Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 29 October 2026.

(Morning)

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The usual housekeeping rules apply: electronic devices should be switched off and there should be no food and drink in our sittings, except the water provided. If colleagues are kind enough to make any speaking notes available to Hansard, that will facilitate its work.

New Clause 1 - Strategy for the provision of 150,000 new social housing dwellings a year in England

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. New clause 1 would require a strategy for the provision of 150,000 new social homes a year in England, which is the Liberal Democrat target. We welcome the Government’s commitments so far to funding and supporting the delivery of social homes, which are of key importance—in fact, we welcome those proposals a lot more than some of the planning system proposals for private housing development, but the focus of the new clause is on social homes. However, we need a significant target. So far, the Government have not set a statutory target, or indeed any clear target at all. The National Housing Federation and Shelter estimate that 90,000 more social homes are needed per year. Why did we go to 150,000? Because social homes should not be for just the most excluded, desperate and challenged in our society; they should be for working people in low-paid jobs.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

I hesitate to ask the hon. Gentleman a slightly difficult question so early in the proceedings; he is a very nice man and does a very good job. He has previously said that national housing targets should not be dictated by Whitehall, that the Government’s housing targets are over the top and that a targeted approach to housing is unreasonable. Does he not agree that what the Government are doing is in line with his previous comments, and that it will achieve more social and affordable housing by overhauling the funding mechanisms for housing and by breaking down the planning barriers? That is a better approach, as he would previously have agreed himself.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

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 (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

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.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

Hear, hear.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I almost echo the “Hear, hears”. However, that money would struggle to add about 1,000 social homes per year to the current 18,000, which is the closest thing to a target that we can divine from the Government’s policy announcements—about 18,000, 19,000 or maybe 20,000 a year. We need a whole lot more than that. The National Housing Federation and Shelter believe that we need at least 90,000 a year. The current level of ambition really is not high enough. I encourage the Government to focus their attention less on issuing thousands more planning permissions. We need planning permissions to keep coming through, but since we already have a million plots with planning permission not built for private housing, they should focus their attention instead on the delivery of social housing and on setting a target—if not this one, a target of some sort.

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was going to come on to this point, but what practical steps would he suggest for his Liberal Democrat local government colleagues? I think it is fair to say that they do not have the greatest reputation for approving housing developments in their areas. He has, admittedly, said that he is more in favour of social home building than private dwellings, but what practical steps would he take to encourage his local government colleagues on his target?

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question, which anticipates the Liberal Democrats being in government and in a position to ensure delivery of housing. I point him to Eastleigh council, which has taken over a development of 2,000 homes not being delivered by its developer. It has made it a local authority development and is now driving it through. I recently went down to visit Liberal Democrat-run Cornwall council. The previous Liberal Democrat administration set up a housing company that is building 180,000 homes a year—sorry, I mean 180; I wish it were 180,000—and is using the profits from that to build social rent homes.

I invite the hon. Gentleman to join me in my constituency, where we are building 400 council homes on the North Taunton estate and have retained our council housing stock. Sadly, because of right to buy, it is not the 30,000 units it used to be—it is now only 6,000 homes—but we are doing what we can. My colleagues in Somerset council are bringing new council houses to parts of Somerset for the first time in a generation. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the activity of Liberal Democrat authorities on the ground.

New clause 1 would set a target of 150,000 social homes a year, which would something for the Government to aspire to. If not that target, what target will the Government set and when? The new clause does not require that many to be built; it is not a money resolution. It would simply require the Government to publish a strategy for what would be required to reach the target. If the Government are serious about the housing crisis, they should have no objection to setting a target of this kind. In our manifesto, we set an allocation of £6 billion a year towards that achievement. I appreciate that it would take a number of years to reach 150,000.

In the interests of time, I will move on to new clause 4, concerning borrowing restrictions on local authorities. I will give some “Hear, hears” to the Government for the Prime Minister’s words about reviving council housing and delivering a lot more of it, though I fear there are more words than pounds in his pronouncement. Shelter has commissioned research from Savills examining the impact of the housing revenue account debt on councils’ ability to build new social homes. The research found that writing off HRA debt could unlock between 190,000 and 284,000 dwellings.

Shelter also recently published research with Pragmatix Advisory that assesses the economic and financial case for cancelling HRA debt and investing in social housing. The central conclusion is that the policy would be compliant with the Government’s fiscal rules, while generating a substantial long-term economic benefit of £140 billion over a 60-year timeframe. My colleagues in Somerset council told me that if were not for the Government’s self-financing debt rules, they could build out another 630 council houses on top of the ones that I outlined to the hon. Member for Rugby.

I appreciate that the costs of writing off that debt would be significant—I am sure that the Minister has made that point—but if the Government will not write off all that debt, will they write off some of it? In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats put an extra £2 billion a year into this area. Will the Government put in £2 million to write off some HRA debt? It is important to get councils building again. Those that have their housing revenue account maxed out have the political will, and in many cases the experience, to do so, but they lack the necessary financial headroom. If we want to get councils building, we need to look seriously at the HRA debt.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I rise to speak to my new clause 34. I regret that my pointing out that the Bill will not create a single new social home appeared to get under the Minister’s skin on Tuesday, but the fact is that the Bill does not create any extra housing. That is not a surprise, as it comes from a Government who have built just 26% of their target in nearly 50% of their time in office. None the less, it is simply not good enough.

Moreover, in the places—few and far between—where the Government have tried to get Britain building, that has nearly always come at the cost of green belt protections, despite the fact that research from the Campaign to Protect Rural England shows that a large proportion of the Government’s lofty housing target could swiftly be met using brownfield land that already has planning permission. The CPRE estimates that up to 1.41 million homes could be built on existing brownfield land in England, based on data from local planning authorities’ brownfield land registers up to 2024.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

The hon. Member talks about the importance of building on brownfield land first. That is certainly the policy of this Government. Would the hon. Member agree that although the previous Government professed to want to focus on developing brownfield land, they did absolutely nothing to make that viable, whereas this Government are putting money into the brownfield land release fund, which will help to clean up that land? Those are steps that the previous Conservative Government absolutely failed to take.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, but we are looking forwards, not backwards.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

Ah!

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

The hon. Lady says that the Government are making brownfield land development more viable. Where are the signs of that? There is no development happening. Development in this country has ground to a standstill under this Government. That malaise did not start under this Government—I will accept that criticism—but it is most certainly being exacerbated by this Government. They are doing nothing to turn back the tide. In fact, they are pushing it further.

Those 1.41 million starts would amount to 93% of the Government’s manifesto pledge. That is why I have tabled new clause 34, which seeks to require the Government to publish a strategy for prioritising brownfield land for social housing development.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I will speak in support of new clause 34, which is about prioritising brownfield for development. We always hear from the Government that they want to protect the green belt. I often laugh when they say that, because there is nothing in legislation: they never want to put anything on the face of the Bill or issue anything to protect the green belt.

Labour’s favourite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has found that 1.4 million brownfield sites have been left unbuilt since 2007. As I said on Second Reading, that number is rather close to the Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes, which they have all but admitted they will not meet.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I am slightly worried to say that I agree with an Opposition Member, but I share the hon. Member’s frustration at the fact that there are many homes, often on brownfield sites, that have permission but have not been built. I see that in my constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. However, from my experience of speaking to landowners and developers, the reason why those homes have not been built is that the Liz Truss mini-Budget crashed the financial models of those schemes, and that the Building Safety Regulator and the roll-out of new regulations, including second staircase rules, under the last Government stymied and slowed down development and changed the viability.

Fundamentally, in the hon. Member’s patch and mine, Conservative councils are taking far too long to approve development on brownfield sites, if they ever do. Again, that is pushing against viability. This Government have taken measures on all the things I mentioned. Does the hon. Member not agree that it is slightly rich for the Opposition to claim that this Government are somehow responsible for those homes not being built out more quickly?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I am slightly bewildered. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, who invited me in a debate in the Chamber to visit a pub in his constituency. I did not take him up on the offer, but maybe I should have, because I could have corrected him on a lot of the things he has just said. I am slightly bewildered by the nonsense that has just been spoken.

I was a council leader. The planning system is not why these houses do not get built. When I speak to developers in my constituency, lots of them say that it is now difficult to employ people because of the day-one employment rights that this Government have brought in. Lots of businesses speak to me about the increase in national insurance contributions. The Opposition have a plan to take £50,000 off the cost of building a new home, which will include social homes and increase the supply. This Government have done nothing to increase supply; all they have done is attack local councils for giving out planning permission. Local councils get punished when they do not have a five-year land supply, which is something that they have very little control over. The Government need to do much more to develop brownfield sites.

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

I very much like and respect the hon. Gentleman, but does he agree that education and health resources, for example, in towns—where brownfield sites invariably are—are often relatively busy or full up, and face real challenges and pressures? Other conurbations such as villages, which admittedly do not have all the transport links that make town brownfield sites the most prominent in the planning system—let us not forget that they are prioritised by this Government—also need additional housing and social housing. Quite often, when I talk to people in those villages, their pubs and schools are struggling because they do not have enough people who want to use them.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I thank the hon. Member for his kind words; I have great respect for him too. He makes an interesting point, but it is a wider issue than that. It is about appropriate development in the right place, followed up by infrastructure.

I agree that brownfield sites are usually in the centre of towns. As I said on Second Reading, we are all fed up with driving past sites with all the hoarding up. The sites have planning permission: either they have gone through the planning committee, and the local council has said, “Yes, we will give permission based on these circumstances,” or unfortunately it has not, but permission has been won on appeal. It creates a certain feel in a town centre when someone goes down and sees all the hoarding up on the brownfield sites.

In the heart of my constituency, in Cheshunt, we have a care home waiting to be built. It is a long-overdue facility in the local community that we really want to see built, but it has been left empty for years and years, and we just see the hoarding up. It creates a real sense of loss of pride in a place when someone goes down to the town centre and sees site after site like that. We have sites in Hoddesdon that got planning permission in 2014 and have only just started moving through this process.

Lots of things affect house build-out rates, but this Government could do much more to give powers to local councils to get these brownfield sites off the ground, because there are thousands of sites across the country that have planning permission but remain unbuilt.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Can the hon. Gentleman give us an example of the powers he has in mind that councils do not currently enjoy, but should?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I know that the Minister has a lot of expertise in this area. One example is that when standard planning permission is issued, a developer might get three years to build. As we have seen in my local area, that does not necessarily mean that something gets built; it just means that they have started on site. That could be digging a hole or building the first wall; nothing is actually produced at the end of it. I would like councils to have a “use it or lose it” power, which would mean that someone cannot necessarily finish building just because they have started digging on site.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

That is a very interesting line of argument. Is it now the Conservative party’s official position that “use it or lose it” powers should be introduced for brownfield sites?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I think we have to explore all options. I want to protect as much of the green belt as possible. We all have brownfield sites in our constituency that we want used to meet the social housing targets and bring down waiting lists.

Unfortunately, the Bill talks about stopping the right to buy. I just want to put it on the record that if we do that, the people who bought those houses will still be in them. Those people, and the waiting lists, will not magically disappear if we get rid of the right to buy.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time, as always. I welcome the Conservatives’ move towards “use it or lose it” permissions. I assume that they agree that “lose it” should mean the compulsory acquisition of sites that have not been built out within a reasonable period, as the Liberal Democrats argued during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. Otherwise, what does “lose it” mean? How does it have effect?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

As I say, we need to explore all options, and I want brownfield sites to be built out first. I want to protect as much of the green belt as possible. That means looking at how to use areas that have planning permission and have already gone through the planning process—areas in our town centres that residents drive past all the time. The Government need to look at those sites, because there are loads of unbuilt planning applications; we have all had consultations and spoken to our residents about them. All options must be on the table.

We see this in our constituencies all the time. People come to see me at my local surgery to ask why a site has not been built out. We desperately want a care home built on a brownfield site in the middle of Cheshunt town centre. It would be good if the Government gave local councils tools to enable those sites to get built out quicker.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I think it would be appropriate to remind the Committee that the purpose of new clause 34 is to force the Government to bring forward a strategy for utilising brownfield sites. It is not about bouncing Opposition parties into make policy on the hoof; it is for the Government to come up with ideas. Will my hon. Friend reaffirm that his point is that the Government should bring forward a strategy to indicate their intent?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

Absolutely. New clause 34 says that the Government must bring forward a strategy for brownfield sites, which could include a multitude of options. When they do so, the Opposition will look at the benefits of all the items in the strategy, which could include a “use it or lose it” power. That is one example that the Government could review to see what could happen.

The new clause is about using brownfield sites first. I do not think that anyone disagrees with that, so it would be good if the Government accepted it. If they do, the Bill might actually be about building more social housing. At the moment, it does nothing of the sort.

Edward Argar (Conservative, Melton and Syston)

I rise to speak in support of new clause 34, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington. I have listened very carefully to hon. Members’ exchanges, and I have to say that I do not see what is particularly contentious about my hon. Friend’s proposal. It is not unreasonable to focus on the development of brownfield land first, as the previous Government did. We should therefore have a strategy to draw the strands together as we look towards the future. However many more years of this Government we have, the power is in their hands to do this. I do not see what is contentious about doing what my hon. Friend’s new clause proposes.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Rugby, but I have a counterpoint to his point about development on brownfield sites. My constituency has a couple of towns in it and is right on the edge of Leicester, but it goes way up into rural north-east Leicestershire. The reality is that the developments on the edges of the towns or nearer the city often work most effectively, because there are bus routes and there is access to more schools, shops, businesses and employment opportunities.

The challenge that we face locally is that in Leicester city, which has a Labour mayor and which I go through on my way from the station to my constituency, there are undeveloped, unmodernised and un-utilised brownfield sites or commercial sites that have fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, the mayor says that he cannot meet his housing targets and has therefore farmed them out to the rural areas in the county. That means a significant amount of development on the edges of villages—often with no bus route or only a sparse service, a full village primary school and a GP practice serving a whole range of rural communities—that are unable to meet the needs of the additional development. The pressure on local services is a real challenge. I have been pushing for a long time to see whether, when these applications are brought forward, there is a way of having “i” before “e”—infrastructure before expansion—so that at least we know the services are there.

There is one big challenge that previous Governments I served in did not solve, and which I suspect this Government will struggle to solve, because it comes down to the viability of development. We can, and local authorities do, ask developers for capital contributions for those services, but often the problem is the ongoing revenue cost of running them. That means that we can get an extra room in a surgery, but will the local NHS integrated care board be willing to fund the salary costs and commission extra GP practice services?

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

Perhaps I am going to get in trouble, but once again I agree with a lot of what the right hon. Member says. It is frustrating that the future benefits of infrastructure have not often been realised because of the funding models in place. Local leaders and local mayors have said, “The case is clear for this infrastructure: it will unleash housing and growth,” but to get that capital they have to go to the Treasury to make a business case, with begging bowl in hand. It takes too long.

