Tag: Council housing

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Two things the new Prime Minister could do immediately to boost social rent supply

Andy Burnham’s commitment to deliver the biggest programme of council and social housebuilding since the post-war era is both ambitious and hugely welcome.

For the millions of people trapped in England’s housing crisis, including the 176,000 children growing up in temporary accommodation, that ambition cannot come soon enough.

The good news is that momentum is already building. Thanks to decisions already made by the Government, councils and housing associations increasingly have the confidence, funding and policy certainty to ramp up delivery of social rent homes. NHF figures show a 57% increase in social rented homes started last year.

These are the green shoots of a renaissance in social housebuilding. But they are fragile and progress could easily stall. To sustain momentum and translate ambition into delivery, there are two immediate steps the new Prime Minister could take.

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The first is to immediately confirm successful bids for Strategic Partnership funding under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP). These bids have been submitted and assessed and are now awaiting political approval before they can be announced. Councils and housing associations have schemes waiting, planning secured, and just need the funding confirmed to get building tens of thousands of homes. A summer of delay and uncertainty on grant funding could bring the current momentum to a halt. This creates a real risk that providers will be forced to delay, scale back or even abandon development opportunities, ultimately leaving families trapped in unaffordable temporary accommodation or private rent for longer.

The second is to top up the funding for this and subsequent years of the SAHP – either via redirecting existing budgets immediately or via new funding at the next fiscal event. The £39bn for social housing announced at last year’s spending review was a generational shift in support, but it is spread over 10 years, with the funding profile weighted toward later years, while many schemes are ready to proceed now.

We could build more homes, more quickly, on schemes that are ready to go, if more funding was available early on, for both Continuous Market Engagement and Strategic Partnership funding routes.

Doing these two things immediately would sustain momentum, get spades in the ground and more households into desperately-needed social rent homes as quickly as possible.

There are opportunities to go much further, to deliver the increase in social housebuilding we need, whether through seizing the opportunities of devolution, New Towns, Land Value Capture, reforming council housing debt rules, or exploring new models of public ownership. Councils and housing associations stand ready to work alongside communities and the government to unlock these opportunities, but they will take time to bear fruit. In the meantime, we must maintain and accelerate the progress already being made.

England’s housing crisis is one of the defining social and economic challenges of our time. It damages life chances, drives homelessness, places unsustainable pressure on public services and undermines economic growth. The government has laid important foundations for a new era of social housebuilding. The priority now is to turn that ambition into delivery – building more homes, more quickly, for the people who need them most.

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Can England afford (not) to build council homes?

Before the 2024 General Election, I had the privilege to work with England’s largest council landlords on Securing the Future of Council Housing. The report set out five key recommendations to allow councils to once again play a major role in housing supply, and to refurbish and improve existing homes and neighbourhoods after decades of under-investment.

It is an ambitious vision for a new, better relationship between central government and council landlords. Over 100 councils led by different parties across the country backed the report, laying the ground for a powerful coalition which has successfully influenced Government policy since. Every council involved has been essential in raising the volume of council housing’s voice, but particular credit should go to the London Borough of Southwark under Kieron Williams’ leadership for kickstarting the campaign, and to Sheffield City Council and Leeds City Council for helping it spread.

On Monday, Andy Burnham pledged the ‘biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period’ – a period when councils delivered over 4 million homes in 36 years. Since that time, more council homes have been sold than new ones delivered. It’s been a long wait, but it may finally be time for a renaissance in council housing.

But can we afford it?

Yet serious questions are being asked about whether we can afford it. This is not just because it costs money to build low-cost social homes. It is because councils are public bodies, and their borrowing is ‘on balance sheet’. Most social homes in England today are owned and delivered by non-profit Housing Associations, whose borrowing is ‘off balance sheet’. It doesn’t count towards public debt. That difference has shaped housing policy for decades.

In this blog, I’m going to try to demystify the impact of council housing on public debt, and how the UK’s fiscal rules change things.

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How council housing came under financial attack

Council housing is treated differently from all other council-owned assets in accounting terms. Council landlords keep rental income in a Housing Revenue Account (HRA), which is kept separate from other council income. This is to protect social tenants’ money, so it doesn’t get used to fund general council services.

In 2012, the Government and councils agreed a ‘self-financing settlement’ aiming to make HRAs more independent and more sustainable. The settlement was supposed to give councils the financial certainty to invest in their homes, but it was quickly ripped up. Social rents were cut and capped with little notice, borrowing rates for councils were increased overnight, and councils had to sell more homes with bigger discounts following Right to Buy reforms. Top it all off with a pandemic, geopolitical turmoil and rising inflation and interest rates, and the unsurprising result is that most HRAs are in poor financial health. A 2024 report from Savills and the Chartered Institute for Housing suggested that debt cancellation of £17bn would be needed to make HRA borrowing sustainable across the board. This means many council landlords cannot invest in homes in the ways communities need.

Accounting for council housing

In the UK’s national accounts, all HRAs are consolidated and treated as a single ‘non-financial public corporation’. This means they count towards public debt for the purposes of the UK’s fiscal rules. Fiscal rules are the Government’s self-imposed limits on how much it can borrow, spend and accumulate debt. They are designed to reassure financial markets that the public finances will remain sustainable and so keep the Government’s borrowing costs lower.

Before the 2024 autumn budget, the UK used Public Sector Net Debt (PSND) for our fiscal rules. Council housing performed particularly poorly under this measure. Borrowing to finance public investment – including in council housing – increased the headline debt figure, even if the Government acquired valuable assets in return.

The current Government switched from PSND to Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities (PSNFL). The new rules still count debt the Government owns, but they also count financial assets the Government owns – though not physical assets like homes.

