Social Housing Bill [HL]

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

3rd reading
Tuesday 1st September 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

That the Bill do now pass.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I give my sincere thanks to noble Lords across the House for the care, expertise and constructive challenge they have brought to this important piece of legislation. As someone for whom social housing—council housing—provided a secure, safe and affordable foundation as I was growing up, this is an issue very close to my heart, and I have heard that from many Members across the Chamber as well.

I thank the Opposition Front Benches for their thoughtful and robust challenge of the Bill and their constructive engagement. I thank in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, who started the Bill off with me, as she has done with so many Bills over the past couple of years; the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for the very constructive and courteous work that we have done together as we have gone through the Bill; and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Pinnock, for their very significant contributions to the Bill and for their support for much of what we have been trying to do.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for his long-held passion for and dedication to achieving long-term solutions to homelessness; and the noble Baroness, Lady Neate, and my noble friend Lady Hyde for their advocacy for victims of violence against women and girls throughout the Bill’s passage. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, in particular, for his thoughtful and constructive contributions on shared ownership. I know many will welcome the attention he has brought to the challenges that some shared owners face.

I am also grateful to those across the House who have been particularly engaged with matters relating to the Bill. Their contributions have illuminated the issues that the Bill aims to tackle and helped us improve the legislation itself. This is reflected in the planned Commons amendments relating to strengthening protections for victims of domestic abuse, right-to-buy rural criteria, and the disposals notification period. We are also undertaking rapid work on exploring policy options for access for safety checks and for security of tenure for those fleeing violence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I trust that everyone has had the opportunity to recharge their batteries over the summer, as I see that we have a rather busy schedule over the coming few months. The Recess provided an opportunity to reflect on the Bill. As mentioned by my friends in the Liberal Democrats, despite being named the Social Housing Bill, its real focus has been to restrict tenants’ rights to buy their own homes. We oppose that approach.

Right to buy has been one of the greatest drivers of social mobility this country has ever seen, enabling millions of families to build capital and stand on their own two feet. We are the party of opportunity, while it seems the party opposite and others favour increased state dependency. We on these Benches believe that combining right to buy with a one-for-one replacement policy with 100% retention of sale proceeds, as introduced by the last Conservative Government, would see increased availability of social homes and deliver the new homes that we all want to see.

With 1.34 million people on council housing waiting lists, we have also sought to address how the current stock of 5.3 million social homes is managed—cracking down on fraud, reducing underoccupation, encouraging those who can afford it to move on and, as the noble Baroness mentioned, looking at greater transparency. This move could free up hundreds of thousands of social homes for those British citizens truly in need.

We pursued amendments to address the problems within shared ownership. I thank my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham for his work in this area. We appreciate the Minister’s commitment to look at this, but I am at one with my noble friend in saying that more needs to be done. This is a key area.

We strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling the issues that domestic abuse victims face in the social housing system. This House discussed its practical implementation.

Finally, I place on record my sincere thanks to the Minister for the time she has taken to engage outside the Chamber and for the considerable work she has done in steering the Bill through the House. Her professionalism has been greatly appreciated across your Lordships’ House. I thank my noble friends for their support over the many hours in this Chamber and all noble Lords who have engaged generously throughout. In particular, I thank my noble friends Lady Scott of Bybrook and Lady O’Neill of Bexley. I also thank those not in the Chamber—Amrita, Richard, Hannah and Henry—who all provided considerable help. I thank all the staff and doorkeepers. Fortunately, this Bill was not quite as long and strenuous as some of the other Bills we have debated.

The Bill may not deliver the housing that our country needs, but our debates have shown that your Lordships’ House remains committed to addressing this issue.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, in welcoming everyone back to the House. I omitted to do that when I stood up earlier. It is great to be back here. If the noble Lord thinks this Bill has been a bit less painful, I remind him that we have the elections Bill next; I look forward to those debates.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her comments. She is quite right that this is a very narrowly scoped Bill. The title might perhaps suggest otherwise, but the reason it has been so narrowly focused is that there is a complete review of the allocations process going on simultaneously, and those things can be changed without going through a primary legislation route.

The noble Baroness was right to refer to both shared ownership and rural issues; both are things that we are still debating. The noble Lord, Lord Young, also raised the issue of shared ownership. The department looks forward to further discussions with him as the Bill makes its progress through the Commons. I will be happy to meet him at any time to try to move this on.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for all the work he did during the passage of the Bill, particularly around access for safety issues. It is key that our housing providers are able to access. We put a lot of stress on them in insisting that their properties are safe, and they need support to do that. There is more work to be done before we can move that forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and I have fundamental differences about the purpose of this Bill. Our Government are not withdrawing right to buy—we do not think that is the right thing to do—but the fatal flaw in the right-to-buy process was not replacing those properties. There are towns such as mine where we went down from over 30,000 council homes to 8,000; that has been a big generator of some of the housing issues that we have seen over the years. This Bill aims to make sure that we get the balance right in giving people the opportunity to buy their own home without impacting unnecessarily on that housing supply. The issues around fraud and underoccupation that the noble Lord mentioned can be dealt with outside legislation; I know that councils are looking at that all the time as well. I am grateful for all the contributions that have been made.