This Government are changing that. The Budget yesterday gave significant new powers to mayors: in London and around my patch, they include the tax increment financing scheme for Euston, the Bakerloo extension and a number of other projects. The Government are looking to give mayors a greater share of business rates and taxation to invest up front in infrastructure and the benefits of growth to come. Are the Government not doing exactly what the right hon. Member is saying should happen?

Edward Argar (Conservative, Melton and Syston)

I hesitate to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a lot of time, but no, they are not doing that, certainly not in my constituency. There is a Mayor of Leicester, but there is no mayor of Leicestershire, so we do not get any of the benefits. The Minister’s colleague—the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon)—will make a statement in the Chamber in about 20 minutes, so he may be about to change the position, but currently we do not have those benefits.

A lot of the challenges around service provision are not addressed by what the Chancellor set out yesterday. Take the NHS funding model, for example: in my area, the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland integrated care board is having to make in-year savings to live within its financial envelope. We have GP practices that are full—one practice in Melton Mowbray has 37,000 patients on its books—and yet the ICB says it sees no reason to expand to meet the need. The development has not happened yet in Melton, so it will not expand until the need is demonstrably there, by which time a whole range of people will have moved into the new development but will not be able to get on the list for the surgery, or will be waiting a very long time. I am not saying that this is a challenge that suddenly appeared in July 2024. Governments of all political complexions have grappled with it. I have a lot of time for the Minister; I hope this issue is on his radar.

On brownfield sites, the proposal from my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington should not be contentious; it is a sensible approach to draw together all the different strands of work that the previous Government did to push the development of brownfield sites. Let me give a few examples. The national policy planning framework had a clear focus on the issue. We required local authorities to publish reports and registers of available brownfield sites for development. We reviewed permitted development rights and changes in use class rules to make it easier for commercial sites to be repurposed for development into housing. Alongside that, we put £4.3 billion into the housing infrastructure fund and £550 million into the brownfield housing fund. That is tangible investment to persuade and support local authorities to prioritise brownfield first.

The problem in my patch is that the Labour Mayor of Leicester simply did not do it. We can see the brownfield sites everywhere, and we can see the development being pushed out into the county because the city has failed to do what it needs to do.

My hon. Friend’s modest amendment would compel the Government to draw together all the strands of work that the previous Government did, and that this Government are also doing, into a clear and coherent strategy that would prioritise brownfield sites much, much more and would give local authorities and others the means, the support and the policy back-up to make this work a genuine reality on the ground. I will finish by simply emphasising my support for my hon. Friend.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

The reality is that when one serves with such an august group of gentlemen, one’s own speech gets slowly whittled down after they have made theirs. However, these are pet projects of mine, because as I said earlier, I am one of those on the Committee who represents a rural community, and in Suffolk we have seen the reality of building houses in areas that are just not suited to it. We have had a number of major weather events over the past 10 to 15 years, and I have not read a single section 19 flood report that did not identify urban sprawl and house building in rural areas, on floodplains or on low-lying land as a major contributor to massive flooding risks in rural England.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston mentioned, many homes built in rural areas are not near schools, transport infrastructure or high streets. These are not houses that young people want to move into. I use this anecdote all the time, but in my village, which is in the middle of nowhere, we have had 30 units built on the side of the town. Not only are they too expensive, but we do not have any of the utilities that the young people we are trying to solve the housing crisis for want. At the same time, I have Ipswich in my constituency, and it is a mine of brownfield sites.

The new clause could be a huge opportunity for the Government to align their social housing policy with their broader economic agenda of empowering regions, because our economic future is in towns and cities. That is an inevitability: it is where the jobs will be made and where the growth will happen. That is where educational institutions—those anchor institutions, which are so important for the long-term economic viability of these towns—are based. That should not come as a surprise to hon. Members here representing Rugby, Wolverhampton and Durham. The Members for all those places would say, “We want jobs, young people and institutions that embed economic growth, and”—critically—“affordable homes to sit beside them.” What is the point of a thriving town without affordable housing?

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the need for social homes—and for affordable homes, although we are talking about social homes here—exists not only in our towns, but in our villages? If we are to deal with the long-standing problems with the high cost of homes on the private market, we will need social homes across the range of conurbations in our country.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

We would not argue against that statement one bit. I am not trying to expunge social tenants from rural England. Suffolk is not just a load of farms and tractor driving; we have a lot of working-class towns. We need social housing, but we are talking about the future of social housing, the future of our economy and the future of our dynamism. We have always moaned jealously about the French, the Germans and the Americans for having dynamic economies with engines of prosperity outside the capital city, while we are stuck with a unimodal economy that is so rooted in London—it is crazy that I am making the Prime Minister’s arguments for him from the Opposition Benches, but anyway.

Surely this is an opportunity. If we are going to build 50,000 to 100,000 or 150,000 homes, and if we are going to tackle the 1.3 million people who are stuck on the waiting list for social houses, why do we not make sure that that is aligned with our responsibility for economic growth? We are all bored with hearing from experts, friends and family members about the lack of joined-up policymaking across Government. This Bill, which is not an inconsequential Bill but is one piece of a wide patchwork of legislation, is a good example of how we can align with a wider economic agenda that we can all get behind.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

It is a pleasure to continue our proceedings and to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. After the Opposition’s—to put it candidly—languid approach in our previous sittings, I welcome the fact that they have clearly woken up and are now fully participating in the debate. Partly for that reason, we had a remarkably productive first day in Committee on Tuesday. Our debates on many of the clauses and amendments were predictably spirited; nevertheless, they remained civil and, in the main, constructive. I hope we can proceed in that vein today.

Before I respond to the new clauses, I will make a general point—a point that the shadow Minister is clearly struggling to grasp. Our ambitions to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation will benefit from the Bill, but they are not entirely dependent on this one piece of legislation. The supply statistics speak for themselves. Let me give the statistics from 2024-25. Overall social and affordable house building: 64,921, the highest level since 2014-15. Social housing on its own: 12,267, the highest level since 2012-13. Council-delivered homes: 10,600, the highest level since 1991-92. That is this Government’s record on social and affordable housing—and, by the way, this was all prior to the initial allocations from our social and affordable housing programme, which have now been made. We have increased supply, we will increase it further, and the Bill will make a material impact on doing so.

I turn to new clause 1. As the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is fully aware, we are committed, in line with our manifesto, to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, to prioritising the building of new social rented homes and to supporting councils and housing associations to make a greater contribution to affordable supply. In the 27 months for which we have been in office, we have faithfully sought to honour those commitments. We have made the biggest long-term investment in social and affordable housing in recent memory, an investment that was topped up in yesterday’s Budget by a further £1.5 billion pounds, as the hon. Member rightly recognised. We are vigorously prioritising social rented housing, we are rebuilding the capacity of councils and housing associations to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, and we are reinvigorating council house building.

In his more generous moments, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson acknowledged the transformative impact of what this Government have done on social housing supply. I understand—indeed, I welcome and embrace—his encouragement and support for raising our ambition further. However, given the nature of our inheritance from the Conservative party, with social housing supply averaging a historical low of fewer than 8,000 units per year from 2013 to 2024, following the purposeful and deliberate pivot to affordable rented tenures, a target of 150,000 new social homes per year is not currently realistic. A statutory requirement to produce a strategy for delivering such volumes within 12 months of Royal Assent is not a proposition that we can support.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington that his party continues wildly to underestimate the costs of supplying social housing on the scale that he proposes. The Government’s estimate of the grant funding required to support the delivery of 150,000 social homes is in excess of £20 billion per year. For obvious reasons, the hon. Member’s party has escaped the kind of scrutiny to which the Government and the official Opposition are subject, but if his party wants that 150,000 figure to be taken seriously it will have to set out a credible funding strategy. To date, it has not done so.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

We shall certainly be setting that out prior to going into government. The Minister makes an extensive argument that 150,000 is not the right target. Shelter and the National Housing Federation say that a minimum of 90,000 are needed per year. What is the Government’s target?

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As the hon. Gentleman knows, because we have had this debate many times, to date we have not set a national social and affordable housing target. That is because, as I have explained on numerous occasions, social and affordable homes come through grant funding and through the section 106 process; it is for local authorities to set out the needs for their particular areas as part of local plans. As he knows, through the NPPF we have strengthened some of the expectations in that area.

I turn to the hon. Gentleman’s new clause 4. The Government have already taken several steps to rebuild the capacity of councils to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, including the fundamental reform of the right-to-buy scheme at the heart of the Bill, as well as a 10-year social housing rent settlement, and social rent convergence.

In the Budget yesterday, it was confirmed that preferential borrowing rates for council house building will remain in place until at least March 2028 to support councils to borrow more cheaply for house building. There are no current restrictions exercised by central Government on the amount that councils can borrow via their housing revenue accounts for house building purposes. Councils are now free to borrow in line with the prudential code, which requires them to demonstrate that any borrowing is affordable, prudent, sustainable and proportionate. Those are precisely the types of test that the hon. Member’s new clause envisages. They are essential to ensure that local authority finances are managed sensibly and sustainably while ensuring sufficient flexibility to meet local housing targets. As such, in our view it is not necessary to accept the new clause as there are no restrictions to remove.

I turn to new clause 34, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Orpington. The Government are strongly committed—as was the previous Government, as several hon. Members have fairly pointed out—to a brownfield-first approach, including for the development of social housing. Let me be clear. I say this on every occasion I can: once permissions are granted, we expect to see them built out as quickly as possible. Opposition Members will not have to wait long for the build-out transparency package, on which we consulted some time ago, to be brought forward.

On 17 August, the Government published a new national planning policy framework that makes it clear that authorities should plan to meet as many of their development needs as possible on brownfield land. To strengthen support for the development of brownfield land, the new NPPF encourages higher densities in sustainable locations and greater intensification of urban and suburban sites. It also introduces a presumption that development inside settlements should be approved unless any adverse effects would substantially outweigh the benefits of doing so.

Furthermore, through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, the Government have committed to make regulations requiring strategic planning authorities to have regard to the desirability of prioritising development on previously developed land. That arose from a challenge we received from the Opposition during the passage of the Act. Taken together, those measures demonstrate the Government’s strong and continued support for brownfield development in national policy.

On social housing in particular, national planning policy reflects our commitment to the delivery of social rent homes. It requires local planners to set out minimum proportions of social rent required on new development. As everyone knows, the NPPF is a material consideration of critical importance in planning decisions and local plans are required to be prepared with regard to it. It is therefore the right place to set clear expectations for how and where development should come forward. A requirement to produce a separate brownfield land social housing development strategy would be unnecessary and duplicative, as existing policy and relevant plans already sufficiently achieve its aim.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, policy in this area is already aligned; we do not need a separate brownfield land strategy. Such strategies are, as I have previously dubbed them, the last refuge of an Opposition scrabbling around for meaningful policy amendments to a Bill. For those reasons, and having given those assurances, we cannot accept the new clauses.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

This is starting to become quite fun. I do not accept the Minister’s comments. We will seek to divide the Committee on new clause 34 at the appropriate moment.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

Simply put, a target of 150,000 homes per year would not be a meaningless review; it would set the target that, so far, the Government have not put in place. The Minister welcomes our encouragement to challenge them to go further on social housing, so we will do so by pressing this matter to a vote. I encourage the Government to come up with a target for the number of social homes that they intend to produce.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

The hon. Member for Orpington has indicated that he wishes to press new clause 34 to a Division. For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with this arcane process, let me explain that although new clause 34 was grouped with new clause 1, the Division on it will happen later in our proceedings. It will not be forgotten.

New Clause 2 - Power of local housing authorities to suspend or abolish right to buy

New Clause 3 - Ability of tenants to trigger a regulatory inspection

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 53—Regulatory inspection at tenants’ request—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, make provision enabling tenants of a registered provider of social housing to request an inspection of their dwelling by the Regulator of Social Housing.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must specify—

(a) the proportion of tenants required to support a request,

(b) the grounds on which a request may be made, and

(c) the circumstances in which an inspection may be refused.

(3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment pursuant to a resolution of either House of Parliament.”

This probing new clause would enable tenants of a registered provider to request an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I am grateful for the opportunity to move the new clause, which stands in my name and in the name of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. Regulatory inspection of housing associations is particular to where there has been bad practice or responses to tenants have been poor. I acknowledge that most housing associations do an excellent job and fulfil a vital role in delivering the social homes that we need. However, where they are particularly bad or fail to deliver an adequate level of service and repairs to tenants, the Regulator of Social Housing may eventually carry out an inspection, but only years after tenants have been disadvantaged and not served.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

The hon. Gentleman’s new clause 3 is very similar to the official Opposition’s new clause 53, which I believe they describe as a probing amendment. I have a probing question for him. How does he see things moving beyond the changes that the Government have already brought in, on a cross-party basis? Awaab’s law will allow tenants to report problems with repairs and have them dealt with by their housing provider within a very short timescale, and it will enable them to sue for breaches or go to the ombudsman. On top of that, there is the new right in the Bill to manage provision, which will allow tenants to get rid of the repair provider completely and bring in their own. How does he see his new clause moving things beyond that? What gap would it fill?

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

The hon. Lady makes some excellent points about measures that we have supported; Awaab’s law is one of them, as is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. We certainly welcome the new standards to which tenants will have access. The import of this new clause is that it would cover a much wider range of poor practice: across a whole estate, for example, rather than individual dwellings, or indeed across all of a registered provider’s homes.

The regulator already inspects registered providers, but, as I say, its inspections tend to come after the scandal is all over—after things have been running for years and after tenants have complained, had recourse to complaints mechanisms and so on. Our new clause would allow tenants, where a reasonable percentage of them have signed up, to trigger an inspection by the regulator at an earlier stage. That would make it a proactive power of inspection, rather than making tenants wait until the end of the process for the regulator to look into it. Of course, there are details to be worked out, such as what we mean by an estate, which is why we made provision in the new clause for regulations, to be approved in this place, to set out those more detailed arrangements.

Fundamentally, this is about giving social housing tenants an extra lever: a power to bring in the regulator, where that is justified, to carry out an inspection in a proactive way. It is a constructive new clause and is tabled for that purpose. I am delighted that the Conservatives have followed suit with something similar; we could even be persuaded to vote for their new clause in the unlikely event that the Committee does not agree to ours today. Our new clause stands on its own merits. It would give an extra lever to social housing tenants, some of whom are really badly served by their housing associations. I commend it to the Committee.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I rise to speak to my new clause 53. Many people in social housing have come into their new home after a past marred by hardship and a lack of safety. When tenants finally have a roof over their head and a place to call home, they must not be left to face unsanitary or unsafe living conditions because of their property owner or manager. That is why we tabled new clause 53, which the hon. Member for Ealing Southall was absolutely correct to describe as a probing amendment. It would add an extra layer of protection for tenants and a fresh route to direct accountability for registered providers.