This is where things get interesting for council housing.

By far the largest source of borrowing for council housing is from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB): effectively, councils borrow money from the Treasury, which raises the money by selling gilts on the international markets. When the Treasury lends to council landlords in this way, under PSNFL it actually creates an asset for the public sector: the money councils owe to HMT.

The result is that investing in council housing is a lot easier than it used to be. Let’s say the Treasury agrees to ‘forgive’ £100 million of unsustainable HRA debt to give councils some breathing room, and councils then take out £100 million of new PWLB loans.

Under the old debt rules, this would have looked like the Government simply taking on more debt. Under the new PSNFL rules, it is treated more like cancelling an old loan and then making a new one. The council owes the Treasury £100 million, but the Treasury also owns a £100 million loan. That new loan is recognised as a public financial asset and is largely netted off public debt.

So there’s no reason not to invest in council housing?

Not quite.

New PWLB borrowing for council housing still increases the size of the Government’s balance sheet and the amount of money the Treasury has to raise from investors to finance the new PWLB loans: HMT has to borrow to on-lend to councils. It is unclear how markets would react to a large-scale increase in investment for council housing using the current model. That depends partly on the scale of new PWLB lending, but above all on investor expectations of the UK’s wider fiscal position.

There’s another problem for council housing. While PSNFL makes investing in council homes easier, it also makes other models of delivering social housing even more fiscally attractive. In February 2026, the Government announced a £2.5 billion scheme to provide loans to Housing Associations at 0.1% for 25 years. Incidentally, that’s a much better deal than councils are getting from the Public Works Loan Board at the moment!

Under PSNFL, these loans to HAs are ‘financial transactions’ because the Government acquires a financial asset (a loan) in exchange for cash. But unlike councils, when HAs take out loans from the Government it does not create a liability for the public sector, because their borrowing is ‘off balance sheet’.

If you can deliver the same kinds of homes using private borrowing via HAs, you may get the same policy results with less public sector borrowing and less gross balance sheet expansion. That should make it easier to maintain investor confidence and help keep the Government’s borrowing costs lower. And that may actually be key to increasing investment in social housing: if the UK can borrow more cheaply, we have more space to increase the size of funds like the Social and Affordable Homes Programme. That’s essential to unlocking more social housing supply.

Can we afford not to invest in council housing?

It’s complicated and there are no easy answers. But alongside asking if we can afford to build council homes, we also need to ask if we can afford not to. The clearest fiscal argument here concerns the high costs managing homelessness.

Councils in England now spend £7.7 million every day to put people up in expensive – often sub-standard – Temporary Accommodation. HAs play a vital role in tackling homelessness, but the buck for homelessness ultimately stops with councils. No one else is incentivised to act the way councils are. Getting councils off the bench and delivering homes may be the only way England stops managing homelessness and starts preventing it.

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Regeneration means delivering for northern communities

Poor housing touches every part of a person’s life, and the consequences can be profound. Families crammed into overcrowded homes, and the strain this places on children’s ability to learn and thrive. People living with damp and mould, and the damage this does to their physical and mental health. Households in draughty, poorly insulated properties struggling to heat their homes and keep up with rising energy bills.

Housing is a policy area where getting it right can truly transform lives, not only by ensuring people have a safe and secure place to live, but by improving educational outcomes, strengthening health, and helping families make ends meet. That is why this agenda matters so deeply; because a good, safe, affordable home is the foundation on which a good life is built.

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The Government understands this and its transformational investment in social and affordable housing marks a pivotal moment in national policy.  It does more than allocate funding; it signals a shift in purpose. After years of fragmented initiatives, we are beginning to see the emergence of a more ambitious, more place sensitive approach to tackling the housing crisis. It is an approach that recognises the diverse realities of our towns, cities, and rural communities, and the different tools required to support them.

Crucially, the Government has acknowledged that delivering on both housing and regeneration is central to its future mission. Tackling housing poverty, expanding the supply of social and affordable homes, and revitalising neighbourhoods are not marginal add‑ons, they are fundamental to economic growth, social stability, and national renewal. The Pride in Place programme, with its focus on reviving high streets and improving public spaces, underlines this commitment, linking physical transformation with wider social outcomes across education, health, and community safety.

What makes this moment especially significant is that ambition is now backed by serious investment. The Social and Affordable Homes Programme, the introduction of new low interest loans for social housing providers, and the launch of a decade-long Plan for Neighbourhoods show a willingness to think long-term. Many of the communities that stand to benefit from this investment are in the North. For them, these announcements are not abstract policy concepts, they represent the building blocks of a better future.

Many funding programmes under Conservative-led governments neglected communities in the North, but important changes to the Treasury’s Green Book have altered how public funds are assessed and allocated. By placing greater weight on social value, wellbeing, and local need, the system now opens the door to investment in places that have too often been overlooked. For those working at the intersection of housing and regeneration, this shift is more than a technical reform. It creates a policy environment where long-term, community-led renewal is more achievable, more defensible, and more likely to be sustained.

Regeneration is not simply about bricks and mortar. It is about restoring pride, creating opportunity, and building resilience. Ultimately, it is about ensuring that people not only have a decent home, but a meaningful stake in the place they live. That is why housing-led regeneration must be central to the national housing agenda. New homes are essential, but they are not enough. We must also invest in the homes that already shape people’s everyday lives and the neighbourhoods that define their sense of belonging. Regeneration cannot be treated as an optional extra. It is a core component of building a fairer, greener, more prosperous North.

