Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Gideon Amos and Patrick Spencer

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s question about the details of Liberal Democrat policy, upon which I shall be delighted to expound. The challenge I was making is that the Government’s overall target for homes is mainly for private homes, so we have situations in Taunton where thousands of homes will be imposed on a community that will not be able to afford them or have any access to them. They will not be for local people.

Those targets come alongside the planning reforms, which seem to celebrate a confrontational approach—I think the Labour party called it a “blockers versus builders” approach. The notion that that will somehow lead to more community acceptance of housing development is wrong-headed. That is why we believe that the overall housing target needs to be based on household projections, as it once was, rather than on the current standard method. However, we would stick rigidly to our target of 150,000 social homes.

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

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point about housing targets. I remind the Committee that we are interrogating the Bill. One of my criticisms of the Bill is that the forecast for new, additional houses, certainly in the impact statement, is to some extent inaccurate. Can he speak to his disappointment that the Bill does not create the new houses that he and his party clearly want to see?

[Gideon Amos]

To be fair to Conservative Members, which is something I do not often say, they raised the point in earlier sittings that there is too little in the Bill to secure the delivery of social homes—the really affordable homes that we need to see. That is why our new clause 1, the very first amendment that we tabled, would insert such a target into the Bill.

Let me return to the objective of the delivery of social homes. The Budget gave an extra £1.5 billion to the programme, which is incredibly welcome.

Social Housing Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Gideon Amos and Patrick Spencer

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to speak to our Liberal Democrat amendments. New clause 2 would provide local authorities with the power to suspend right to buy in an area completely and bring it to an end. Perhaps for the first and last time, I agree 100% with the hon. Member for Orpington, completely and wholeheartedly; he said that local areas are best placed to decide what is right for them on council housing provision and council housing stock. That is why we would give local authorities the ability to say that they have lost enough council housing. Some 2 million council homes were lost to right to buy and 4 million social homes have been lost altogether. Enough is enough. Local communities should have the right to decide whether they want to continue to see the loss of council homes in their area.

[Patrick Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman talks about council houses being lost to right to buy; it would be remiss not to say they are being gained by tenants who own a property—part of a property-owning democracy that we hold dear in this country.

[Gideon Amos]

If we have a system where 4 million homes have been lost and 1.3 million people are on the council waiting list, something has gone radically wrong. We need a different approach.

[Patrick Spencer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gideon Amos]

From a sedentary position, the hon. Gentleman is asking me to give way, but I have not yet answered his initial question. Yes, we need to find ways to help people into home ownership. That is vital and fundamental to a thriving society. We need to build more homes. We need to provide more and better shared ownership arrangements, as the current arrangements are not working. We need to help people on to the housing ladder. That does not mean we need to erode and diminish our social housing stock.