The new clause would enable tenants of a registered provider to request an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing, giving tenants new powers to ensure that their home is not just four walls, but a sanctuary. It is vital that social housing tenants be able to make the most of the regulator’s functions and that the regulator be not just a bureaucratic machine, but a voice for the vulnerable.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the hon. Members for Taunton and Wellington and for Orpington for tabling and speaking to their new clauses. This Government are determined to ensure that social housing tenants live in safe and decent homes, and that they are listened to and have access to redress when things go wrong. However, I am not persuaded that these amendments are necessary.

In the spirit of cross-party generosity, I will say that the powers taken under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 under the previous Government did not do all bad things; there were some good things that the previous Government did, and we should acknowledge them. The Act provided the powers for that regulatory framework, which provides strong mechanisms for tenant voice and regulatory oversight.

In 2024, the regulator introduced a new proactive regulation regime and has since begun inspecting all large landlords at least once every four years. The regulator issues a consumer grading after those inspections, so that it is clear to tenants and the public how well the landlords are performing. In addition, the regulator retains the ability to engage with landlords outside these routine inspections if concerns are raised.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is always very generous with his time. Does he believe that the Regulator of Social Housing has enough powers to deal with the issues that he describes? That is just me, in a good spirit, asking a genuine question about how he thinks it is operating.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am always open to evidence that it does not have sufficient powers. My judgment is that it does, and that the consumer ratings it hands out—we are getting a steady stream of them now—really do have an impact in driving improvements in landlord behaviour.

Central to the regime is the regulator’s independent and risk-based approach. That allows the regulator to target its engagement and interventions to areas where there is the greatest risk of harm to tenants. It is worth clarifying that tenants and other members of the public can refer matters to the regulator where they believe that a registered provider may not be meeting the outcomes of the standards, and the regulator may take those concerns into account as part of its wider regulatory activity, including inspections. However, in our view, introducing tenant-triggered inspections risks cutting across that approach by potentially diverting regulatory resource away from higher-risk providers or issues, while undermining the regulator’s ability to act independently. Our view is that the existing framework already ensures that tenants’ concerns can inform regulatory action, by allowing the regulator to determine where intervention is most needed.

On new clause 53, which the shadow Minister made clear is a probing amendment, I would have particular concerns about introducing a mechanism whereby the regulator would inspect individual tenant’s dwellings. Although individual tenants can escalate issues to the regulator, as I have made clear, it considers performance against the regulatory standards at a landlord level and seeks assurance that the landlord is delivering the outcomes set out in the regulatory standards.

The regulator directly inspecting individual homes would move away from its co-regulatory approach and would require significant additional resource. In addition, tenant views already play an important role in the existing regime, and the regulator draws on a range of sources as part of its inspections, including through the landlords complaints process, the Housing Ombudsman and direct referrals. The existing framework ensures that tenants already play an important role in the system, without the need for a statutory mechanism to trigger inspections.

For those reasons, I respectfully ask hon. Members not to press their new clauses.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I wish to press new clause 3 to a vote.

New Clause 4 - Local authorities: borrowing restrictions

New Clause 5 - Review of access to social housing for former service personnel

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 12—Review of access to social housing for rehabilitated offenders—

“(1) The Secretary of State must undertake a review of the level of access to social housing for rehabilitated offenders.

(2) The review must assess—

(a) whether current allocation schemes give sufficient priority to rehabilitated offenders seeking to resettle in the community,

(b) the adequacy of provision for rehabilitated offenders with vulnerabilities or other needs arising from their offending history or period of custody, and

(c) the effectiveness of existing support in assisting rehabilitated offenders to access and sustain social housing tenancies.

(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the review before Parliament within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed.”

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the extent to which rehabilitated offenders are able to access social housing.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

The new clause stands in my name and in the name of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. The run-up to Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day is the appropriate time to consider and take account of the needs of service personnel and veterans under the Bill. About 3% of rough sleepers are veterans, according to the No Homeless Veterans campaign. Government research found that 2,180 veteran households were assessed as at risk of experiencing homelessness. One of the most significant reasons for that is post-traumatic stress disorder, which obviously affects many veterans, and one in three veterans are also disabled.

The new clause would require the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the provision of social housing for former members of the armed services. To anticipate the point that this is simply a review, surely no group can be more important to review the performance of social housing for than our veterans and those who have put their lives at risk for our country.

I shall speak now to new clause 12, which also stands in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, rather than having to sit down and stand up again—a great tradition in this House. New clause 12 is on reviewing access to social housing for rehabilitated offenders. There has been a staggering 26% year-on-year increase in the number of households requiring homelessness support due to leaving care, custody or hospital.

When it comes to rehabilitated offenders, the last thing we want are offenders whose rehabilitation is not sustained or supported due to their having nowhere to live. One in 10 of those sleeping rough were recently discharged from an institution. That is a massive number. We need to do better by those who need that support. One in six prison leavers had no fixed abode on their first night in 2025-26. About 1,000 a month were released to rough sleeping in 2024-25, up about 40% in a year. I therefore respectfully submit both new clauses to the Committee for consideration.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As the hon. Member set out, new clauses 5 and 12 would require the Secretary of State to publish reports on access to social housing for former members of the armed forces and for former offenders, respectively.

We want to ensure that the social housing allocation system works fairly and effectively. Current and former members of the armed forces community benefit from strong protections within the allocations framework, including receiving the highest preference where they have a housing need. Where local connection or residency tests apply to determine who qualifies for an allocation of social housing, legislation exempts the armed forces community, regardless of when they last served. That ensures that they are not disadvantaged when applying for social housing due to the mobility required by service life. New clause 23, which we debated on Tuesday, will also ensure that veterans do not face local-connection barriers when seeking homelessness assistance.

Statutory guidance is in place on improving access to social housing for members of the armed forces. There are not specific protections in the system for former offenders, who will have their housing need considered in the same way as other groups. They may fall within other existing statutory reasonable preference categories—for example, where they are homeless, need to move on welfare grounds or need to move because of medical or other relevant needs. Work is already under way to update statutory guidance on social housing allocation to ensure that allocations reflect local need and effectively support vulnerable households. Our call for evidence on this issue recently closed, and we are now working with partners to prepare updated guidance. We plan to consult on that updated guidance next year.

With that comprehensive review already under way, we do not consider that there is a need to conduct separate reviews for specific groups such as former members of the armed forces or former offenders. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is sufficiently reassured to consider withdrawing the new clause.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

New clause 5 is not a burdensome amendment; it is a review of access to social housing for former service personnel. I hear what the Minister says about the Government keeping these matters under review, but surely a Social Housing Bill should commit to supporting our veterans and armed service community in this way. I will press the new clause to a vote.

New Clause 6 - Requirement for wheelchair accessible social housing

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause relates to the requirement for wheelchair-accessible social housing. Social tenants are worse served now than they were in terms of access to wheelchair- accessible housing. In 2022-23, a third of wheelchair users in the social sector were placed in homes that were neither accessible nor adapted, according to Age UK.

The planning system is also something of a postcode lottery. Only 170 out of 311 local plans set targets for wheelchair user homes. Nationally, one wheelchair-accessible home is planned per 538 people; the south-west plans one per 810 people; London plans one per 210 people; and the north-west plans one per 2,006 people. The NPPF does not require any M4(3), which relates to homes that are wheelchair-accessible under the building regulations. It leaves it to local plans to assess need, and we have already seen how this is something of a lottery.

London already has a 10% requirement in its local plan, which proves that 10% is achievable. The Minister may say that this is a matter for devolution, so that local communities rather than central Government can decide, and that councils are free to follow that example. However, we say that a minimum floor of 10% is reasonable, and it has been considered by a previous Government. We respectfully submit that 10% of new social housing should be wheelchair-accessible.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

New clause 6, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, seeks to ensure that at least 10% of new social housing dwellings meet the M4(3) wheelchair-accessible standard in the building regulations. I very much commend where he is coming from with the new clause.

The Government recognise the importance of increasing the supply of housing for older people and those with disabilities. The hon. Gentleman is right that for many years it has been something of a postcode lottery. That is why the new national planning policy framework recognised the need to drive up, through planning policy, rates of M4(2) requirements, and we have set a minimum floor of 40%. It is also why, when it comes to M4(3), the NPPF requires plans to set out the proportion that should be delivered to that standard to meet or exceed identified need. In our view, that is a significant step forward in ensuring that more wheelchair-accessible housing is delivered. However, we recognise that M4(3) is a specialised product for wheelchair users, with levels of need differing considerably between local areas.

Our approach acknowledges that local authorities are best placed to assess accessible housing needs in their areas and to set out appropriate exemptions. A blanket 10% M4(3) requirement would risk undermining policies set at a local level. To support the locally led approach, we have committed to producing guidance to assist local authorities in assessing the housing needs of disabled people, to ensure that assessments of need are robust and consistent. Social and affordable homes programme funding can also be used to support the delivery of much-needed new supported housing, including new accessible homes.

In our view, national policy remains the most effective route through which planning reform should be pursued. Imposing such a requirement in legislation rather than in policy, as this new clause seeks to do, would be unduly rigid, could limit an authority’s ability to respond to local circumstances and could constrain growth. We therefore think it is right to continue addressing these matters through planning policy and guidance.

For those reasons, I kindly ask the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington to withdraw the new clause.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I hear what the Minister says, but we have had these expressions in guidance and policy before, and we are still a long way from having suitable provision for wheelchair-accessible homes. With the leave of the Committee, I will therefore press new clause 6 to a vote.

New Clause 7 - Mitigation of overheating and cooling standards: the Cool Rule

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 9—Zero-carbon standards for new social housing—

“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations require that all new social housing dwellings constructed in England are constructed to a zero-carbon standard.

(2) The Secretary of State must make regulations under subsection (1) within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed.

(3) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument.

(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I appreciate that we are in the meat of the main new clauses that I and the Liberal Democrats have tabled, but this one is particularly important, given the experience we had in the summer. It is about the mitigation of overheating and cooling standards—the cool rule, as we would term it.

The new clause would require that where passive measures are not sufficient to achieve a reasonable level of cooling in new social homes, there is active cooling to supplement that passive cooling, sufficient to achieve a temperature of around 21°C during periods of high external temperatures.

We have had an extraordinary summer, have we not, Sir Roger? We witnessed five heatwaves. Cobra was convened. People died in overheated homes. We approved the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 just last week, adding excess heat to the prescribed hazards that social landlords must address. The Bill is an opportunity to ensure that new homes do not end up in the same state as the homes that I have described.

The initial responses to the requirement for active cooling are the energy considerations, and perhaps considerations relating to the urban heat island effect. When one examines both of those, it becomes absolutely apparent that we need active cooling in our homes, given the change in climate that we have had.

On the energy consumption, let us remember that we paid, I think, £260 million to generators of solar and wind energy this year to turn off that generation of electricity and to stop using it. We have surplus electricity being generated, particularly in the hotter months in the summer, which we are not using and cannot use. In fact, there is an argument for electrification in a whole range of other fields as well, so that that electricity can be used and the renewables industry can be recompensed for generating it, and we are not using taxpayers’ money to turn off that ability to generate electricity. There is therefore no shortage of electricity for active cooling, which we desperately need in our homes.

The urban heat island effect concerns me, as I am sure it concerns many others who are concerned with our changing climate. Interestingly, research from the University of Manchester has studied the impact of the additional loading of air conditioning in buildings on the urban heat island effect, and has concluded that it accounts for approximately 1°C of heating. That compares with the cooling that can be provided simply by shading the exterior of a building with trees or other things, which is about 12°C. The contribution made by air conditioning and cooling systems to the urban heat island effect is therefore negligible.

With neither of those objections standing, and with the focus remaining on passive cooling first in new buildings, we need to move to a position where we are making our new homes cool, not just warm enough in the winter. We have discussed the warm homes grant; I will not go into that point in great detail, although it should perhaps become a better homes grant, so that it can be used to provide cooling in existing homes that desperately need it.

However, this Bill considers new social homes. Surely we must ensure that new housing stock will not overheat in the way we saw this summer. Some experts have said that this recent summer, although it was incredibly hot, will be the coolest we ever have. We need to enter a new era of thinking about our homes and how they are cooled. That is the basis on which we put forward the new clause.

I know that the Committee likes me to keep proceedings moving along quickly and smoothly, so with your leave, Sir Roger, I will speak to new clause 9 on zero-carbon standards for new social housing. This is a probing amendment—I see welcoming nods from the Government side of the Committee.

We welcome the changes made to building regulations by embedding the future homes standard, which will come into force in April. I was interested to hear the Chancellor say in his statement in the Chamber yesterday that there will effectively be a moratorium on new building regulation changes for this Parliament, the rationale for which I understand.

Will the Minister clarify whether the changes due to come into force in April will still do so? Of course, the future homes standard package includes the measure adopted from the sunshine Bill—the New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) introduced as a private Member’s Bill—to require solar photovoltaic panels on all new homes as standard. That is an important issue and is often raised when I am out knocking on doors: “Why don’t all these new homes have solar panels?” Will the Minister reassure the Committee that, despite what the Chancellor said yesterday, those measures will still come into force in April and are not affected by the moratorium?

My intention is to press new clause 7, but not new clause 9, to a vote.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington for tabling new clause 7, which I will start with. He is absolutely right to draw attention to overheating, and I assure him that the Government recognise the scale of the challenge it presents.

Overheating in homes is already a severe public health issue, and one that will grow only more acute in the years ahead, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has rightly stated. We know there are health risks and implications for excess deaths for particularly vulnerable populations. We take it extremely seriously, and we agree that new homes should protect everyone from the risks of overheating. That is why part O of schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 requires that new residential buildings in England are built to mitigate the risk of overheating. The Government continue to keep these requirements under review, and a full technical review of part O is currently under way to ensure that the framework remains effective and proportionate. These requirements already apply to newly built social housing, ensuring that residents benefit from the same standards of overheating mitigation regardless of their tenure type. The accompanying statutory guidance, approved document O, sets out how these requirements can be met.

The new clause would require active cooling, such as air conditioning, to be installed wherever an indoor temperature of 21°C cannot be maintained. Conversely, part O assesses the risk to health posed by overheating through an evidence-based methodology and does not rely on a single prescribed temperature threshold. Part O also prioritises passive measures, such as shading and natural ventilation, which help to prevent homes from becoming too hot in the first place. In many cases, overheating can be effectively mitigated through passive measures alone, so part O helps to create homes that are resilient to hot weather while limiting energy use, carbon emissions and energy bills for residents.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s flow. To clarify, the new clause proposes active cooling only where that temperature cannot be achieved otherwise. The priority of passive measures would continue with this new clause.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I welcome that clarification. I was going to say that part O does not prohibit any form of active cooling where designers can demonstrate that it is appropriate.