The Northern Housing Consortium’s Renew inquiry is a key component of this. By bringing together housing providers, local leaders, developers, policymakers, and regeneration specialists, the inquiry demonstrates that collaboration is the key foundation for success. If we want to deliver regeneration that lasts, we need to work across boundaries, share knowledge openly, and build partnerships rooted in trust and shared ambition.

This is precisely why the Renew inquiry is so important. It embodies the collaborative, evidence-driven approach that this moment demands. Findings from the Renew Call for Evidence are launching tomorrow (9th June) in parliament. The inquiry received submissions from housing associations and local authorities who own or manage nearly one million homes,over 70% of the North’s social housing.  This report will help shape a deeper understanding of how regeneration can drive growth, reduce inequality, and strengthen the social fabric of Northern communities.

Housing-led regeneration is uniquely positioned to act as a bridge between policy areas and to help articulate a coherent national narrative. It demonstrates, in a tangible way, what investment in neighbourhoods looks like in practice. From the home to the high street, regeneration joins up the physical and social aspects of placemaking. It helps counter feelings of mistrust and division by showing that change is being delivered with communities, not imposed upon them. In this way, it provides a powerful exemplar of the Government’s ambition: visible, local, and rooted in everyday life.

But to deliver on this promise, the work cannot be left to central government alone. Everyone must be involved. Local authorities, housing associations, developers, investors, community organisations, and residents all have a role to play. We must create the conditions where collaboration is the norm, where barriers are reduced, and where every partner is empowered to contribute. The most successful regeneration is grounded in local insight. It listens to communities, respects their knowledge, and builds solutions that reflect their aspirations.

Parliament also has a crucial role. The Renew inquiry offers MPs a direct line to the people and organisations shaping regeneration on the ground. By visiting projects, hearing from residents, and staying close to the evidence, parliamentarians can ensure policy reflects lived experience rather than abstract models.

As we look ahead, the message is clear: this is a moment we cannot afford to waste. The frameworks are improving. The investment is growing. The partnerships are emerging. What we need now is the resolve to turn ambition into action.

Housing-led regeneration gives us a way to do just that. It provides a practical route to deliver better homes, stronger neighbourhoods, and more confident communities. It allows us to connect national objectives – growth, opportunity, and fairness – with the everyday places where people live their lives.

If we seize this moment, we can deliver something truly transformative. Not piecemeal change, but lasting renewal. Not short-term fixes, but long-term investment in the future of the North. The tools are now on the table. It is up to all of us – government, local leaders, the housing sector, and communities themselves – to use them well.

Renew is an inquiry led by the Northern Housing Consortium and supported by Homes for the North and Muse, to explore housing-led regeneration’s role in delivering growth, tackling the housing crisis, and strengthening communities across the North.  

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What should a national tenant body for England do?

It feels like it’s past time to set up a national tenant body for England. Parts of the Government have been talking with various groups about doing just that – predominantly Baroness Taylor, the Government’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary for housing in the House of Lords, but some other representatives from both houses too.

Why England needs a national tenant body

Beyond asking how to get it off the ground, we should ask what such a body should be for, and what, if anything, national and local government should be doing to drive progress. A properly resourced national tenant body would make the work of politicians, staff at departments involved in the regulation of the social housing sector, and ultimately landlords, easier.

England has been here before. The 2007 Cave Review into social housing regulation argued that tenants needed a far stronger role within the regulatory system, helping pave the way for the National Tenant Voice programme established by the last Labour government in 2009. National Tenant Voice was intended to provide an independent national platform for social tenants to influence policy and regulation, and was set up remarkably quickly once political momentum existed. But the Coalition government abolished it in 2010 before it had fully embedded itself institutionally or built a strong national profile. One lesson from this experience is that any new tenant body will need not only meaningful independence, but also deep roots in local communities and broad public legitimacy if it is to survive changes of government and become a lasting part of England’s housing system.

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In Wales, the National Independent Tenant Voice Cymru is already taking part in national policy debates with both landlords and the Senedd. The political landscape is different in Wales than in England, but there are certainly lessons to be learned from Wales about embedding  tenants’ priorities within policymaking and creating an effective national tenant voice.

Coincidentally, just after I was asked if I’d like to contribute my thoughts about a national tenant group to Red Brick, I attended a pair of workshops hosted by the National Tenant Alliance – one of the groups setting out the case for a tenant voice in England. These events explored what tenants want from a national body, how it could operate in practice, and what resources would be needed to sustain it.

Having facilitated some of the discussions at these workshops, I have heard first-hand what tenants want a national body to achieve.

Rebalancing power in social housing

One of the core essential features that keeps cropping up is the need to rebalance power between tenants, landlords and government. Much has been made of the changes introduced through the Regulation of Social Housing Act 2023, but many tenants rightly feel it has not met the promises made in the 2018 Social Housing Green Paper.

Rebalancing power means redistributing it.  Parts of the social housing sector seem resistant to the changing regulatory environment, but many tenants feel the promises of the 2018 Social Housing Green Paper still have not been fulfilled. From tenants’ perspective, expectations around professionalism, competence and respectful treatment can still feel secondary within the regulatory system. While organisational culture is difficult to legislate for, many other professions manage to uphold clear standards without resistance or lobbying.

Giving tenants a voice locally, regionally and nationally

Tenants also place a lot of value in ensuring that any national body actually operates at the regional and local level. Tenants need an ‘unmediated voice’ in national policymaking, but the issues shaping those discussions are usually rooted in communities and everyday local experience.

