Social Housing Bill [HL]

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 86, 87 and 88 in my name address the subject of mayors and their role in social housing delivery. As we know, local authorities have a major role to play in social housing delivery and maintenance. Under this Government, reforms have been pushed to further empower mayors in their areas over ordinary councillors, as we saw in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act. Therefore, it is only right that we question to what extent existing and future mayors should be held responsible for social housing delivery.

Amendment 86 would require the Secretary of State to carry out a review of what mechanisms are and should be available to hold mayors to account, specifically in relation to social housing delivery. This review would take place within 12 months of the Bill being passed and it must consider the performance of social housing delivery, the accountability of the mayor to local electors in this regard and what accountability mechanisms exist.

So much work to deliver social housing may take place behind the scenes, and mayors deserve credit where they do well or to be held accountable when they are not doing as much as they could or should do. This will also make it clearer to voters how the social housing system works and how performance can be measured and attributed to different actors. Of course, individual mayors are not all-powerful beings, and their performance can be impacted by other factors, but they are being empowered by this Government and so we need to look again at how they can be held accountable.

Amendment 87 calls for a review of the incentives that are there for mayors to deliver social housing—more carrot, less stick, if you will. This review would look again at performance but also assess what financial incentives there are to perform well, what funding streams and accessibility to grants exist, what savings authorities can make elsewhere when social housing is delivered well, and so on. Social housing delivery needs to be supported by a positive policy environment, and this amendment would give Parliament better oversight of what incentives exist.

Amendment 88 would look at mayoral remuneration as a mechanism for holding mayors accountable. Mayors who are not performing well bring into question how much remuneration they deserve, particularly as we see more mayoral combined authorities rolled out over the coming years through the Government’s reforms. This framework would link a proportion of that remuneration directly to the performance of social housing delivery, taking into account their delivery targets.

This is a probing amendment to explore how the changing role of mayors can be clarified and to ask whether the current mechanisms for accountability are sufficient and appropriate. If the Government want mayors to have more powers, there should be mechanisms of accountability and incentives to reflect that. I look forward to hearing from other noble Lords on this subject and I hope the Minister will take these ideas on board to investigate this further.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak a little bit more briefly than I had intended on this group of amendments and will speak specifically to my Amendment 92. I am shamelessly using the Bill to raise an issue and to correct a problem that we in this House have discussed many times. My Amendment 92 would insert a new clause to ask the Government to publish very clear guidance to distinguish affordable housing from social housing. Why? Because it has real consequences for supply policy, credibility and public trust.