As I say, part O encourages passive design measures before relying on mechanical systems. In many cases, as I have said, overheating can be effectively mitigated through passive measures. Mechanical cooling, such as air conditioning, can be used to mitigate overheating where all reasonably practicable steps have been taken to minimise it through passive means. For those reasons, we think that the new clause would likely increase the unnecessary use of mechanical cooling, with associated costs for both developers and residents. I therefore ask the hon. Member kindly to withdraw the new clause.

New clause 9 concerns zero-carbon standards for new social housing. The Government fully recognise the importance of ensuring that new homes, including social housing, support our legally binding net zero target. We share the hon. Gentleman’s ambition to deliver homes that are energy efficient, low carbon and fit for the future. That is exactly what the future homes standard will achieve. The reassurance that I was going to give him in my intervention was that that is not affected by the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday of an effective moratorium on major new regulations, setting aside the qualifications that he set out at Dispatch Box with regard to building safety issues.

The Government legislated for the future homes standard in March, and it will come into force for non-higher-risk buildings from 24 March 2027, and for higher-risk buildings from 24 September 2027. It will apply to all new homes, including social housing. Homes built to this standard will have high levels of energy efficiency, use low-carbon heating and, in most cases, generate renewable electricity on site. These homes will also be zero-carbon ready, meaning that they will produce very little carbon and will become zero carbon once the national grid is fully decarbonised, without requiring further retrofit.

That is the really important point: we are retrofitting homes that have been built over recent years—at great cost—because of a previous Government’s decision to remove the required standards that were in place. We could go into that and the costs that that entails, but they are outside the scope of the Bill. We are ensuring that the new homes that come forward, once the standard is in place, are zero-carbon ready, so they will not require further retrofit.

The Government have also worked carefully to set a standard that delivers substantial carbon savings while remaining proportionate, technically feasible and deliverable at scale. In our view, introducing further new standards would risk creating a separate and potentially inconsistent regulatory regime for social housing, as well as additional cost and delivery pressures for the sector. Although I agree with the objective behind the new clause, I consider that the future homes standard already provides the appropriate means of achieving its aims. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the hon. Gentleman not to press new clause 9 to a vote.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

On new clause 7, the cool rule, I appreciate that, as the Minister points out, there is no prohibition on active cooling being used in new homes, but the fact is that we need to secure cooling. We cannot just leave it so that only the most luxury accommodation has cooling in the extremely hot summers that we are having. Just as we have habitable standards for space, daylight and heating, we need a statutory standard for cooling. If it does not come today, I believe it will come, so I wish to press new clause 7 to a vote.

Roger Gale (Conservative, Herne Bay and Sandwich)

Before we come to new clause 10, I remind Members that where a lead amendment is grouped with others, they do not need to seek permission to speak to those other amendments. Only the lead amendment is moved at that time, but Members may speak to any of the amendments grouped with it. If they are reached, and if a Division is required, that will take place later in the proceeding. I said it was arcane, and it is.

New Clause 10 - No reduction in social housing secured through planning permissions or obligations

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am incredibly heartened by your experience of Parliament, Sir Roger, and your statement that you find it arcane. If you find it arcane, I can only imagine how those of us who came into the House only recently find it, so I appreciate your clarification.

I will speak briefly on the new clause, really to highlight the frustration that many people feel when they see social housing quotas reduced. That frustration comes from seeing quotas promising a certain level of genuinely affordable housing for local people go through the planning system and be negotiated, only for the applicant to re-negotiate that consent, argue viability and, as frequently happens, remove all affordable housing.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) brought to my attention the example of an exception site that included around 40% social housing. The permission was in place, but as the Government’s new standard method renders nearly all authorities unable to meet their five-year housing supply, the Government’s inspector had no alternative but to remove all the social housing from that permission on appeal and revert it all to private housing.

The Government’s new standard method has created a free-for-all. An exception site that was granted permission only because it would deliver social housing is now entirely private market housing, which local people in Cornwall will not be able to access or benefit from. I think communities are very frustrated at seeing such consents undermined at later stages. The new clause seeks to rectify that by preventing social housing numbers from being argued down, and I respectfully commend it to the Committee on that basis.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

New clause 10 seeks to prevent local planning authorities from agreeing to any reduction in the number or proportion of social homes required through a planning obligation or condition. The Government are committed to strengthening the system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide necessary affordable homes and infrastructure, and we have already taken a number of steps to that end.

The new NPPF, published on 17 August, seeks to promote greater clarity on expected contributions at the plan-making stage, and to reduce cases of unnecessary site-specific viability assessment by clarifying when it may be appropriate at the decision-making stage. That certainty will help to minimise lengthy negotiations over developer contributions, including affordable housing, on specific sites. At the same time, the framework will retain flexibility for cases where negotiation is genuinely needed to enable sites to come forward.

We are also acting to minimise friction and reduce the complexity involved in the negotiation of section 106 agreements, which are, and will remain, an essential mechanism for delivering social and affordable housing, but which in recent years have become synonymous with inefficiency and delay. The new NPPF formally introduces the category of “medium development”—sites of up to 2.5 hectares with between 10 and 49 units. It also provides the basis for the use of model obligations, as policy DM6(4) states:

“Where national model planning obligations are relevant to the development, they should be used unless there are strong reasons for using a different planning obligation.”

Following that, we launched a consultation on four standardised planning agreements for medium-sized sites, which will be expected to become the default for relevant applications in future. The consultation closed on 20 October 2026, and we are considering the responses received.

The proper process for modifying or discharging planning obligations is set out in section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I know that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington knows this; he has great experience in this area from before he came to the House. As set out in my letter to the Planning Inspectorate earlier this year, attempts to revisit fundamental issues of viability or planning obligations through section 73 applications should be carefully scrutinised and supported by robust justification, with due weight given to the impact of any reduction in affordable housing delivery and to the wider merits of the scheme.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I am grateful to the Minister for engaging on all these amendments, including this one. My question is whether he and the Government recognise that, as in the example I cited, most authorities in southern England cannot meet the five-year housing supply because of the standard method, and that, as a result, social and affordable housing is being removed from planning permissions. Are the Government concerned about that? Are they doing any assessment of how much this is happening?

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am going to be careful, because—as the hon. Gentleman will be fully aware—given the role of Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the planning system, I obviously cannot comment on particular local plans or applications, and I do not know the specific circumstances of the case he cites.

I make the general point—picking up on something that I think the hon. Member for Orpington mentioned earlier—that when we arrived in office, house builders across the country were telling us that the planning system was, in the main, probably the biggest barrier to house building they faced. Following the reforms we have made to national planning policy, they no longer say that; as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington rightly highlights, viability is the chief concern at the moment. Viability pressures are acute across the country, and in certain parts they are particularly severe—London is a good example—so they are bearing on schemes and what they can bring forward.

If I am honest, I struggle to see the direct link between the standard method, the five-year housing land supply and the housing delivery test concerns that I know the hon. Gentleman has raised in the past, but he and I could have a wider discussion on that outside the Committee. I am trying to remain focused on the intent behind the new clause, which concerns planning obligations and conditions.

Let me just set out the Government’s position on section 73. Alongside ongoing work relating to the implementation of section 73B of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, the Government intend to undertake a wider review of the statutory framework for modifying or discharging existing planning obligations, and we will provide further details about this in due course. I hope that will reassure the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington on section 73B, but I am clear that our intention in reviewing this matter is not to allow developers to more easily reduce planning obligations already entered into, including for affordable housing.

The Government have also acted to deal with the detrimental consequences of a declining market for section 106 affordable homes. We have already taken a number of steps to support demand for section 106 units, not least spending review measures designed to rebuild the capacity of registered providers. As a result, we are seeing tentative signs of improvement in appetite for acquiring section 106 homes.

However, despite that positive shift in sentiment post spending review, we know there are still housing schemes where developers remain unable to secure an RP buyer for the affordable homes set out in an original section 106 agreement, and where local planning authorities and developers have not discussed or reached agreement on variations to planning obligations, with the result that many of these sites are stalling.

It is for that reason that we made it clear in a written ministerial statement on 28 January that we expect all local planning authorities to take advantage of existing planning flexibilities to renegotiate section 106 agreements, and to allow the tenure of homes to be varied to secure a buyer where affordable homes secured in section 106 agreements remain uncontracted or unsolved. As the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington will know, this can be effected by a deed of variation that makes amendments or revisions to existing section 106 agreements, either by agreement of the parties to the section 106 agreement, or by formal application under section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

To pick up directly on new clause 10, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, our concern is that it could create unintended consequences that may be contrary to our shared objective to boost the supply of social and affordable housing. Notwithstanding his concerns, which I recognise, it is important that the system retains sufficient flexibility for local planning authorities to respond to significant changes in site or economic circumstances after planning permission has been granted, such as a recession or a similarly significant economic change. We are concerned that new clause 10 could unduly restrict that flexibility, which could—this is the ultimate point—cause sites to stall and subsequently reduce overall housing delivery, including overall social and affordable housing delivery.

I suspect that I will not have convinced the hon. Gentleman entirely, but I hope he agrees that, as it stands, the system carefully balances the need for that flexibility with trying to ensure that we maximise the amount of social and affordable housing supply that can be secured. We should avoid legislation that imposes, in our view, an unreasonable degree of rigidity, while obviously continuing our efforts to increase affordable housing delivery overall. On that basis, I hope he might be persuaded to withdraw the new clause on this occasion.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I appreciate the Minister’s correct analysis that there is a balance to be struck with individual sites, and I accept that. There is a direct link between the standard method and the loss of social housing. The standard method, having been introduced, means that most local plans now cannot meet their five-year housing supply, which means that most of them are no longer effective.

Therefore, if a developer presents an inspector with a site that has both social housing and private housing, the inspector will be forced to conclude, on the section 73 application to amend the plan, that there is no longer an exception that justifies social housing, because all the sites have to come forward, and they all have to be market housing. That is the effect of imposing the standard method and rendering so many local plans no longer effective.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am not responding to the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I want to make an offer to him, because he will know that I am genuinely interested. He will know that we have tried to strengthen national policy on rural exception sites through the NPPF, so I am very interested in whether he thinks there are particular reasons why that strengthening will not have the desired effect, or whether there are other barriers to bringingforward those sites. We want more of those sites to be brought forward, precisely for the reasons that he has set out.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

That is very generous of the Minister, and I will take up the offer by writing to him with the appeal decision. That is now a completed decision, so it would not involve Ministers interfering in any way. He will be able to see the effect, and I think we need to understand how much that is happening across the country, if we are losing social homes all over. On that note, I will press new clause 10 to a vote.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. Please switch all electronic devices off or to silent mode. No food or drink other than the bottles of water provided are to be consumed. Hansard will be grateful if Members email their speaking notes or pass any documents to colleagues in the room. I also understand that it is the Minister’s birthday.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

I hope that we will make faster progress than you may have made this morning.

New Clause 11 - Local authority registers of social housing stock change

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

You mentioned the speed of our passage through the new clauses, Mr Western. I am not seeking to delay the Committee, but these matters are important. The new clauses are significant, as some on the Committee have acknowledged—when it comes to some of them, at least. Had I known that it was the Minister’s birthday, I would have tabled even more new clauses as a birthday present; I feel that I have fallen short. I am sure I join the Committee in wishing him a happy birthday.

New clause 11 would require local housing authorities to maintain and publish a register to record the dwellings sold under the right to buy against new housing provided, enabling public scrutiny of whether the authorities were failing to replenish lost stock. I know that the Government hope, as I do, that the Bill will reduce the loss of social or council housing stock, but hope on its own is not sufficient. We need proper recording of the changes to find out whether the Bill has the desired effect. If the reforms are working, the data will show it; if not, Parliament and the public will know and will have the opportunity to see the evidence for themselves and tackle the issue further. The new clause is sensible, and I present it to the Committee on that basis.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

It is a pleasure to continue our proceedings with you in the Chair, Mr Western. I thank you and the hon. Gentleman for the birthday wishes. What better way to spend a birthday than with the fine body of hon. Members on this Committee?

We understand the intention behind new clause 11: to improve transparency about right-to-buy sales and changes in social housing stock. Robust and accessible information about sales and housing delivery is, of course, important. However, in our view, a new statutory reporting framework is not necessary. Incidentally, a similar amendment was proposed in the other place and resisted because the Department already publishes statistics on right-to-buy sales and replacements, alongside wider information on social housing delivery. A separate register for every local housing authority would duplicate information already collected and published, while creating additional administrative requirements.

We will continue to monitor right-to-buy sales and council housing delivery via our existing published statistics to ensure that we are consistently delivering more social rent homes than we are losing. The numbers are considerable; I refer the Committee to the Government estimates in the impact assessment of the net gain in social rented homes as a result of the Bill. For those reasons, I kindly ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

As I did not say earlier, Mr Western, it is a pleasure to continue to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair.

I thank the Minister for his reassurance about the collection of data, which is important. I hope that the Committee will be able to contain its excitement at the fact that I will not be pressing the new clause to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

New Clause 15 - Duty to report: social housing acquisition fund

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 68—Duty to report: future funding for social housing—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, publish and lay before Parliament a report on the potential opportunities, costs and benefits of enabling local authorities to acquire more additional homes from existing housing stock held in the private sector for the purpose of increasing the number of council-owned social housing dwellings.

(2) A report under this section must include consideration of—

(a) the funding and investment options available to the Secretary of State and to local authorities for acquiring additional housing stock for council housing;

(b) a full appraisal of the costs and benefits of acquisition of additional housing stock for social housing, including costs and savings to local authorities and government as a direct result of investment, as well as consideration of the wider economic, health, social and equalities impacts; and

(c) the merits and disadvantages of establishing a Government-backed fund to enable local authorities to invest in acquiring additional housing stock for social housing.”

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

It is a privilege to move my new clause 15, which would create a duty to report on a social housing acquisition fund. We are all aware of the number of disposals of social housing, for various reasons, by registered providers. However, councils are too often unable to step in and take up those units when they need to because of a lack of funding. The Local Government Association is promoting the concept of a fund that would enable them to do just that. The fund would offer a way to help councils and registered providers acquire homes at an agreed price and retain them at social rent without a sale price prescribed in statute. That would address the classification concern as to the public sector net debt facility, to which the Minister has referred.

For the fund to be useful, councils would need to be able to move quickly enough to draw on it within the notification window. The retention of social homes in rural and coastal communities would be prioritised. I think it is acknowledged across the Committee that the isolated and small numbers of social homes in remote clusters in rural areas are particularly at risk of being disposed of; I am thinking, for example, of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), which also covers the Isles of Scilly. Indeed, the same applies to bungalows, homes adapted for disabled people, larger homes and homes in areas of high need.