A tenant network could be a much better way of spreading what works and what is best practice. The current methods are landlords trying are apparently failing to get better outcomes. Lacklustre tenant satisfaction measures, unambitious Consumer Gradings and warnings from the Ombudsman that the scale of complaints is only getting wider and deeper suggest that the absence of a tenant body treated as equals is creating more work for everyone else, not least Members of Parliament who face a deluge of housing-related casework due to a lack of ambition or progress. Some recent housing policies have not only failed to resolve the many quality issues in social housing, but have been worsening the cost of living crisis for tenants for many years.

Independence, funding and legitimacy

One of the more innovative ideas about the purpose of a national tenant body I heard recently was as a starting point for mediation. Currently tenants have only two mediation routes: formal court-directed mediation once legal proceedings have begun, or ‘alternative dispute resolution’ processes aimed at resolving issues before they escalate to disrepair claims or other legal action. Such processes can still feel heavily weighted towards landlords. I found it fascinating to ponder a situation where a national tenant body could offer not just signposting to other resources, but real advocacy in these situations to rebalance power between tenants and landlords.

So, what should the Government and local authorities and landlords do to support a national tenant body? There are surely going to be a lot of different views among tenants about this, but for my part I think they should largely agree to recognise its validity and then get out of the way.

This doesn’t mean their involvement in funding solutions isn’t important. One of the more popular suggestions for funding is a small annual payment from rents, perhaps taken out of the significant sums paid per home for services from the Ombudsman and Regulator. Although this could take the form of a voluntary membership fee paid per tenancy (as in Wales) no doubt there will be some wrangling over the amounts needed to run a tenant body – and over what implications this funding could have on the independence a tenant body so desperately needs.

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New regulation means social housing tenants should be heard and respected – the reality is different for many tenants

When Maria first reported the mould spreading across her children’s bedroom walls, she believed help would come quickly. She had done everything tenants are told to do. She filled in the forms. She called repeatedly. She sent photographs. Weeks turned into months. The smell worsened. Her youngest son’s asthma became harder to manage. Eventually, she stopped believing anyone was really listening.

On another estate, a housing officer leaves a community meeting shaken after being subjected to racist abuse while trying to explain local housing allocation rules. Online rumours had spread through the neighbourhood claiming migrant families were being “given homes first.” Facts no longer mattered. Frustration had already found a target.

These stories are uncomfortable because they are not unusual.

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Across the UK housing sector, conversations about race, equality and inclusion are no longer optional extras.

They are becoming central to regulation, tenant trust and the future legitimacy of housing providers themselves.

Yet for many ethnic minority tenants and staff, everyday experiences still feel disconnected from the promises organisations make publicly.

Housing has always been deeply personal. It shapes health, safety, identity and opportunity. When people feel ignored, excluded or stereotyped within housing systems, the impact reaches far beyond bricks and mortar.

Economic pressure, housing shortages and political division are creating increasingly tense conditions in many communities. Public conversations around immigration and social housing have become heavily politicised, often fuelled by misinformation online.

Housing associations and councils now find themselves operating at the centre of wider debates about fairness, belonging and social cohesion.

At the same time, the inequalities experienced by many ethnic minority households remain stark. Research from Shelter continues to show that Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are significantly more likely to experience overcrowding, poor housing conditions and homelessness than white British households.

Government data has repeatedly shown overcrowding rates are substantially higher among Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black households.

But statistics alone do not fully capture the emotional reality behind these experiences.

Feeling consulted, not heard

My report, Is There a Seat at the Table? Ethnic Minority Voices in Tenant Engagement, explored these issues through surveys involving hundreds of tenants and staff across 25 housing providers.

What emerged was not simply frustration, but exhaustion. Many respondents described engagement structures that appeared inclusive on paper but failed to create genuine influence in practice. An overwhelming 94% believed their organisations could do more to attract ethnic minority tenants into decision-making roles. Nearly every tenant agreed that current engagement systems failed to reflect the diversity of their communities.

Again and again, people described feeling consulted rather than heard. That distinction matters.

For many residents, trust in institutions is already fragile. The legacy of the Windrush scandal still shapes how some ethnic minority communities view public services, including housing providers. When organisations fail to communicate clearly, respond fairly or acknowledge lived experiences, mistrust grows quickly.

This places the housing sector at an important crossroads. Providers are no longer judged solely on repairs, rent collection or development targets. Increasingly, they are judged on fairness, transparency and cultural competence.

But regulation alone will not rebuild trust. Engagement itself must evolve.

Too often, tenant involvement becomes performative. Residents are invited into consultations, focus groups and advisory panels, yet key decisions remain unchanged. People quickly recognise when participation is symbolic rather than meaningful. In many cases, tokenistic engagement damages trust more than no engagement at all.

True inclusion requires intentional effort.

It means holding meetings at times working families can actually attend, providing interpreters and translated materials, and recognising barriers such as digital exclusion, childcare responsibilities and cultural needs. It also means working alongside trusted faith groups and community organisations rather than expecting residents to adapt entirely to institutional systems.

Most importantly, it means sharing power rather than simply collecting opinions.

Misinformation and division

One of the most damaging challenges facing the sector today is the spread of misinformation around housing allocations. The myth that migrants or ethnic minority households unfairly “jump the queue” for social housing has become increasingly common online and in community conversations.

In reality, housing allocations are governed by legal frameworks based on need, vulnerability and local connection – not race or ethnicity. But misinformation spreads faster than policy explanations, particularly on social media platforms designed to reward outrage and division.

The consequences are very real.

Frontline staff experience increased hostility. Tenants become suspicious of one another. Communities already struggling with economic hardship become even more divided. And organisations often find themselves reacting defensively rather than building trust proactively.

