Council Housing

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I say a big thank you to the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) for securing this debate on an extremely pressing issue. The fact that so many hon. Members are present is an indication of that.

In England alone, over 1.3 million households are on the waiting list for social housing and it has been estimated that if the speed of delivering new social homes continues at the current rate, it will take more than a century to clear the waiting list. For every social home delivered this year, about 110 households were still waiting for one. Despite those shocking figures, in 20% of council areas across England not a single social home has been built in the last two years, and in 30% of council areas fewer than 10 social homes have been built. This is a massive issue.

We see the effects of a lack of social housing on private rental properties. In 2025, rents reached the highest level on record, amounting to a staggering 36.1% of average earnings. Rental accommodation is out of the pockets of many and buying a house is just a dream. That perpetuates a devastating cycle, as wages fail to keep pace with rising living costs, including energy bills and food prices, pushing more people into poverty and increasing demand for our already limited social housing.

I will quickly add a Northern Ireland perspective to the debate. In Northern Ireland, social housing is supplied by the Housing Executive, which face issues similar to councils in England. As of June this year, 50,000 households in Northern Ireland with no existing Housing Executive tenancy were on the social housing waiting list. For those who are already in Housing Executive properties, the wait for a transfer can be long and needs can evolve. In August 2026, it was estimated that almost 800 households had spent over a decade on the waiting list for transfer. It would be great to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but unfortunately we do not.

In rural constituencies, such as my constituency of Strangford, allocations of social homes have not kept pace with rising demand. The situation is particularly acute because rural areas have hidden housing need, older homes and increased exposure to fuel poverty. Investment in social housing is urgently needed to end the distress so many people are in, and we must recognise that such investment will indeed deliver long-term benefits. It is needed to end the distress and the uncertainty faced by families who have been left in limbo as they wait for a home.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

Leeds city council is ambitious for its city and is a key member of the West Yorkshire combined authority. It is doing a lot of work, not just on housing but on bringing forward brownfield sites through growth and infrastructure funding to make sure that, as many Members have said, housing goes alongside that wider community infrastructure.

In addition to the funding that I have just mentioned, over £21 billion is still to allocate, which will be prioritised for social homes, particularly council homes. That reflects our commitment to increasing council house delivery. To further improve financial capacity, deliver new supply and invest in existing homes, we have committed to a 10-year social housing rent policy with a convergence mechanism. That gives councils much needed certainty on their income to enable them to increase and manage their housing portfolios efficiently and effectively.

[Jim Shannon]

We also need to remember that the Government are committed to building a million-plus social homes over the next period of time. Over the last 12 months, house prices in Northern Ireland have consistently risen by a greater rate than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Housing rents are also going up. Will the Minister share the Government’s strategy to address the social housing need with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland to ensure that we can learn something from the process that the Government are putting forward?

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about the different approaches across the UK and how we can all learn from each other on what works, as well as learn from the areas where it perhaps did not go quite as planned. I will make sure that I pass his comments on to the Housing Minister to have conversations across Governments. 

We have also provided greater certainty on future costs associated with the decent homes standard and the minimum energy efficiency standards. We have allocated more than £1 billion through the warm homes social housing fund to improve the energy efficiency of social homes. Quality matters, as rightly outlined by my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) and for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury).

In addition to revenue, we know how important borrowing and the capacity to borrow are for councils’ delivery plans. Since 2023, a preferential borrowing rate has been available from the Public Works Loan Board for council house building. This rate will be extended and we will be announcing more details in due course.

We continue to work closely with councils and the wider sector to understand the remaining barriers to council house building and investment, including the impact of the housing revenue account debt and borrowing rates. We have also increased the threshold at which councils must open a housing revenue account from 200 homes to 1,000 homes. That is enabling small councils to deliver more homes without incurring additional operating costs.

We have also heard from councils that workforce shortages, skills gaps and capacity pressures will constrain their abilities to build. That is why we are investing a further £46 million over the next three years through capacity to build funding, on top of the £17 million already invested since 2025. That will help councils develop an ambitious pipeline, strengthen specialist housing capacity and make the most of the Government’s wider investment in council house building. These gaps have been identified by Members in the debate today, including the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Joe Morris), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham).

Finally, we are taking decisive action to reform the right-to-buy scheme, which has acted as a break on council confidence to invest in new social housing for too long. We are reforming the scheme to ensure that more homes are built than lost, while maintaining an important route for social housing tenants to own their own homes, which was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth).

My right hon. Friend the Housing Minister is at this very moment in the Bill Committee, debating the detail of our reforms. The Social Housing Bill builds on the reforms to cash discounts that we implemented in 2024 to ensure that more social homes are protected, while removing powerful disincentives to build. Notably, we are tightening the eligibility requirements and exempting newly built social housing from the scheme for 35 years to ensure that homes are not sold before councils have recovered their investment.