The object of the fund is also to provide support for works, so that local authorities can carry out necessary works on acquisition. A notification period alone is not enough; the LGA has argued that giving councils notice of disposal is useful only if they have the financial means to act. The proposals specifically include support for improvement works, and particular priority is given to those irreplaceable homes that I have just set out.

I commend the new clause to the Committee on the basis that it would safeguard against the disposal of social homes that are being lost throughout the country at the moment, particularly in rural and harder-to-serve areas.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

New clause 15 and new clause 68, which has not been spoken to, explore the merits of additional funding and support for councils and other registered providers when it comes to acquiring homes.

New clause 15, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, focuses on keeping as social housing homes that would otherwise be disposed of outside the regulated sector. Although the Government continue to promote new build land-led development as a way to increase overall housing supply, we are supportive of acquisitions because they increase housing stock more quickly than new build and therefore represent an efficient way to rapidly meet local housing need.

As a result, we have taken numerous steps to provide councils with investment opportunities to acquire additional homes. For example, we have lifted the acquisitions cap on the use of right-to-buy receipts. That removes previous restrictions on the number of homes that could be acquired using that source of capital funding and offers councils greater flexibility to meet local housing need.

We have also made grant funding for acquisitions available through the social and affordable homes programme. We have confirmed that we will look to raise its existing cap, so that councils can purchase more homes from the private sector while they increase their capacity and capability to deliver homes directly. In addition, the local authority housing fund can be used by local authorities to purchase from private registered providers homes that would otherwise be lost from the social housing sector. All homes acquired through the fund become part of the local authority’s stock of housing, providing a lasting asset for local communities.

I reassure Committee members that receipts from the sale of social homes are not lost but retained in the sector. Receipts from disposals will also often contain an element of recycled grant. In those circumstances, Homes England already sets a series of conditions on how recycled capital grant may be used. Those include the expectation that providers deploy recycled grant in support of identified priorities and housing need, in line with investment priorities set out in local plans.

There is a strong incentive for timely reinvestment: if recycled grant is not used within three years, it must be returned to Homes England or the GLA, along with the interest it has accumulated. We need to recognise, however, that registered providers sometimes have tough decisions to make. We also need to ensure that we use Government money as effectively as possible. I am therefore not able to commit to further funding that would ensure that homes that are uneconomic or unsuitable to invest in remain in the social housing sector. However, I hope that the Committee is reassured by the funds available, which I have already outlined.

On new clause 68, we record and publish statistics on acquisitions. That enables us to assess what role they are playing in social and affordable housing supply. It is not clear what an additional report would add to that assessment.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I appreciate the Minister’s response, but the fact is that we need a specific measure to prevent the disposals that are continuing around the country, particularly in rural areas. Without the specific measure of a fund, we will continue to lose social homes, particularly the ones that are most scarce, such as accessible homes, bungalows, those in rural areas. I will press new clause 15 to a Division.

New Clause 16 - Rent to Discounted Sale Agreements

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am grateful for the opportunity to move new clause 16, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. It concerns rent to discounted sale agreements, or covenanted housing as it might be called. I will be brief, but this important potential tenure option can retain social housing in the long-term ownership of the sector while giving people the ability to acquire a new home by providing them with 50% equity in the property. When they choose to move on, the equity is sold and they receive the uplift in that equity; the property reverts to the charity or housing association that sold it.

It is important for us to have mechanisms to get people on to the housing ladder without jeopardising—or, indeed, almost completely extinguishing—our stock of social housing, as has happened following the loss of 2 million homes from council and social housing stock since the 1980s. This important tenure deserves recognition in the Bill. It is already in operation in parts of the country, and I commend it to the Committee on that basis.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for speaking to the new clause, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for St Ives. As Committee members know, there are already several routes for social housing tenants to access home ownership, including the recently announced Your First Home scheme. But those routes must be balanced with the need to protect social housing stock and to stop homes from being sold at an unsustainable rate.

Although the new clause includes provisions intended to ensure that homes remain within an affordable housing system, it would nevertheless, in our view, create a new route for social housing to move from rented tenure into owner occupation. The Government’s priority, as I have stated numerous times throughout our proceedings, is to protect and increase the supply of social and affordable rented homes for those in housing need. That is why the Bill is reforming the right-to-buy and right-to-acquire schemes—both to retain a route to home ownership and, as I have said, to avoid unsustainable rates of sale and outflow from the system.

We do not believe that it would be right to introduce an additional route for social housing tenants to purchase their homes. As I have said, such a route would risk reducing the supply of rented social housing available to future tenants and duplicate existing routes to home ownership. For that reason, I hope the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington will not push the new clause to a vote.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

There is no automatic reason why the new clause would lead to a reduction in social rent. Covenanted housing of that kind could be an option within the existing quantity of shared ownership or other tenures and be offered to people as a route to home ownership and an equity stake in their home. The Liberal Democrats continue to believe that this is a valuable tenure and should be expanded. But I can do the maths, so I will not push this to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

New Clause 18 - Duty to report: social housing levy scheme

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Even though I can do the maths, we Liberal Democrats believe that new clause 18 is particularly important. It would require the Government to report on a social housing levy scheme that would spend additional income from local holiday lets, either via levy or disapplying small business rate relief, on local social housing projects and related purposes.

The new clause stands in the name of my colleague and hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, who has worked extensively in the affordable housing sector and knows about that of which he speaks. He points out that in Cornwall alone, holiday let companies—holiday home owners—have been granted over £500 million in small business tax relief and covid aid during the last decade. That is a transfer of subsidy that the sector can ill afford.

In yesterday’s Budget, the Chancellor extended small business rate relief; that is recognised. Whether or not that will affect those premises is yet to be seen. A huge number of second home owners have flipped their second homes from council tax to business rates to take advantage of the small business rate relief. That is not the intention of the system. We need to find ways, particularly in areas such as Cornwall and elsewhere, to properly control the level of second home ownership and prevent those second homes from being subsidised by the hard-pressed taxpayer. On that basis, I commend the new clause, which would levy those second home businesses, to the Committee.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for speaking to the new clause, which was tabled by the hon. Member for St Ives, and for highlighting the housing pressures experienced in a number of tourist areas. It is worth saying that those pressures affect not only coastal and rural areas, but urban areas in London, York and other places around the country.

The Government recognise that high concentrations of holiday lets can affect the availability and affordability of housing for local people and can contribute to wider pressures on local communities. However, we do not believe that the new clause is necessary. The Government already support the delivery of social and affordable housing through established funding programmes, many of which we have discussed throughout the Committee’s proceedings.

The new clause is premised on the idea that revenues associated with holiday lets should be earmarked for social housing projects and related purposes. That is not the Government’s approach. Business rates revenues are not ringfenced for specific spending programmes; they are available to support local priorities. Likewise, the overnight visitor levy is intended to support local economic growth and strengthen local areas by giving strategic authorities greater control over how locally raised revenues are invested across a range of local priorities. Ringfencing those revenues for a particular purpose would cut across the Government’s approach to fiscal devolution and local decision making.

The Government are already taking action in this area. Parliament legislated for a national registration scheme for short-term lets in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, and we remain committed to implementing that scheme as soon as is practicable. The Government have also abolished the furnished holiday lettings tax regime and are continuing to consider whether further measures may be needed to help local authorities to respond to local housing pressures related to excessive concentrations of short-term lets. In the light of that ongoing work, and given the Government’s established approach to fiscal devolution and local decision making, we cannot support the new clause. I hope that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington will consider withdrawing it.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

This will be the last Liberal Democrat new clause for a while. I recognise that the Government are addressing second home ownership in various ways, but the question that remains unanswered is whether it is legitimate or acceptable for second home owners to flip their homes into small businesses to take advantage of business rates relief and avoid the council tax implications of a second home. That is costing taxpayers—hard-working people, as is often said—huge amounts of money. Some claimants are now backdating their tax relief claims back to 1993. For those reasons, I will press new clause 18 to a vote.

New Clause 25 - Report: replacement of social housing stock

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 26—Replacement of social housing stock: data—

“(1) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report containing the following data—

(a) the number of new dwellings for social rent that have been delivered within the preceding 12 months; and

(b) the number of dwellings for social rent that have been disposed of by local authorities within the preceding 12 months.”

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish annual data on the amount of social housing which is replaced once sold.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I join the rest of the Committee in wishing the Minister a very happy birthday.

One of the most common accusations against right to buy is also one of the most mistaken. We have heard it many times in this Committee: it is the idea that right to buy is a contributor to the shortage of homes in this country. That defeatist attitude masks a lazy analysis. As I laid out on Second Reading, the Government’s own impact assessment shows that weakening right to buy will mean fewer new social homes. The impact assessment shows that if the pre-November 2024 baseline remained, there would be 8,050 right to buy sales and 5,450 replacement homes in 2026-27. The document goes on to show that if the Bill passes, as I am sure it will, and the legacy impacts wind down in the period from 2031 to 2035, annual right-to-buy sales will fall to about 1,100 a year, with about 1,450 replacement homes.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

A quick google would tell the hon. Member that under the right-to-buy policy, which his party introduced, about 1 million homes—80% of the homes, in fact—have not been replaced. Despite that, he has tabled new clauses about like-for-like replacement. The hon. Member may not be too embarrassed to table the new clauses, but will he at least admit that his party are showing a breathtaking cheek in doing so?

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

Not remotely. By the Government’s own analysis and admission, they would oversee a housing system in which 4,000 fewer new social homes would be funded every year. How does that help with the social housing waiting list, which all Committee members would like to be lower? How does building fewer new social homes remotely help? Of course it does not.

As I showed on Second Reading, the Government’s data is not the only data available that disproves the justification for restricting the right to buy. The Government have argued that, under the Bill, around 3,000 additional homes will be retained each year, but research by the House of Lords Library shows that only a net 3% of social homes become available for new tenancies each year. That means that about 90 additional homes, instead of 5,000, will be available each year. That is the opposite of the Government’s stated aim and is completely incongruent with the pressing need for more social homes.

The idea that the right to buy is taking homes away is a fallacy for another reason. The only people who qualify for the right to buy are long-term tenants. Government data has shown that 78% of new lettings remain lifetime tenancies. That means that, in more than three quarters of cases, the social homes are unlikely ever to be available to prospective tenants who need them. All those points clearly demonstrate that right to buy is not the issue, but part of the solution. I therefore urge the Committee to support new clause 25.

My new clause 26 would require the Secretary of State to publish annual data on the social housing replaced once sold.

Rachel Blake (Labour/Co-operative, Cities of London and Westminster)

During this debate, there have been accusations of ideological stances from both parties, particularly on the right to buy. To bring us back to a practical question, does the hon. Member not recognise that new clause 26 would be a duplicative measure, adding to data that is already collected? Does he not agree that up to three additional sales would be necessary just to replace one home, particularly in London, which he and I represent different parts of?

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

No. Our new clauses would require the Government to conduct a review 12 months after the Act is passed, so that we know the figures for certain, and would require the Secretary of State to determine on the basis of that review whether to compel local authorities to do like-for-like replacements. That is the whole point of the new clauses. Rather than just letting things take their course, the Government should take control and make a decision about what local government should do. The data is expected to make sorry reading if the figures in the Government’s impact statement prove correct. We will press new clause 25 and new clause 26 to a Division.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the shadow Minister for his well wishes and for speaking to new clauses 25 and 26. As he says, new clause 25 would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the replacement of social housing stock and to consider the merits of introducing a statutory one-for-one replacement requirement.

The core aim of the right-to-buy measures in the Bill is to prevent social homes being sold off without being replaced. Reforming the right to buy is central to that objective. If the shadow Minister reads the impact assessment, he will see clearly that it sets out the move from the existing baseline, before the changes the Government are making both in this Bill and outside it, to where we want to get to, which is a net gain of 18,000 social rented homes, over the 10-year period from 2026 to 2036.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Can the Minister clarify whether those are 18,000 vacant new homes, or 18,000 homes that currently have social tenants?

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am struggling to understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It will vary in each instance, will it not? There is a well-understood measurement for the loss of social homes from the sector; the shadow Minister cited statistics on that. The Government and the impact assessment are clear that, as a result of the Bill and the other measures we are taking over a 10-year period, we will go from a net loss of 26,000 social homes to a net gain of 18,000. That is the difference that the Bill will make.

We have also taken significant steps to support local authorities to replace homes sold, such as by allowing them to keep 100% of their right-to-buy receipts and giving them greater flexibility as to how to spend them. Our changes to discounts further ensure that councils keep a larger share of the receipts. Our priority is therefore to implement these reforms rather than commission a further statutory review.

In addition, we already publish extensive information on the operation and outcomes of the right to buy, and we intend to continue monitoring the impact of our reforms through existing datasets and established statistical releases. As announced in the consultation response, and separately from the Bill, we are removing the formal one-for-one replacement target for right to buy. That is not because we are complacent about councils’ replacing homes sold—far from it—but because we do not want to limit councils’ ambitions to purely replace homes sold under the right to buy. We expect councils to go over and above replacing sold stock and to play a central role in our supply ambitions. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the shadow Minister not to press the new clause.

New clause 26 would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report containing data on the number of new dwellings for social rent that have been delivered within the preceding 12 months and the number of dwellings for social rent that have been disposed of by local authorities within the preceding 12 months. I do, of course, recognise the importance of readily available information about the new supply of social and affordable homes and the number of social and affordable homes that have been lost from the sector. However—this speaks to the point that I have just made to the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich—that information is already available.

The Government publish data on affordable housing supply in England, including the number of dwellings for social rent delivered. The Government also publish data on social housing sales and demolitions as well as official statistics in development that estimate the net supply of social housing, including all disposals from large private registered providers and local authorities with a housing revenue account of homes for social rent. For that reason, I do not think that new clause 26 is necessary, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

New clauses 25 and 26 are really an effort by the Opposition to force the Government to use the Bill to secure new homes. I wish the Minister a very happy birthday; I will expedite my speech so that we can pop down to the Two Chairmen and pick up where the Chancellor left off last night.

On Second Reading, I was intrigued to hear the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) say:

“Our right to buy reforms will mean a net gain of 18,000 social homes over the next 10 years”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 1300.]

That is the same claim that the Minister has made today. I have studied the impact assessment produced by the Government, and, sure enough, on page 25 there is this line:

“Following implementation of the Bill, the model instead estimates a net gain of around 18,000 homes over the same period.”