Housing providers can no longer afford to remain passive observers in these conversations. Clear communication matters. Explaining allocation systems in plain language matters. Sharing real tenant stories matters. Community-led conversations are often far more effective than corporate statements because people are more likely to trust lived experience than institutional messaging.

Accountability after Awaab Ishak

The sector also faces a growing accountability challenge. The tragic death of Awaab Ishak in 2020 fundamentally changed the national conversation about housing conditions and tenant safety. The introduction of Awaab’s Law has placed new legal responsibilities on landlords to respond to hazards such as damp and mould within strict timeframes.

This matters enormously because ethnic minority households are statistically more likely to experience overcrowded and poor-quality housing conditions.

Yet many tenants still do not fully understand their rights or feel confident using complaints systems. Language barriers, fear of repercussions and previous negative experiences often discourage people from escalating concerns. For some residents, particularly those from communities with low trust in public institutions, silence can feel safer than complaint.

That silence can become dangerous.

Housing providers therefore have responsibilities that extend beyond legal compliance. They must ensure tenants understand their rights clearly, accessibly and in ways that feel culturally competent. Accountability only works when residents genuinely believe their voices will lead to action.

The next five years could become a defining period for the housing sector. Stronger consumer regulation, greater scrutiny of equality outcomes and increasing expectations around tenant voice are already reshaping organisational priorities. Conversations around ethnicity pay gaps, workforce diversity and representation at leadership level are becoming harder to avoid.

There are also emerging risks around technology and AI-driven decision-making within housing services. While automation may improve efficiency, poorly designed systems can unintentionally reproduce existing inequalities if bias is not actively monitored and challenged.

Ultimately, however, this conversation comes back to something deeply human.

Housing is about dignity.

It is about whether people feel safe in their homes. Whether they feel respected when they raise concerns. Whether they believe their experiences matter. Whether they feel they truly belong in the communities they live in.

The organisations that succeed over the next decade will not simply be those with the strongest financial performance or largest development pipelines. They will be the organisations that communities trust.

And trust is not built through slogans or strategy documents alone.

It is built slowly, consistently and visibly – when tenants feel heard, protected, respected and represented every single day.

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People Power for Rent Controls and Council Homes 

The Renters’ Rights Act’s passage at the beginning of May 2026 signals the possibility of a shift in how we approach the private rental sector in this country. No longer will landlords be able to evict tenants at whim through Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, alongside a host of other protections for tenants including guaranteed rent renewals, periodic tenancies, and more. These changes are the direct result of tireless organising by tenant unions, housing justice organisations, community groups, trade unions, and NGOs – the product of organised people coming together to create organised power. 

But many of these changes are not radical transformations to the housing crisis, but processes that bring the UK in line with most other similar countries. And while there is cause for celebration of the renter power that went into the Act, the RRA does not allay the cost of living crisis that imperils renters. Renters can now challenge unreasonable rent rises by filing with the rent tribunals – and legally do not have to pay the increases during the process of the tribunal. This is a huge step, and at the LRU, our members have been putting together resources to support all renters to challenge rent rises and push for a fairer housing system, collectively. 

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However, on paper, the tribunal can only rule against rent rises that exceed market rent for the units in question – which provides meagre protection to working-class tenants and families in gentrifying neighbourhoods where rents are increasing rapidly and out of line with the incomes of longtime residents of the neighbourhood. One need only look at Hackney, Brixton, and Walthamstow to see who sets the market rent – landlords – and witness that this too can function as a form of violent social cleansing. Should tribunals get to determine who stays, based on who can pay at a market rate set largely by developers and speculation? 

Already, we have seen members of the London Renters Union and their neighbours receive massive rent rises at the end of their contracts. Others face evictions under grounds still allowed under the RRA, such as if the landlord decides to sell up. It is our members who are the hardest-working, and the most vulnerable, who are facing the shortest end of the stick. What makes London a global city is its ability to create community for those at all income levels, from diverse backgrounds and cultures – we only lose if the city continues becoming a playground for the rich. 

I witnessed this first-hand from 2019 till the current day. During the pandemic, I lived in Dalston with a group of friends, lucky to be able to pay for a room at a price that would now be unthinkable. The eviction moratorium at that time protected renters further. I had to leave that space for various reasons, and re-entered the housing market in London earlier this year. When house hunting recently, we were lucky to find a room for almost double the price from 2019. This is not a material increase in the quality of housing, or the immoveable whims of the market – this is profit. This experience is shared by tenants across LRU and beyond.

Other countries handle this differently. Across Europe, North America, and even Scotland, governments apply regulations to the amount that landlords can charge in rent across the board – not just to tenants who are able to offer the time, and fee, to challenge their increases. While fears abound about rent regulations decreasing supply or dissuading landlords from making repairs, recently-released research from IPPR, NEF, and JRF debunks this myth. And support for rent controls is massive across England – a recent housing demonstration for rent controls and safe, affordable council housing showed over 5000 people taking to the streets, making it the largest demonstration for housing justice in over a decade, and a massive show of unity in the housing movement. Tenant unions from across the country were joined by NGOs, trade unions, community groups, and everyday neighbours. Over 80 organisations endorsed this march, and continue to support rent controls across the board. A recent statement from Andrea Egan, the General Secretary of UNISON, emphasises that only rent regulations can protect the majority of workers represented by UNISON in their homes – workers without whom, huge swaths of the country and the city of London would cease to function.  Renters across England want, and deserve, real affordable rents now – and rent controls can achieve this. This would alleviate stressors on the majority of renters who spend more than one third of their income on rent, fearing an upcoming rent rise and cutting back on essentials. And the recent rumour concerning Rachel Reeves’ support for a rent freeze shows that there is political will to push a real system of rent controls through. That’s why, at the London Renters Union, and with dozens of tenant organisations and community organisations across the country with Homes for Us and Homes for All, we’re fighting for a visionary system of rent control for all tenants, coupled with a demand for safe, affordable, accessible council homes. We believe that we should all fight for rent control – that it protects migrants, people of colour, trans and queer people, youth, the elderly, the disabled, and all those pushed to the fringes of society. This is a natural extension of our fight for housing justice through the Renters Rights Act; a normal and fairly uncontroversial system of protection in most countries; and a politically feasible – and winning – system here. The cost of living crisis, global wars and genocide, many voters’ loss of faith in Labour, alongside the rise of Reform, show that everyday people need real change. This is the moment for renters to contact their MPs and join a tenant union in their area to fight for the system change we need – starting with rent controls and measures for real affordability, long term.

