local authorities to work with other local housing authorities and providers on delivering new affordable homes using those receipts, and that the system for the recycling of receipts already looks to prioritise the spending of the receipts in the area where they were generated.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Much of the discussion has centred on the proper balance between flexibility and accountability. No one disputes that government requires a degree of flexibility in managing housing finance, and for minor technical changes there is reasonable ground for a determination or something similar. There is also no disagreement that local circumstances differ across the country.
However, while I appreciate this is a complex area and some of these things may require a degree of complexity, the basic principle that right-to-buy receipts should be recycled and reused in the area in which they arise is something we feel is important, and it should not be subject to a Secretary of State determination without consultation or some affirmative procedure in the House. That is the key question here. If the Minister is going to bring forward suggestions at a later stage that differentiate between a minor technical change and the principle we are talking about, that would be a much better solution than those we have seen here, which potentially give the Secretary of State much greater powers than many of us would like. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, as this group of amendments focuses on the outcomes and impacts of the measures in the Bill, I start by drawing the attention of noble Lords to the economic impact assessment for the Bill, published today on GOV.UK. I know this will be greatly welcomed by many in the Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me during Second Reading when it was going to be published, so I am pleased to say that it is now on the Government’s website.
England was on course to lose 26,000 social homes between 2026 and 2036. However, through this package of right-to-buy reforms, including allowing councils to keep all receipts from sales 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 a loss. That is a 44,000-home turnaround, marking a clear shift towards rebuilding social housing and replenishing depleted stock at scale. This demonstrates the significant impact our Bill will have, in combination with the Government’s wider package of right-to-buy reforms, in turning around decades of social homes being lost and not replaced.
Amendments 34, 58, 58A and 73, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Neill and Lady Lawlor, are well intentioned and reflect a shared desire to ensure that the financial and wider impacts of the Bill are properly understood. As I have already set out, the Government have now published our economic impact assessment alongside the Bill’s parliamentary passage. We have established arrangements to monitor the effects of the Bill on the social housing sector and on those affected by it. These three amendments would require additional statutory reporting shortly after commencement and as soon as six months following Royal Assent. However, we know that many of the measures in the Bill will take time to emerge in practice and cannot be meaningfully assessed within that timeframe. A further statutory review would risk duplicating existing analysis, while providing only a partial and potentially misleading picture of the Bill’s true impact.
I point the noble Baronesses to the comprehensive suite of published statistics already available, including annual social housing sales and demolition figures, right-to-buy sales and replacements data, and statistics on the delivery of new affordable housing supply, all of which are published on GOV.UK. These datasets provide detailed information at local authority level, including applications, completed sales, replacements, discounts and property characteristics, and will continue to offer a clear and transparent overview of the impact of the Bill, including on home ownership, as it comes into force.
We are aligned in wanting a clear understanding of the Bill’s effects, but we differ on whether additional statutory reporting requirements are the best way to achieve that aim. Given the recently published assessment and our ongoing commitment to monitoring and reporting on the impact of the package of right-to-buy reforms and the wider Bill, I hope the noble Baronesses will reflect on these points and agree not to press their amendments.
Amendment 101, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seeks to require local authorities and registered providers to publish annual social housing outcomes broken down by protected characteristics. Although the Government strongly support transparency and the importance of monitoring equalities outcomes, we do not consider the amendment necessary or proportionate. There are already existing statutory duties under the Equality Act 2010, including the public sector equality duty, which require local authorities and registered providers to have due regard to equalities impacts in exercising their functions.
In addition, providers are already subject to regulatory oversight and data collection requirements, and we are mindful of the need to avoid imposing duplicative reporting burdens that would divert resources from front-line delivery. The amendment would introduce a prescriptive and potentially rigid framework, including requirements around statistical thresholds and impact assessments, which may not be proportionate in all cases. We therefore consider that the objectives of the amendment are better achieved through existing duties and ongoing work with the regulator, rather than through additional primary legislation, and we ask that the amendment not be pressed.
On Amendment 104, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, while we support the ambition to improve energy efficiency and ensure better outcomes for tenants, we do not consider a statutory ESG framework to be the right approach. The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to a warm and safe home, which is why we are introducing new minimum energy-efficiency standards for social housing. As part of the decent homes standard, this will require all social housing landlords to bring new and existing social homes up to reformed standards that will keep homes warmer and help to make energy bills cheaper for millions of social tenants.
The amendment would introduce a broad and undefined set of obligations under a single framework, which, given that we have already confirmed our new minimum energy-efficiency standards for social housing, risks creating uncertainty for providers about how these requirements would operate in practice and how they would interact with existing standards and investment programmes. The amendment also seeks to combine environmental requirements with equalities reporting in a single legislative framework, which may not be the most effective way to drive progress in either area. These issues are best addressed through targeted policy levers and sector-specific regulation, where expectations can be updated over time to reflect changing evidence and priorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to issues around rural housing. I cannot remember whether he was in the Chamber earlier when we had a short debate about rural housing. At Second Reading I was not able to respond to all the points that were made so I wrote to all Members who were present at that debate on 8 June, including a whole paragraph on rural housing. Therefore, I hope that he feels I have not ignored the points that were raised during the debate. We will continue to discuss rural housing in your Lordships’ House.