Dig into that figure, however, and it is not quite what it seems. It is not that 18,000 new homes will be available to new tenants who are languishing on the housing register. The 18,000 net increase in homes is made up entirely of retained stock and, importantly, retained tenants. That is not 18,000 new homes; that is 18,000 homes with someone already living there, who has probably been living there for some time. In fact, the impact assessment shows—I assure the Committee that I am not repeating the shadow Minister’s points—that whereas more than 50,000 new houses were due to be built under the old regime, the Bill will now deliver only half that, approximately 28,000 new homes. The impact assessment says that there will be a reduction in the new homes built as a consequence of the Bill, because fewer homes are being sold and there is less funding available for new builds.

The real irony is that the Bill effectively tackled the economic problems of right to buy through the admirable inclusion of clauses 6 and 10, which rebalance the economic viability of right to buy in the LA’s favour. Those measures make right to buy economically viable, allowing councils to retain funds from the sale of units at a more appropriate price. I can understand and accept the fundamental problem that right to buy posed to councils by making the deal too favourable to prospective buyers and tenants. Even if we take into account higher prices and higher rates of retention, councils will still be substantially short-changed under the Bill.

That point leads me on to the shadow Minister’s new clauses 25 and 26, because of what a one-for-one replacement policy means within the Bill. I return to the impact assessment: on the pre-November baseline, there is a deficit to the tune of 26,000 from housing being lost. As I understand it, each council would be bound to replace the lost house with a new house. If we follow the new clauses to their conclusion, there could be 26,000 additional new homes, which, funnily enough, would chime with the point that the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green made in the Chamber.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

It is worth saying that previous Conservative Governments advocated for one-for-one replacement and did not achieve it, precisely because the finances do not add up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster says, on average it takes the sale of three homes to replace one; it certainly does in my own London borough. Our proposition is very simple: we do not want these homes leaving the sector at the current rate. Yes, they may be secure tenancies in many cases, but they will be made available for future tenants in due course, and we will build more at the same time.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

There is a lot to unpack there. I am sure that previous Governments have made mistakes on housing policy that have partially been corrected in this Bill, and funding has been attached where it should have existed before. However, I struggle to understand—and will always struggle to understand, despite the Minister’s eloquent speeches, superb oratory and rational arguments—how preventing old stock from leaving the system is somehow beneficial to the 1.3 million people who are languishing on the waiting list.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I will probably put this in less eloquent terms, so it might be easier to understand. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that the situation we have got to is ludicrous? A huge amount of council stock has been sold privately, and much of it is now rented back privately as subsidised housing through the housing benefit system. Is it not ludicrous that, rather than seeing people benefit from subsidised rents through social housing, we are publicly subsidising higher rents through the PRS system? A huge amount of that stock is now run by buy-to-let landlords. Even more ludicrously, we now have councils buying back that stock with public subsidy to use as affordable housing. Is this not the opposite of a virtuous cycle? It is a cycle of decline, with more and more public subsidy being wasted, rather than the stock being kept for use as affordable housing. Is that not worth seeking to end?

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Again, there is a lot to unpack there. My speech and this new clause are focused on delivering new houses. On the Minister’s point about the cost of one equalling the sale price of three, I recognise that economic imbalance—

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Then why compel councils to do that?

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I feel as though we are going around in circles. The purpose of new clauses 25 and 26 is to get new houses on the market and available to social tenants. I believe that the new clauses would secure adequate numbers of new council houses, and that is why I support them.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I have nothing to add. We respectfully decline the Minister’s invitation not to press our new clauses.

New Clause 26 - Replacement of social housing stock: data

New Clause 27 - Social housing estates: regeneration

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Regenerating existing social housing is a vital pathway towards providing better, safer and more social homes. As I have mentioned before, nothing in this Bill goes anywhere towards delivering more social housing. That is why I tabled the new clause.

According to the London Councils estate regeneration report in November 2025, London’s boroughs have the potential to develop more than 10,000 new homes in a city that is starved of supply but overflowing with demand. That is true not just inside the M25, but across the country, as Members across the Committee have noted today. Estate regeneration on its own is not a silver bullet, but it can certainly make a significant contribution.

Regeneration also plays an important role in taking pressure off our green belt by prioritising the regeneration of brownfield sites, towards which the Government have done little but pay lip service since 2024. Instead of the undesirable urban sprawl encouraged by the Government, the Opposition believe in building where homes are wanted and needed and where they can be supported by existing and necessary infrastructure, such as in our cities and urban areas. Estate regeneration fits that rationale perfectly, so I encourage colleagues to support the new clause.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

As the shadow Minister has outlined, new clause 27 would require the Government to produce proposals within 12 months of the passing of the Act to support the regeneration of existing social housing estates.

Let me make it very clear that we recognise the role that regeneration can play in the development of new or improved social homes that best fit the needs of their communities. I can think of many estate regeneration projects across London that are both very effective and hugely well supported, having been taken forward to resident ballots; the Brookhill estate regeneration in Woolwich, in my constituency, is a good example. That is why the social and affordable homes programme will continue to support regeneration schemes that provide a net increase in social housing, and why the programme will last for 10 years, allowing for the longer timeline that regeneration typically requires.

We are also committed to improving existing social homes. As members of the Committee will be aware, we have published an updated decent homes standard, which providers must meet by 2035, and new minimum energy efficiency standards, which they must meet by 2030. For those reasons, we do not think this new clause is required, and I ask the shadow Minister kindly to withdraw it.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

Since the Minister has asked me so nicely, and as it is his birthday, I will agree to withdraw it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

New Clause 28 - Supported housing and stock management strategy

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

The Bill claims to be about social housing, and yet it says almost nothing about the people who rely on it most. Supported housing services some of the most vulnerable residents in the sector: the elderly, people with disabilities and people who have faced incredible hardship. New clause 28 would ensure that there is a strategy to support those groups through effective stock management, rather than leaving them without representation in the Bill.

The new clause would also require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy within 12 months and lay it before Parliament. It would examine the barriers to delivery, how supported housing fits within wider stock management, and long-term demand. That is not a monumental task, but it can produce effective outcomes. If the Minister believes in delivering for vulnerable residents, he should have no reason to refuse.

I turn to my new clause 44. Stock management could play a critical role in the future of a better-run, more efficient and targeted social housing system. For that to work, however, the Government must understand the condition of the system and the inefficiencies within social housing. The new clause would work towards such an understanding by requiring the publication of a national audit of social housing stock, including stock condition, rates of occupancy, levels of regional demand and the number of empty properties. Those are all critical factors to understand and make work. Otherwise, the Government of the day are failing the 1.34 million people and families on the social housing waiting list.

Unfortunately, however, we know that in many areas those categories are full of inefficiencies. For example, the English housing survey states that approximately 389,000 households are under-occupying social housing, and a further 164,000 social rented homes are empty. Those are critical figures not just to know, but to understand and act on. New clause 44 would compel the Government to make those figures known, helping local authorities and other providers, as well as lawmakers, to see the national picture so that the system works towards the efficiency that the most vulnerable deserve.

I turn to my new clause 46. The Government have promised a council home comeback, and the new Prime Minister has spent much time promising big things for the future of social housing. Those theoretical points make good press, but the Government must spend more time focusing on the stock we already have, as well as the increases that we may see in future. In the current social housing system, there are too many empty properties, illegal sublets and homes taking far too long to re-let. None of those issues has the same appeal and glamour as a comeback or a grand new funding project, but it is just as vital to the system that they be rectified. My new clause 46 would therefore require the Government to publish a strategy for improving the management of existing social housing stock. I look to the Minister for assurances that such issues will be addressed and efficiencies made.

Finally in this group, my new clause 56 is an essential exercise in the understanding and proper use of existing stock. All right hon. and hon. Members present will recognise the vital need to build more social housing. However, that is not the only objective that the Government should have. Every empty, illegally sublet or under-occupied home costs a vulnerable person the chance of a roof over their head and a place to call home. New clause 56 would therefore require a national strategy to improve the management of existing social housing stock. The Secretary of State would publish a comprehensive plan within 12 months of Royal Assent that addresses issues within the current supply.

The new clause would also place a requirement on local authorities and registered providers to publish a short set of data each year: void and re-let times, subletting cases, recovered properties and when the waiting list was last reviewed. In the majority of cases, providers will already have given that information, but it is inconsistently published—an easily fixable inefficiency. The new clause would require an annual report to Parliament, so that the data is properly scrutinised and assessed, not simply logged and forgotten about. The current patchwork picture needs to be unwoven and properly understood, so I hope that the Minister and other hon. Members will support new clause 56.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I congratulate the Minister on his birthday today. It is also a pleasure to follow the shadow Minister, whom I wholeheartedly support on new clauses 28, 44, 46 and 56. I will speak to new clause 46 and make some general points.

We need a strategy for improving the existing management of the social housing stock. As the Minister knows—I alluded to this point when he came before the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—overcrowding is an issue in social homes. I suspect we all speak to many constituents, as I do across Broxbourne, who are in a two-bedroom home and need a four-bedroom home. In a previous life, when I was a councillor on the planning committee, I always argued that, within section 106 negotiations or the affordable housing part of a development, we should get some larger social homes, because they are very hard to come by and people have to wait years for a four-bedroom home.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Briefly—because this point is worth picking up—the reason so many larger social homes are not available is that they are precisely the homes that have been sold off, in most cases in the first instance, under the right to buy.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I go back to my earlier point: if we took all those homes back into social housing, the same people who are living in them now would still be living in them. They are not new social homes. They would not reduce the social housing waiting list.

I speak to constituents who are overcrowded in a two-bedroom home and waiting on the list for a four-bedroom home. A three-bedroom home might alleviate some of their overcrowding. It would not be ideal— I completely agree that if they went into a three-bedroom home they would still be overcrowded—and it could be seen only as a temporary fix, but under the current system they are forced to stay in a two-bedroom property while they wait and bid on four-bedroom properties, which do not come along often.

We need to be better at securing larger social homes in developments. Sometimes developers do not want to build them because they are more expensive. Will the Minister look at changing the rules? If a family with a mum, dad and three kids in a two-bedroom property moved to a three-bedroom property, they would at least have the space of an extra bedroom. When I speak to my constituents, sometimes they say that that would be a good stepping stone, rather than having to wait to get a four-bedroom property.

I say this in the nicest possible way: we need a strategy, because we can use the stock better to make people a bit less overcrowded. I am not saying that that will solve all the problems. Some constituents will prefer to move straight into a four-bedroom property, but they understand that they must wait a considerable time for that. Sometimes councils do not have the powers to force developers to build those larger social homes. Will the Minister reflect on the current rules on overcrowding? Changing those rules slightly might make our constituents’ lives easier.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The new clauses in this group all focus on the important issue of the effective management of existing social housing. New clauses 46 and 56 would require the Secretary of State, within 12 months of Royal Assent, to publish and lay before Parliament a national strategy for improving the management and use of social housing stock. New clause 56 would also require every local housing authority and registered provider to publish prescribed stock management information each year, with the Secretary of State reporting annually on performance.

On the point of principle—I say this partly in response to the hon. Member for Broxbourne—we absolutely believe that more can be done to optimise the efficient use of social housing stock. The Government are already reviewing how effectively existing homes are managed and how tenant mobility and stock use could be improved. That work is under way and is considering many of the issues raised in new clauses 46 and 56, including voids, under-occupation, right-sizing, mutual exchange and tenancy fraud. We expect the review to report shortly.

We do not believe that it would be right to legislate for a strategy and permanent reporting framework before the evidence from the review has been fully considered. I can guarantee the hon. Member for Broxbourne that, in considering the research findings carefully and deciding what further action might be proportionate in this area, I will reflect on the points that he made. I will not go into detail; he knows that local authorities are responsible for the local allocations framework within the national structure.

New clause 44 seeks to understand how social housing is being used by requiring the publication of a national audit of social housing stock. Again, although I recognise the intent of the new clause, the Government do not believe that it is necessary. Substantial data is already published on the condition and use of social housing, including through the English housing survey and local authority housing statistics, which cover many of the issues raised in the new clause. The new clause would also duplicate the ongoing stock management review.

New clause 28 would introduce a requirement for the Secretary of State to publish a strategy on supported housing. We recognise the crucial role of supported housing in enabling vulnerable people to live independently. I note and commend the efforts of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) in introducing the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, which introduced a duty on local housing authorities to produce local supported housing strategies, including setting out their approach to the issues raised in new clause 28, based on a detailed understanding of local supply and demand.

In 2024, we published research on supported housing supply and demand nationally. Earlier this year, we published guidance for local authorities on developing their supported housing strategies. Earlier this month, we published a consultation on draft regulations to implement the licensing regime set out in the 2023 Act. Finally, just last week we published the first piece of advice from the supported housing advisory panel, which was established under that Act.

This is a really important area of policy. On the pressures around supported housing and the misuse of exempt supported accommodation—the west midlands is a particular hotspot for some poor practice in the sector, for example, and I know hon. Members want to see it addressed—we have already taken action in a number of ways. I hope that that reassures hon. Members that this Government are taking the necessary steps to address the issues around supported housing. On that basis, I kindly ask the shadow Minister not to press the new clauses to a Division.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

We will press new clause 28 to a Division, but I will let the cat out of the bag now and say that we agree with the Minister on the other new clauses. When the time comes, we will not press them.

New Clause 29 - Report on the impact of changes to right to buy discounts

New Clause 31 - Local connection requirements

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Social housing exists to serve communities, yet too many families who have lived, worked and raised children in an area find themselves overlooked when homes are allocated. That is wrong and unjust, which is why my new clause 31 would require allocation schemes in England and Wales to give additional preference to people with a local connection. Local authorities would consider current residents’ employment and family ties. There is nothing exclusionary about supporting local people who contribute to, live in and work in their community.

New clause 31 would also give armed forces personnel the respect and priority that they deserve. Through their service, our servicemen and servicewomen often find themselves posted far from home, sometimes in unsafe and unstable places, to protect Britain, British values and those in need internationally. We have a responsibility to protect them when they return home. I believe that service personnel should not lose their local connection because of their service, and that is why I tabled new clause 31.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I rise to speak in support of the new clause. I will be brief, because I have some comments to make on the next group of clauses.

I am very proud that in around 2010, my local council in Broxbourne, which is Conservative-run, brought in rules for local connection such that someone had to have a connection for five years to the borough to get on the housing waiting list. That is good, because it is local residents who have to put up with all the disruption that goes with development. Where we can, we should support local people first on council housing waiting lists.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The Government recognise the importance of enabling people to remain close to their families, their employment and the communities in which they have built their lives. Local connection can have a legitimate role in deciding how social housing is allocated, but local housing authorities in England already have powers to take local connection into account when determining priorities between applicants within the statutory reasonable preference categories. It is worth pointing out that 89% of councils have a local connection or residency test in place to determine who qualifies for social housing in their area. The existing framework is therefore already working to allow local authorities to set local connection tests, in consideration of housing need and the relevant circumstances in their local area.