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How to increase housing supply: Use every tool in the box

Norwich city by pam fray, CC BY-SA 2.0

Britain needs more homes. We should use policy to get empty homes back into use and to encourage people with extra space to downsize – but that won’t change the fact that the UK has been under-delivering homes for decades compared to other Western countries.

Yet our housing crisis is not just a crisis of low supply. It is a crisis of overdependence on a single model of supply. For decades, we have relied overwhelmingly on speculative private development. Developers buy land assuming they will build market sale homes for the highest prices possible in a given local market. They then wait as long as necessary to sell at the prices they assumed when buying land. When prices fall or build costs increase, as they have done recently, supply slows. That is not a moral failing: it is how the speculative development model is designed to work.

The planning system bakes in this housing model, taking for granted that this is how the majority of homes will be delivered, and seeking to cream off some of its profits to build social housing and infrastructure (via Section 106 agreements in England and Wales, and Section 75 agreements in Scotland). No resilient country should rely so heavily on one delivery model for something as fundamental as housing.

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There are two basic theories at play in the debate about how to increase housing supply in the UK:

  1. Make this speculative development model as easy, smooth and profitable as possible
  2. Diversify the UK’s housing supply away from this one over-dominant model of housing supply

I would argue it is self-evident that the gains from the first strategy are bound to be too limited to make a difference to most people’s lives. Reforms to planning and regulation matter. Britain does need a faster, more predictable planning system. But planning reform alone cannot solve a housing crisis rooted in overdependence on a single speculative delivery model that relies on maintaining prices where they are. Since current prices are far too high for most people to afford, this supply model will only ever be able to cater to a minority. Increasingly, it sells homes to first time buyers with support from the so-called ‘Bank of mum and dad’. For the rest of us, our only possible hope of buying an average priced home in England is to be in the top 10% of earners in the country.

Now let’s explore the second strategy: free the UK from over-dependence on the speculative model. Healthy housing systems use many delivery models at once: private sale, social housing, community-led housing, Build to Rent, co-operatives and specialist housing for older people.

The most direct way to diversify how we build homes is to use the tried and tested model of mass social housebuilding – as discussed in Labour Housing Group’s 2020 report, The Missing Solution. Policy and funding support must enable councils and housing associations to ramp up supply. To scale up social housebuilding anywhere close to the levels needed, we need two things.

  1. Sources of land protected from speculative housebuilding. If social landlords are competing with speculative housebuilders for the same land, they will either lose or buy land at an extortionate and unsustainable price.
  2. Public grant and affordable finance to cover the costs of building homes, so that rents can be kept low and affordable for social renters and homes can be managed and maintained to decent, safe standards.

It is a moral and economic imperative for governments across the UK to scale up this model as much as humanly possible, as fast as humanly possible. We can and must do more – for example on affordable land supply, front-loading grant, extending low-cost loans, building capacity in councils and community-led housing groups, and supporting acquisitions from the market.

But after 14 years of Conservative misrule of our economy, aggravated by war and international turmoil, it is difficult to see how the UK can scale up social housebuilding as quickly as we need to confront our housing crisis in the way that people deserve. It is going to take time to rebuild social housebuilding after decades of hostile policies.

I don’t want to ask people to wait. I want us to use every tool in the box to get every person in this country in a safe, affordable, decent place to call home. That means using policy to support as much diversification of housing supply as possible:

None of these alternative private development models alone will solve the housing crisis – but done right, they can all help. All have untapped potential to provide more ‘Affordable Housing’ through planning agreements.

I understand why many on the Left are sceptical of new profit-driven development models. But there is no doubt they are playing an important role in diversifying housing supply in other countries with similar housing problems to our own. Britain’s housing crisis is too deep, and too urgent, for ideological purity or single-solution thinking.

We must build far more social housing. We should reform planning. We should support community-led housing. We should use Build to Rent, specialist housing and student housing where they help free up supply elsewhere.

The goal is not to defend one development model against another. The goal is to create space in our housebuilding system for every model that can contribute to ending the housing crisis.

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Why the construction sector needs social housing

Two construction workers with a block of flats behind them

With 169,000 children growing up in temporary accommodation – the highest number since records began – the case for the government’s manifesto commitment to ‘deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation’ is overwhelming. This situation damages children’s health and development, and it is costing councils across England £7.7 million every day. It is a national scandal whose social and financial costs are well-understood.

But social housing does more than provide an alternative to poor-quality homes. It is also the foundation of a successful housebuilding system. Building social homes at scale – including during market downturns – can underpin the government’s response to the crisis in construction skills and innovation. Far from being in conflict, social housing and market housing can support each other.

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The inherent limitations of the UK’s development model

In a housebuilding system which relies excessively on speculative market housing, developers compete against each other to pay the most for land. Having taken on a large upfront risk through high land costs, developers then need to recoup their investment, building as slowly as necessary to maintain prices. But when sales prices soften, even moderately, market housing starts plummet. Developers are not incentivised to start new schemes if they will have to sell homes for less than they assumed when buying land.

