Social Housing Bill: Commons Committee Stage Amendments

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

The Social Housing Bill will protect much-needed social housing stock, give affordable housing providers the clarity and confidence they need to build more social homes, and better protect tenants who are victims of domestic abuse by providing them with greater security and stability.

I have now tabled a group of Government amendments to further strengthen the Bill and advance its core objectives. Taken together, these amendments deliver on the commitments made during the Bill’s initial House of Lords stages and various announcements set out in my written ministerial statement of 12 October which is available at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-10-12/hcws363

Protecting existing social housing stock

After years of marginalisation, this Government have emphatically and unashamedly asserted the necessity and the value of social rented homes. They are a crucial national asset to be proud of, to invest in, to protect and to maintain.

At the heart of the Bill are comprehensive reforms to the right-to-buy scheme designed to protect much-needed social housing stock and thereby incentivise the building of more social rented homes.

The Bill also introduces a new requirement for private registered providers of social housing to notify councils and other private providers in their area before disposing of a home, in order to maximise opportunities to retain homes within the social housing sector.

In response to points made by peers during the Bill’s initial House of Lords stages, I have tabled an amendment that will extend the period that must elapse between the notification being made and any sale being completed from four to eight weeks. This will maximise opportunities for councils and other private providers to buy and retain social rented homes.

I have also tabled an amendment that will require private registered providers to include in their disposals notice information on the type of rent the home was previously let at. This will give councils and other private providers the information they need to consider whether to purchase a property and retain it as a social rented home.

We have also acted to enable local authorities to better protect rural social housing. In recognition of the severe challenges of replacing social housing stock in rural communities, the Bill already exempts properties located in designated rural areas from the right-to-buy scheme.

The amendments tabled will empower councils to designate eligible rural areas themselves where these areas meet specified criteria, thereby reducing the bureaucracy associated with the current designation process.

We will set out in regulations the criteria for rural areas and the process for self-designation. The long-established criteria—that areas should have a population density of no more than two persons per hectare and a population of 3,000 or fewer—will remain in place.

Strengthening protections for tenants

No one should be forced to remain in an unsafe situation because they fear becoming homeless, yet last year about 15,000 households in England had to find a new social home as a result of domestic abuse.

Existing legislation provides scant protection for social housing tenants who are victims of domestic abuse and who wish to remain in their current home without their abuser. Landlords can evict perpetrators, but only in cases where the victim has already left. That means that, all too often, victims are forced to choose between staying in danger or losing their home.

To ensure that victims of domestic abuse can access safe and secure housing, the Bill provides for stronger legal mechanisms to remove a perpetrator from a social housing tenancy and enable victims to stay in their home or move to alternative accommodation as a sole tenant.

I have now tabled amendments to bolster the revised discretionary grounds for possession under the Bill’s new domestic abuse provisions. Where a relevant protective order—a domestic abuse protection order or non-molestation order—is already in place, its existence will be sufficient for the court to determine whether it is reasonable to make a possession order, rather than requiring it to have been breached. This change will help streamline and accelerate the possession process and give greater confidence to landlords and victims when seeking possession.

The Bill already includes a new mechanism to facilitate the transfer of a joint tenancy into the sole name of the victim, where a victim wants to remain in the home as a sole tenant, and it already contains powers to enable the courts to make an order to provide the victim with suitable alternative accommodation, where it is not appropriate for the victim to remain in a home and the landlord has this accommodation available.

The amendments tabled will ensure that where the court makes an order, either on the basis that the joint tenant victim remains in the home as sole tenant or that they are to be provided with suitable alternative accommodation, the perpetrator’s interest in the joint tenancy will be brought to an end.

The right to manage gives local authority tenants a statutory route to take on responsibility for managing housing services through a tenant management organisation. The Government response to the Grenfell Tower inquiry, published in 2025, committed to reviewing oversight arrangements for delegated management organisations, including TMOs.

In the light of the findings of that review, which we have published today at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-housing-right-to-manage-review I have now tabled amendments to modernise the current RTM framework for social housing, to make it easier for social housing residents to take control of their housing services, and to strengthen oversight and accountability, including the creation of a court-backed intervention route for use in exceptional cases—for example, where there is a serious governance failure, misconduct or a risk to residents’ safety.

Tackling homelessness

In the national plan to end homelessness, published in December 2025 and available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-national-plan-to-end-homelessness the Government committed to considering levers to require social housing landlords to rehouse statutory homeless households referred by councils, where joint working is not operating effectively. Having done so, we have decided to legislate for the introduction of a new statutory power.

I have now tabled an amendment that will enable local authorities to refer homeless households to PRPs, requiring providers to offer accommodation to that household, unless they have good reason not to. This measure is designed to strengthen co-operation between local authorities and PRPs, and to ensure that allocations are used effectively to prevent homelessness.

The Secretary of State will set out through regulations what constitutes a reasonable period for responding to a referral and the circumstances in which a PRP may be regarded as having a good reason not to offer accommodation. We will work closely with the sector to develop these regulations.

In the national plan to end homelessness, we also committed to legislate for a duty to collaborate, which will compel public services to work together to prevent homelessness and support those who are at crisis point. I have now tabled amendments to provide for this duty, which will build on and replace the existing duty to refer by requiring specified bodies to take proactive steps to identify households at risk of homelessness, to assess their needs, and to work together, including with other key stakeholders, taking co-ordinated action to prevent homelessness or address it sooner.

Finally, UK armed forces veterans should not be prevented from accessing homelessness support simply because of a lack of local connection. I have now tabled an amendment to allow us to specify the circumstances in which a local housing authority may not refer a case to another authority. We will use this power to ensure that where those who have served our country seek homelessness assistance from a local authority, they will not be referred elsewhere simply because they lack a local connection, thereby allowing them to seek support wherever they present.

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