New clause 31 would go further, requiring additional preference for applicants with a local connection, without making that preference dependent on the urgency of their housing need. We do not believe that would strike the right balance. It could disadvantage households with higher needs who must move to another area—for example, to reach a place of safety or obtain essential support. A connection to an area should not, in itself, be treated as evidence of greater housing need.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I echo what the Minister is saying. I have dealt with real issues affecting victims of domestic violence, who often have to move from places where they have spent many years, and we have been talking to the Department about the application of local connection tests, as well as rent arrears requirements, and their disproportionate impact. Many other groups can be affected, such as veterans, rough sleepers, and victims involved in gang-related crime who have to leave their area. Using purely a local connection test really does have worrying impacts on homelessness and housing.

Taken to the extreme, in Hillingdon we have a local connection test that requires 10 consecutive years’ residency. Someone waiting for their situation to be assessed may end up sofa surfing with a neighbour just over the border in Harrow and suddenly forfeit their residency. They will have been there nine years, but lose out on the 10 consecutive years of waiting and therefore be deprioritised. Is it not right that we should be proportionate in how we apply these tests?

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As ever, we benefit from his considerable experience in local government. That is the point: local housing authorities should retain flexibility to balance priority and local connection within the statutory framework.

I recognise the intention, as set out by the shadow Minister, to ensure that members of the armed forces are not disadvantaged because their service has interrupted their local connection. There are already important protections in place in England. Serving members and all former members of the regular armed forces are exempt from local connection tests when councils determine who qualifies for social housing, regardless of when they last served. We are extending that protection through the Bill so that it also applies when veterans seek homelessness assistance.

Our approach is to maintain a framework that recognises local connection while protecting people in housing need and allowing local housing authorities to respond fairly to individual circumstances. Our review of statutory allocations guidance provides an opportunity to reinforce those expectations, rather than introduce the blanket requirement proposed in the new clause. The new clause would also change the social housing allocations framework in Wales. Housing is a devolved matter, so consultation with the Welsh Government would be required before taking forward changes of this kind. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the shadow Minister to withdraw the new clause.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I have heard the Minister. There was much in what he said, but I respectfully decline his offer. We will press new clause 31 to a vote.

New Clause 32 - Access to social housing: British citizenship

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Matt Western (Labour, Warwick and Leamington)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

Social housing is not abundant in this country, as we all know. It is a limited resource, and it is funded by the British taxpayer. The Opposition laid out in our alternative King’s Speech the stark and unfair reality of the British social housing system’s priorities. Too many struggling British families are far down the 1.34 million-strong waiting list for social housing. However, 72% of those who identify as Somalian in England and Wales live in social housing.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he has been very generous today. Is he aware that 90% of those in social housing in this country are British citizens and that asylum seekers are barred from social housing, as are people on temporary work or study visas? Is he also aware that by restricting social housing to British citizens, the new clause would stop people like myself, from the Republic of Ireland, and many of my constituents in the Hanwell area of Ealing Southall accessing social housing? In that context, has he spoken to the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and shadow Foreign Secretary to tell them that he intends to dismantle the common travel area with the Republic of Ireland?

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I come back to a point that I made earlier: if social housing were in abundant supply, there would be no need for this new clause, but it is not, nor will it be any time soon. The question is how British taxpayers’ money should be prioritised. I will come on to that in more detail in a moment.

As I was saying, 72% of Somalis, 41% of Jamaicans and 34% of Bangladeshis live in social housing. Until recently, the First Lady of Sierra Leone was also living in a British-funded council house. We believe that those who are not British citizens should not be able to access social housing while British citizens sit on the waiting list. A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government response to a written parliamentary question revealed that every year around 33,000 new social tenancies go to households in which the lead tenant is not a UK national. At the same time, the Government are spending £4 billion a year on the affordable homes programme to build 30,000 new social homes—money that comes from British taxpayers. This means that the equivalent of the entire affordable homes programme budget is going to house non-nationals, and British taxpayers are footing the bill.

New clause 32 is about creating a fairer system for British citizens and British taxpayers. It is not about exclusion, but about prioritisation, ensuring that British citizens are at the front of the queue for social housing in the country of which they are a citizen. It is not about race; it is about legal status.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Earlier today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a statement regarding the Budget yesterday that said that household disposable income will continue to decline over the coming years as a result of the dire economic situation that the country is in. At the same time, we are looking at change to the make-up of social housing in this country, which would further disadvantage taxpayers in this country. Would the shadow Minister like to comment?

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I said a moment ago, the point of the new clauses is prioritisation: how we prioritise the use of British taxpayers’ funding.

We believe that making Britain your home should be earned by working, paying tax and integrating. New clause 32 emphasises these points without making them exclusive to one race, religion or creed. That was quite deliberate. I urge colleagues to support the new clause.

Turning to new clause 37, confidence in an already strained system is never helped when people with significant overseas wealth or status slip through the system unchecked. Current rules do not give sufficient support to local authorities to assist in dealing with applicants who hold senior public office abroad or who are closely related to those who do. The new clause is proportionate and practical. It would allow the Secretary of State to issue guidance on such applications, including on disclosure requirements, the verification of overseas assets and the position of anyone subject to UK sanctions. Local authorities would be required to have regard to it, and Parliament would see it laid before it takes effect. New clause 37 would give councils the vital tools to protect public trust, ensure that homes go to those in genuine need, and make the system fair.

I turn to new clause 43. One of the greatest pressures on the social housing system is the waiting list, with 1.34 million vulnerable people and families facing a seemingly immovable backlog ahead of them. It is essential that all social, economic and physical pressures on the system are identified and addressed, and one of those is net migration. As I said a moment ago, every year about 33,000 new social tenancies go to households in which the lead tenant is not a British citizen—the source for that is a written answer from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. At the same time, the Government are spending £4 billion a year on the affordable homes programme to build 30,000 new social homes. That means that the equivalent of the entire affordable homes programme is going to house non-British nationals, and British taxpayers are paying for that. It is clearly necessary to look into exactly how that pressure is suppressing the efficiency of the social housing system, and inhibiting its ability to help British families in need.

New clause 43 would require the publication of estimates of social housing demand arising from net migration, because with that data the Government and local authorities would be better informed when making decisions regarding the allocation of stock, and there would be better determined decisions around housing those in need. It is vital that we do not ignore an issue simply because some people find it uncomfortable to discuss. New clause 43 does not alienate anybody, nor does it take away anyone’s rights to a social home. It is a simple, straightforward requirement that would leave decision makers better informed about the greatest pressures on an already strained system.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I was not intending to speak to the new clause, but having heard Opposition Members, and considering my experience at the weekend in my constituency, I have a responsibility to do so.

At the weekend, I attended the international mass at Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael Catholic church in Uxbridge. It was standing room only, with 300 people—it had not been that busy for decades. It was full of people wearing football shirts from around the world and international dress. It was a congregation of Uxbridge residents from all over the world. The priest stood up in front of the packed church and proudly said that more than 50 nations were represented. He rightly considered them all to be part of our community, and he spoke about how the Irish community in Uxbridge had built the church, and now the congregation was building Uxbridge.

I met social care workers, people from India who I already knew and who work at the hospital as nurses, people who are starting businesses—all those people are taxpayers, and many of them have indefinite leave to remain. Their children may have been born in Britain and be British citizens even if the parents are not. The new clause seeks to drive a wedge between our community and create second-class citizens and second-class residents in this country. It is not based on need. I take umbrage about the point that this is funded by the British taxpayer. The new clause is not talking about what is and is not funded by the taxpayer. Many people who have come here and made their home here are taxpayers. Many people who live in council homes and may not have been born in Britain are taxpayers.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Good!

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

It is good. The new clause does not seek to distinguish between contribution and who is or is not a taxpayer; it is loaded with that language, but fundamentally it is an attack on people who were not born in Britain, which is deeply unfair.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I would challenge that. This is not an issue of penalising; it is not an attack. It is an issue of equity and of standing up for what is fair. When asking someone to subsidise something else we must take into account whether it is fair.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

I do not think the hon. Gentleman has read the new clause and the comments about taxpayers. As far as I understand it, this is not a new clause that says, “You only qualify if you’ve paid tax.” It is not about that; it is about someone’s place of birth.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

Will the hon. Member please point out where the new clause mentions where someone is born?

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

Again, as far as I am aware, the new clause does not suggest prioritising only people who have made a certain contribution towards housing, or in tax. That is the language that has been used by the Opposition, but let us be frank that it is not the nature of what they are talking about.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

The new clause is clearly written. It is not about where somebody was born, and we are very precise in what we have said on that. There is no reference to where someone is born in the new clause, for a clear reason. It is about who is or is not a British citizen, and therefore who should or should not benefit from British taxpayers’ contributions. That is precisely what the new clause is about. I said in my speech that it has nothing to do with race, religion, place of birth or creed; it is about who is or is not a British citizen. That is the point of the new clause.

Danny Beales (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip)

Perhaps it is the Opposition’s naivety— I am sure it is not deliberate—but in reality, focusing on whether someone is a British citizen will obviously preclude only those not born here. There will be no people born in Britain who will suddenly be precluded. The new clause is not about whether someone has contributed a certain amount of money or whether they are a taxpayer. The Opposition are seeking to drive a wedge through our communities and somehow suggest that the reason we have not got council homes is that they have all been snapped up by recent arrivals on boats, not because millions were sold off under the Conservative party of old.

I hoped for better from the Opposition. I hoped we could start a discussion about how we deliver more council homes—I thought that was what we were attempting to do. Instead, the nasty party is back, seeking to drive wedges through our community. Everyone I met in that church who contributes to Uxbridge deserves a fair shout at local housing if they need it.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I agree with the comments that we have just heard. This is the most iniquitous and divisive amendment to the Bill, as I said on Second Reading. I will tell the Committee who it excludes: the nurses in my local hospital, Musgrove Park, who are looking after very sick people. They have been invited here by us—by our society—to come and work as nurses in the NHS, but under a Conservative Government they would be turned out of their council houses. I will tell the Committee who else the new clause excludes.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

Will the hon. Gentleman please point to where in the new clause it says that it is retrospective?

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

It is gracious of the Opposition spokesperson to consent to those nurses staying in their homes, but apparently when we invite nurses in future to come to Taunton and Wellington and elsewhere in the country, we will tell them, “You must work for the NHS and you must pay your taxes, but if you need affordable housing, you cannot have it. Tough. Go and find somewhere else.” I have had nurses in my surgery desperately looking for social housing and affordable housing, having come here and moved their family and children here at the invitation of the previous Conservative Government. They were invited here, but they cannot find anywhere to live. They would not be welcome to have social housing under the Conservative new clause.

I can tell the Committee who else would not be welcome: the care workers looking after our loved ones in care homes. Again, they come here at our invitation and would be told they are not allowed to have social housing. The people who come and support our high streets and our local businesses who do not yet have leave to remain would not be allowed access to social housing. As we discussed on Second Reading, the new clause would extend not only to the hon. Member for Ealing Southall, but to the first Duke of Wellington, if he were alive today. They would be refused a council home under the Conservative new clause, were they to apply.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

We had a bit of a spat about this on Second Reading. The first Duke of Wellington was a British citizen, so the new clause would not exclude him. The hon. Gentleman is making a completely nonsensical argument. Go back and read some history.

Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat, Taunton and Wellington)

I think the history books will show that the Duke of Wellington was born 32 years before the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, and Britain and Ireland are—I know this will come as a shock to the Opposition—two different places. He was an Irish citizen, not a British citizen. Since the ninth duke is no longer in Parliament as a result of sensible reforms to the House of Lords, I feel as the Member of Parliament for Wellington that I have a duty to stand up for his line of heritage. When I see the ninth duke, I will explain to him that his ancestor would no longer be welcome under the Conservatives’ new clause.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip was absolutely right when he identified that this new clause relates to where someone was born, because the biggest single factor in whether someone is a British citizen is their birthplace. The vast majority of people who achieve British citizenship do so because they were born here. The Duke of Wellington was not the only Prime Minister not born here; Boris Johnson was born in the United States. It is hard to imagine him falling on hard times, but if he did, I do not know if he would be allowed social housing. There are other national treasures, such as Spike Milligan, who were not born here. The main thing I remember about him is that he had “I told you I was ill” on his tombstone. He was born in India—he was not a British citizen, and objected to that fact for a number of years.

Let us move away from the history. The main point is that the lack of social housing is not the fault of migrants; it is the fault of successive Governments for not building enough and flogging off far too many council homes. That is why we do not have enough social housing. This is a divisive new clause. I was hoping for better from the Conservative party—they are chasing the Reform mantra. They should leave it to the Reform party to indulge in this kind of politics. It is beneath them. The Committee should reject this new clause, and we will vote against it.

Nesil Caliskan (Labour, Barking)

My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has put the points I was going to make very eloquently, but I want to take the opportunity to say, as the Member of Parliament for Barking, that a high proportion of my constituents are from different heritage backgrounds. The truth is that constituents who have secured indefinite leave to remain have lived in this country for a number of years and have made a significant contribution to our society, not least through the taxes that they have paid as they have worked here legally.

The very argument that we should be fairer in our approach to allocating social housing is reflected in our system, which allows those who have paid their taxes and secured indefinite leave to remain to then access social housing when in need. Those who have no recourse to public funds cannot access the social housing in the first place.

I appreciate the argument that we must have a fair approach to allocating resources. I accept that, and my constituents in Barking also want a fair approach, but what is fair about not recognising that many people cannot afford to apply to become a British citizen but do have indefinite leave to remain and have contributed by paying their taxes, so they should be able to access the same rights as everybody else?

This is a divisive and unnecessary new clause. I do not think that it speaks to the spirit of the debate we have heard so far. It will do nothing to contribute to the additional social homes that we need in this country.

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

The hon. Member is making a very good speech. She alluded to her constituents in Barking. Everyone in this Chamber, even the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, has constituents who are concerned about the social contract. Where would her constituents draw the line on what is fair for the welfare state to hand out to people who are not British citizens?

Nesil Caliskan (Labour, Barking)

That is an interesting question. I would happily have a conversation about welfare and where we draw the line, but the Bill is about social housing. It feels very unfair to draw the line in a way that fails to recognise that once a person has indefinite leave to remain, they have contributed through taxes, through being here a long time and through having legal status.

I do not accept that the new clause does anything other than cause division. I do not think that it makes a positive contribution to the net increase of social houses that we desperately need. There are better ways to improve a piece of legislation without creating division and hostility, which my constituency of Barking feels the brunt of when debates like this happen. I urge Members to reject the new clause and recognise that while there is a lot to do to provide additional social housing, targeting groups of my constituents—who would be disadvantaged by this new clause—is not the best way to go about improving the pressures on social housing in this country.