To make matters worse, in tandem with increasing dependence on this speculative model of market supply, the UK’s social housing supply model has become pro-cyclical. Post-war social housing developments were close to 100% social housing. Most costs were covered by grant, and land was assembled at low cost outside the speculative market. This model was insulated from market cycles, allowing the supply of social homes to continue during downturns in private housebuilding. In other words, social housing supply at this time was counter-cyclical.

From the 1980s, the dominant supply model for social housing flipped: grant rates were cut, borrowing costs rose, social landlords had to start competing with private developers in the land market. As a result, an expanded range of ‘affordable housing’ tenures (with costs pegged to market prices) has become increasingly dependent on cross-subsidy from the profits of building market housing. Far from smoothing out the boom and bust cycle of speculative private housebuilding, this model of building social housing intensifies those peaks and troughs. This doesn’t just affect how many homes are built. It shapes how the construction sector itself operates.

Supporting the UK’s construction sector

Ratcheting down: Private housing completions in England since 1946

Over repeated cycles of the housing market, the total output of speculative development is ratcheting downward. As housing starts plummet, so too does the demand for skills and materials. Many construction workers simply leave the sector, often permanently. It is no coincidence that construction workers are more likely to be self-employed than workers in any other sector. Today, more people are leaving the construction sector than joining it, and productivity has remained stubbornly flat for decades. Why would housebuilders maintain a large permanent workforce, or invest in the skills of that workforce, when they know they will need to retrench supply as the market turns?

Because firms cannot predict demand, materials prices have become more volatile. Official statistics show sharp swings in construction output and brick deliveries, worsening shortages and price spikes in an import-dependent system. As the construction industry has adapted to manage the risks of cyclical demand, construction capacity has atrophied.

The long-heralded shift to modern methods of construction (MMC) has also stalled. The speculative, stop-start nature of the industry makes the expense and risks of investment in innovation unattractive. Investors are reluctant to commit to factories which will be moth-balled at the first signs of the next housing market slowdown.

From stop-start to build, baby, build

A more balanced system would combine market housing with a counter-cyclical social housing programme, alongside new market models based on stable demand such as Build to Rent.

When governments fund and enable social housing at scale, it can be built as fast as need demands and construction capacity allows. As the Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model found in 2016, a major programme of social housing would support predictability of demand for labour, skills and materials, resulting in a less risky operating environment for housebuilders, developers and planners. The booms and busts of cyclical market supply are smoothed out by counter-cyclical social supply, so capacity can be maintained and increased despite housing market cycles.

In countries such as Japan and Sweden, innovations and new technologies have thrived on this certainty, creating new opportunities to expand development capacity. It is no coincidence that the last time that modern methods of construction made a major contribution to overall housing supply in the UK was during the post-war social housing boom.

Of course, the benefits of a more sustainable skills base and of innovation in construction today would be felt far beyond the developments which first enabled them. If social housing schemes keep construction workers in the sector during market downturns, those experienced workers will be available to the private sector when the market recovers. If social housing schemes provide enough stable demand to keep MMC providers in business, market housing will be able to benefit from their services, too. While construction capacity is often seen as a constraint on building more social housing, the reverse is also true. A stable pipeline of social housing would expand capacity, supporting more jobs, stronger skills, and greater innovation across the sector.

The government’s new Social and Affordable Homes Programme 2026-36 represents the most significant policy shift back towards a counter-cyclical social housing supply model in decades. A future blog will explore how this could work in practice, and what further changes are needed.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Delivering the council homes we need in the 10-year plan for housing

Lamb Close, Warwick is licensed under CC BY 2.0

How can councils building homes contribute to the Government’s ambition to provide 1.5 million additional homes by the end of the Parliament and fulfil its commitments to getting more affordable homes both through the planning system and the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP)?

The research undertaken by Ben Clifford and I (2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023) shows that Councils are providing homes through a wide range of means and for a range of tenancy/sale models which are not generally recognised in the media. The level of council home delivery in England is regarded as low when viewed through the government’s figures on social housing completions but this hides both the commitment and contribution that councils are currently making and there can be increased delivery if these current initiatives are recognised and supported more proactively. 

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More sustainable funding

Council homes built using the AHP applies to approximately 50% of current local authorities in England with Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) that did not transfer their stock. To enable this group of councils to increase their delivery through this programme, our research shows that the current barriers to delivery including cost of materials and construction, funding costs, land prices and the levels of subsidy to support delivery are well known and each can be acted upon by government with some initiatives including those already started.

But our research has highlighted other ways in which councils could provide more homes. The first is to give local authorities five -year funding to deliver a social housing programme, as is given to the Mayor of London and Housing Associations, rather than requiring them to seek individual project funding through Homes England. This would enable councils to employ a housing development and delivery teams, improve their skills and enable these teams to work on the wider provision of housing as is the case in the London Boroughs.

The second way to increase council housebuilding is to abolish the HRA. This is not an accounting principle used anywhere else in the world and is peculiar to the UK Treasury. Although some will argue strongly that the HRA provides a ring-fenced fund for housing within councils, its arcane rules operate retained, centralised control. How do other countries provide social rent homes without using an HRA approach? They have the freedom for prudential borrowing against their whole asset base and then use cross subsidy models to provide social rent homes – in some countries by multiple providers. If the Treasury made good its 2007 promise to introduce the International Financial Reporting Standard to local government, then local authorities would be in the same position as housing associations, the private sector and rest of the OECD member states to provide homes.