To return to the amendment on the ESG framework, we do not consider it appropriate to legislate for a new framework in this form.
On Amendments 117A and 119A, the Government are fully committed to considering equalities impacts throughout the development and delivery of policy. We do not consider it necessary or appropriate to place a requirement of this breadth in the Bill or to link it directly to commencement. Equalities considerations are already embedded through the public sector equality duty, which requires ongoing, proportionate and responsive assessment rather than a single static exercise covering every provision in detail. This ensures that analysis can evolve in the light of new evidence and real-world implementation, rather than relying on a single static assessment of the entire Act.
By contrast, Amendment 117A would require a full retrospective assessment of the entire Act in a highly prescriptive form. This risks creating a resource-intensive process that may add limited practical value, particularly where impacts are already understood or mitigated through existing safeguards, and could reduce the ability to refine analysis over time. For those reasons, we believe that the equalities impacts are addressed most effectively through the existing framework, which supports continuous, responsive decision-making, rather than through a one-off statutory requirement linked to commencement.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for his Amendment 95. This seeks to introduce a requirement for social housing providers to assess and report on the impact of changes in planning policy, funding and standards on the availability and affordability of family-sized social rent homes. I agree with the importance of ensuring that there is sufficient availability of social rent homes for young families. However, this amendment is not the right way forward. It risks creating a burdensome new requirement for providers and many of its aims are already achieved through other means. The National Planning Policy Framework already requires local authorities to assess the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community, including families with children and those who require social and affordable housing.
This assessment should be informed by estimates of the current and projected number of households which lack their own housing or cannot afford to meet their housing needs in the market, taking into account the number of households in overcrowded housing and those householders currently housed in unsuitable dwellings. I am sure that from his time as a council leader the noble Lord will remember this process very well. Local plans should reflect this assessment in their planning policies, including by specifying the type and mix of affordable housing that should be delivered on new developments to meet identified local needs. The Government already publish statistics on new affordable housing supply in England, showing the gross annual supply of affordable homes. Information on the number of affordable homes delivered under the Homes England affordable housing programmes is also published twice a year.
Social housing providers would cover both private registered providers and local authority registered providers. There are more than 1,300 of the former and more than 200 of the latter. It would be a significant ask to require registered providers to make a meaningful assessment of the impact of planning policy in the way proposed in the amendment. I would therefore have significant concern about the potential burden imposed by such a requirement. The Government are rightly demanding more than ever from our social landlords; in particular, that they deliver the quality homes and services that their tenants deserve and build the social homes that we need so much. Providers need to be able to focus on those priorities and we need to be cautious about imposing additional duties on them that might be better delivered through other means.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, the Minister has referred a number of times to the publication of the impact assessment. I am not aware that the Minister wrote to Members of this House who spoke at Second Reading or who might be tabling amendments this evening to draw attention to this being published. It is not to be found among the Lords papers on the table outside, so we were not aware of it coming into the House for this purpose. It is not to be found on the parliamentary website. I understand that it is to be found on GOV.UK, but that is not satisfactory. My expectation is that if a Minister at the Dispatch Box refers to a paper, that paper should have been provided to Parliament.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments. I will check why that has not happened, but it is certainly on the GOV.UK website.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I feel duty bound to correct the Minister. She promoted me to being a former leader of a council. I had the honour to be a borough councillor for eight years and a constituency Member of Parliament but never a leader of the council.
Also, the very helpful and comprehensive letter that the Minister sent to noble Lords in the wake of Second Reading was helpful and the best letter that I have received from a Minister. I thank her for that.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, for the error and thank him for his kind comment.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
It is certainly one to note, is it not?
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and to the Minister for her response. The amendments in this group all seek to understand how we will know whether this legislation has succeeded. My noble friend Lady Lawlor rightly focused on the impact of the right-to-buy scheme and the opportunities for home ownership. I thank her for her work on this.
I was also interested in Amendment 95, tabled by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough—who was not a council leader. It raises important questions about the availability of homes delivered and whether the housing stock being provided actually meets the needs of families and communities. Understanding the impact of policy on the availability and affordability of larger social rented homes is certainly worth while.
The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, raise broader questions about transparency, accountability and how Parliament monitors the impact of housing policy across different communities. Noble Lords may have differing views on the precise mechanisms proposed, but these amendments seek to ensure that the consequences of the policy are properly understood and that disparities are identified where they exist. I listened carefully to the Minister’s response and will reflect on the points that have been made during this debate, as well as look at the equality impact assessment. However, I hope that the Government will also reflect on the broader principle that sits behind this group; namely, that Parliament should not simply legislate and move on but retain the means to assess whether its legislation is delivering the outcomes that are intended. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.