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady; we were both council leaders and neighbours before entering this place. As I have said, I have been a local councillor in local government and seen at first hand how social housing works and how it is allocated to different people who have different needs. As I have already said, while I was leader of Broxbourne council, I was proud that our council rules were some of the strictest, requiring people to have at least five years of connection to the borough to be able to get on our housing list. We recognised that social housing is not just something to be handed out to anyone and everyone, because the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere.

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

Will the hon. Member give way?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I know that a number of Members want to speak to this new clause, and we are having a robust debate.

It deeply concerns me that communities should not be expected to subsidise others from outside their area so they can live in cheaper housing. That is why I encourage all councils to follow Broxbourne council’s lead and introduce a residency requirement. This issue alone is bad enough, but taken with foreign nationals, it brings it to a whole new level. London is a city that many hard-working British people would love to make their home but they simply cannot afford to. How can the Government tell people such as those in my constituency of Broxbourne that they should pay more in tax so that people from abroad can come here and be put up in subsidised housing in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

Will the hon. Member give way?

Lewis Cocking (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I am coming to the end of my remarks.

It is even worse for young British people moving to our capital for work, having to pay a fortune for a tiny room in a shared house with complete strangers, while the priority rules set by left-wing councils mean that some foreign nationals who have never paid a penny into the system get placed into social housing with a whole flat to themselves. On the Conservative side of the House, we will never shy away from standing up for the British people and ensuring that foreign nationals who come to this country do not get a free ride on the benefit system and subsidised housing at our expense. That is why I wholeheartedly support the shadow Minister and new clause 32.

Rachel Blake (Labour/Co-operative, Cities of London and Westminster)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I oppose the new clause. It fits every criterion of a piece of divisive rhetoric by focusing on an issue that has a relatively small impact within the broader picture. It seeks to amplify fear because it is based on an inadequate assessment of what is actually the issue here: the overall supply of genuinely affordable homes. There have been a number of—I hope—mistakes, or some misspeaking, in the Opposition’s remarks on what a taxpayer is. I am sure that in any closing or future remarks, Opposition Members will acknowledge that people with indefinite leave to remain do pay tax and therefore should be considered taxpayers. They have implied that it is only taxpayers who pay for council homes and social homes; it is also those people who pay rent. I believe they might want to correct those remarks.

I want to ask the Opposition a few practical questions. First, what would they propose happens to the very small number of families with British children where the lead tenant, for whatever reason, is not a British citizen? Would they really see those British children denied the opportunity to live in a safe, secure, warm and well-designed home? Why on earth are they bringing this proposal forward without acknowledging the role of people with settled status? Finally, one question that has not been asked: have the Opposition speakers spoken to their colleagues about the approach to the common travel arrangement that they have brought up today?

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I will not speak for long, but I thought it would be relevant to raise the fact that twice in my life I have been an immigrant in countries with astringent approaches to my access to public services. I did not think that was divisive; I thought it was logical. I remember specifically when I moved to America being told, “Don’t get yourself into any healthcare trouble or into a situation where you might need to call an ambulance because you will be charged thousands of dollars if you have to do so.”

Deirdre Costigan (Labour, Ealing Southall)

The hon. Member is very good at giving way, so I thank him for that. I wonder whether he has ever tried to be an immigrant in the Republic of Ireland. It is a very nice place, so I recommend it. Were he to go to the Republic of Ireland, he would find that he is eligible for social housing, should he need it. That is because of the common travel agreement. Equally, people from the Republic of Ireland are eligible for social housing here. Will he answer the question that his colleagues seem unable to answer? The new clause would unilaterally close that agreement to Irish citizens living in this country, so when is his party going to tell the Irish Government that it intends to pull out of the common travel agreement?

Patrick Spencer (Independent, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I will answer half the hon. Lady’s question by saying that my first name is Patrick, I have blood in the Republic of Ireland and my brother was at Trinity College Dublin. I adore that country. I will point out only two things: that the contribution of Irish people to our economy is astronomical and is something we must preserve; and that the housing policies of the Republic of Ireland perhaps reflect the fact that their economy has gone through the roof on the back of low taxes, low regulation and a pro-business approach to the economy.

Where was I? I only raise this point because I think that accusations of being divisive, exclusive, pernicious or unpleasant are not fair accusations in this context. We are rapidly becoming a poor country, unable to afford the social services that we ideally would like to provide.

That leads me on to my last point, which I made earlier in an intervention. In this place, we have to reflect—as do all those under threat from extremist populist parties—on the fact that we have not got immigration right. This Bill is about social housing, but its undertone is about welfare, the social contract and what that means to people who come here. If we continue to get this issue wrong, we will continue to see populist parties taking our votes, and we will be at risk of losing this country.

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

On the new clause, I recall the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, mentioning the word “prioritise”, “prioritising” or “prioritisation”; perhaps he will intervene if he feels that I am not being accurate. New clause 32, however, is categorical. I have checked the Cambridge dictionary, which defines “prioritise” as:

“to decide which of a group of things”—

for the purposes of this debate, I will say “people”, rather than “things”—

“are the most important so that you can deal with them first.”

I emphasise “first”. Perhaps he will explain to me how his use of the word relates to the new clause, which is categorical in stating that someone cannot gain access to social housing unless they are a British citizen. I note that he is not intervening.

Other groups of people who live in this country would be affected by the new clause, although I will not rehearse points so ably made by my hon. Friends. Such groups include people under the EU settlement scheme, which was brought in under the previous Conservative Government. The scheme allows people who are not British citizens to live here, and without doubt they contribute hugely to our economy, through taxation and in other ways. Finally, many Gurkhas have proudly served our armed forces. I am sure all hon. Members have met some of them, and we have the utmost respect for them. Often, they struggle to gain indefinite leave to remain, and are not British citizens, so they would also be excluded from social housing under the new clause.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

New clause 32, as we have heard, aims to restrict access to social housing to UK citizens. It is my birthday, so I am trying to be as generous as I possibly can, but whether deliberately or inadvertently, the new clause would sow division. It is divisive. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich alluded to the real reasons for that: if not for the threat of Reform on the right of the Conservative party, the Opposition would not be making arguments in favour of this new clause today. After all, the system that we on the Government Benches are defending is the system that they presided over for 14 years in government and did not change.

It is really important that we have this debate on the basis of the facts and a proper consideration of what the implications of the new clause would be. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall rightly made the point that eligibility for social housing is already tightly controlled. If a person’s visa means that they cannot access state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for an allocation of social housing and they cannot join a social housing waiting list. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking rightly made the point that the vast majority of non-UK nationals are not eligible, as most visas do not grant recourse to public funds. Those arriving in the UK on skills, work or student visas, for example, are not eligible, nor are those who arrive in the country illegally with no leave to remain.

In 2024-25, 89% of lead tenants in new social lettings were UK nationals, the implication being that 11% were not. That 11% included European nationals, such as Irish nationals, who made up 4% of that, and 8% was composed of people with nationalities from outside the European economic area. That was broadly the same as the previous year. The really important point, which a couple of my hon. Friends have made, is that even households where the lead tenant is not a UK national can include UK nationals. It is not the case that every household in a social home is composed entirely of either UK nationals or non-UK nationals. A lead tenant could be an Irish citizen married to a British citizen; that is the type of family that the new clause would affect.

Where non-UK nationals are eligible for social housing, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other eligible applicants, in accordance with the local authority’s housing allocation scheme. In addition, as my ministerial colleague Baroness Taylor of Stevenage set out on Report in the other place, under the withdrawal agreement—the agreement negotiated and signed by the previous Conservative Government—the UK must treat EU citizens with settled status on the same basis as UK citizens. New clause 32 would cut across that obligation and put us in breach of the withdrawal agreement that the official Opposition negotiated and signed. I do not think that they have thought any of this through.

The previous Government oversaw the current arrangements for 14 years. They did consult, very late in the day, on a UK connection test to determine access to social housing. The majority of respondents to that consultation did not agree with the introduction of such a test, and feedback highlighted significant concerns about its feasibility and the cost of implementation. This is really important. Even in practical terms, respondents were clear that such a test would increase homelessness pressures and temporary accommodation costs for local authorities. This Government set out their response to the previous Government’s consultation on changes to social housing allocation tests on 2 September 2024. The conclusion set out in that response remains our position. We do not believe that the new clause is necessary or workable, for the reasons that I have outlined, and we cannot support it.

On new clause 37, as set out in the other place, the Secretary of State has powers to issue statutory guidance on social housing allocations, to which local authorities must have regard. Local housing authorities can already take account of whether applicants are foreign public office holders, including their financial circumstances. Any need for further guidance on public office holders and overseas assets should be considered within the existing allocations framework rather than through a separate legislative provision. As I have said on a couple of occasions, we are already reviewing the statutory guidance on social housing allocations, providing an opportunity to consider whether any further clarification is needed on this issue.

I turn to new clause 43. The impact of migration on social housing was another issue raised during the Bill’s passage through the other place. It is really important to say that demand for social housing comes from a multitude of factors, including economic conditions and a range of Government policies, so a yearly assessment would not be proportionate. It is artificial and potentially misleading to seek to easily, neatly and reliably separate the impact of net migration from other factors. Any increase in any one year of social housing lettings to migrants may not be directly due to the net migration figures.

For all the reasons that I have given, we cannot support these new clauses. I hope that the shadow Minister will withdraw the motion, although I suspect that he will not. We are more than happy to take a Division on the issue.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I will push new clause 32 to a vote.

New Clause 33 - Social housing tenancy review for persistent anti-social behaviour

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Antisocial behaviour blights lives. I am sure that we all find our inboxes filled with examples of it. Behind every statistic is a family afraid to use its own stairwell, an elderly resident who stops going out after dark or a child who cannot sleep because of the noise next door. Conservative Members believe that when a community protection notice has been issued against a social tenant or someone living in or regularly visiting a social home, the landlord should be required to carry out a tenancy review. That is what new clause 33 would ensure.

This is a measured proposal; it does not dictate an outcome. However, it would ensure that landlords looked at the problem and acted. Guidance would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Responsible tenants should not suffer because the system looks the other way. I encourage colleagues to support new clause 33.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The Government recognise the impact that persistent antisocial behaviour can have. I very much agree with both the spirit and the letter of what the shadow Minister has just said. Our inboxes are full of cases of antisocial behaviour, which absolutely blights the lives of individuals and, in some cases, entire communities. The Government are clear that no one should feel unsafe in the places where they live, work or visit.

In all cases of antisocial behaviour, but especially where it is persistent, landlords must be able to respond quickly and appropriately. Social landlords already have a range of powers and enforcement tools to tackle antisocial behaviour, and we expect them to use those promptly and appropriately, putting the needs of victims at the heart of their response. That is why we do not consider the new clause to be necessary.

Community protection notices are designed to provide a flexible and proportionate response to persistent antisocial behaviour. Where a social landlord has been designated by the relevant local authority, it may issue a notice itself. However, linking every community protection notice to a mandatory review would reduce local discretion and add undue administrative burdens on landlords.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 has strengthened the powers available to the police and other agencies. That includes an increase in the maximum fixed penalty for breaching a community protection notice from £100 to £500 and stronger measures to tackle persistent offenders. Also, the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has shortened the notice period for the mandatory antisocial behaviour eviction ground and, once that is implemented in the social rented sector, landlords will be able to make a claim to the court faster in cases of serious antisocial behaviour.

In that context, much of what the new clause seeks to achieve duplicates existing powers and regulatory requirements. On that basis, I hope that I have reassured the shadow Minister and, respectfully, I hope that he will withdraw it.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I do feel somewhat reassured, but we are still going to press new clause 33 to a Division.

New Clause 34 - Brownfield sites social housing development strategy

New Clause 35 - Review of regulatory requirements

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

House building in this country is paralysed by the layering and complexity of a range of cumbersome regulations and taxes. According to the Home Builders Federation, at present house builders already face more than £7,000 in taxes and levies, including £2,000 in landfill tax, £2,320 from the forthcoming building safety levy, £2,055 in other taxes, and £985 from inflationary increases on existing charges such as section 106 agreements. Moreover, developers face over £23,000 in regulatory costs, including £7,780 from building regulations, £5,700 from biodiversity net gain, and £10,200 in costs linked to the future homes and buildings standards.

That is not the end. Under this Government’s watch, house builders have seen material and labour costs reach heights of £37,000, alongside costs of up to £7,000 in additional potential site-specific elements such as nutrient mitigation requirements. We all heard what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Budget statement yesterday, but that was about no new building regulations, not looking at those that have exacerbated the problem.

The cumulative impact of policy, taxation and regulatory pressures on home building means that it is so costly to build that, for many companies, it no longer makes economic sense to do so, not least when it comes to costlier and less profitable social housing. That is why I have tabled new clause 35, which would require a review of the regulatory requirements on social housing delivery. That would force the Government to confront the reality of these barriers, and work to identify the conditions preventing a renewed upspringing of social home sites.

Matthew Pennycook (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I thank the shadow Minister for speaking to new clause 35, which would require the Secretary of State to review

“regulatory requirements on local authorities and registered providers of…social housing relating to social housing provision.”

The Government recognise the importance of ensuring that regulatory requirements on social housing providers are proportionate and that, wherever possible, they do not create barriers to their delivering new social homes. We want to reduce regulatory burdens across Government where we can.

Of course, we must also ensure that the necessary regulation is in place to protect social housing residents and ensure that social homes are safe, high-quality services are delivered and providers of social housing are well-governed and financially viable. When introducing new regulations, the Government ensure that a robust assessment has been made of their impact. I would also reflect on the fact that there are overarching requirements in place that seek to ensure that regulatory requirements on social housing providers are proportionate. They include a statutory duty on the Regulator of Social Housing to carry out its work in a way that minimises interference and, as far as possible, is proportionate, consistent, transparent and accountable.

The shadow Minister and I have had debates on these issues many times, and I know that he profoundly disagrees with some of the regulations introduced by the previous Government. In the months and years to come, I hope that we might be clearer on precisely which of those regulations the Opposition wish to remove. Do they wish to do away with second staircase requirements, or Awaab’s law, which was in legislation that they introduced? We could have a longer debate at another time—I feel that the energy and enthusiasm of the Committee are waning. Put simply, in our view, a further review is not necessary in this area for the reasons that I have given, so I kindly ask the hon. Member to withdraw the new clause.

Gareth Bacon (Conservative, Orpington)

The Minister is right that we have had extended debates on the issue. He is tempting me to reveal our manifesto pledges before the election, but we are not going to do that. He is right that we will be making some recommendations about which regulations we think need to be refined or thought about again. I will decline his invitation, and we will press new clause 35 to a vote.

Written evidence reported to the House