Thirdly, the subsidies available for social rent homes must be more realistic within the current costs context and also be more flexible in their provision. The government can do more on this by reducing costs of borrowing for homebuilding by councils and enabling those councils still paying off government housing loans taken when historically high interest rates were prevalent, such as the 1990s, to pay these down early if they replace this debt with that used for new home provision.

Embracing alternative models

It is generally assumed that councils without an HRA do not provide housing, but our research found that this was not the case. In 2023, 94% of all councils were supporting housing delivery such as providing land, buildings, funding, partnerships with housing associations and/or developers, rent guarantees, advocacy and other planning requirements that, in some cases, have resulted in higher delivery of affordable homes than those with HRAs.

However, these contributions, also made by councils with HRAs, are hidden because housing associations and developers are shown as delivering this affordable housing with no acknowledgement of council contributions. We need a better way of demonstrating how councils are supporting delivery through other institutions which recognises their role.

Strengthening council housing provision in planning

There are other ways in which council housebuilding can be increased. In the planning reforms recently announced, the government has stated that local authorities will need to demonstrate the need for social rent homes in its plan making evidence. However, once identified, no other parts of the planning system have been changed to enable these needs to be translated into delivery. This starts with the lack of requirements to identify and safeguard enough land for social and affordable housing needs in local plans, continuing the planning assumption that all homes are provided by the private sector, with affordable homes provided as a market residual. Reforms in land acquisition costs recently consulted upon by government could make some difference but at the same time, the land could be more easily made available if identified at this earlier stage.

Another initiative used in Scotland could be extended to England. When homes are negotiated through Section 106 agreements in planning applications, the council has an almost guaranteed right to subsidy for these homes to enter the council’s stock and they are not left empty or negotiated away because no housing association will take on their management.

Institutional reform to prioritise social housebuilding

The role of housing associations collaborating with councils in social housing delivery also needs to be reset. In their tradition and heyday, the main purpose of housing associations was the provision of social and affordable housing. Since they have been able to become developers, the social rent mission has increasingly been overlooked. The Housing Regulator is having to remind them of their responsibilities to keep their existing homes in good repair, as should be required as a consequence of their access to private finance. Further, some housing associations are selling off social rent homes in higher priced areas without replacing them and it is in these areas that the housing need for such homes can be its most acute.

Finally the reforms underway in Homes England and their relationship with the mayors of the new Strategic Authorities should be promising for local authority housebuilding but old cultures die hard. Their focus on regeneration and land acquisition has slowly increased with only a third of the Homes England budget in the last five tears being spent on affordable housing. It is time to increase the percentage of this budget to the AHP and develop land its holds through sales to councils and housebuilders with covenants that require social homes to be built as a condition of the land sale.

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Blog Post

How building Council housing can help Labour beat Reform UK

How to beat Reform UK? It’s the question many in the Labour Party are now asking, with increasing desperation.

Alienated from mainstream politics and politicians, Reform UK supporters see Labour as the ‘establishment’ with little concern or understanding for their lives or their problems. To reach Reform supporters, Labour needs to show in practical, concrete ways that it ‘gets’ Reform voters’ concerns. Labour needs to deliver practical and concrete improvements across the country.

The answer is straightforward. Labour needs to build more council homes and create more non-graduate jobs. And we can do both at the same time using the same money.

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Building more council homes in every part of the country will directly benefit those families who are currently in housing need. Those who are overcrowded or who need a smaller home. Those who are homeless and living in expensive and substandard private rented accommodation. Those whose children and grandchildren are paying through the roof to private landlords for very basic accommodation.

Many of these families have lost faith in mainstream politics after 14 years of failed Conservative governments when few new council homes were built and many continued to be sold off. We need to show, by our actions, that the needs of the non-graduates living in non-metropolitan parts of the country are just as much a priority for Labour as anywhere else.

The new council homes Labour builds should benefit the widest range of families. When new council homes are being built, existing residents should know that they will benefit, too. A central message should be that the new council homes are not just for ‘other people’ or ‘outsiders’, they are for people like YOU. Using local housing allocation policies in operation on many Labour councils already, half the new homes should go to those families who have been waiting patiently for a bigger or smaller home. The other half should go to those who are currently homeless or have been languishing on the housing waiting list.

Building new council homes needs a range of traditional non-graduate skills – bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, scaffolders, painters, decorators, carpenters. Just watch an episode of Nick Knowles’ DIY SOS to see the wide range of non-graduate trades needed to build or renovate a house.

Using existing construction companies, local subcontractors and their employees will benefit, too. Many of these subcontractors will be small businesses and will get a real boost by Labour’s council house building programme. Local council house building programmes will give small construction companies the long-term commitment needed to plan their investment.

Working with local colleges, we need a massive construction skills training programme, equipping people of all ages with a skill that will form the basis of a lifetime working career. Construction skills give access to jobs in every part of the country and to any country in the world. You can work for a company or be your own boss, working hard to build a business that gives you and your family financial security and independence. The construction workers benefitting from Labour’s council house building programme will have a real and tangible stake in the economy and in society.

When the new residents move in, some will want new furniture, new carpets and new white goods. Buying these will help local shops and help grow the wider economy. Others will want to paint or paper the walls and add a few personal touches, benefitting local DIY shops.

And don’t forget that the new council tenants will be paying rent to the Council which will then be used to pay back the money it borrowed to build the new homes.

As John Harris wrote in a recent ‘Guardian article, the politics are very basic,

“Four decades ago, many of Reform UK’s older supporters had their lives transformed by Margaret Thatcher’s policy of encouraging people to buy their council houses at huge discounts; now, their daughters, sons and grandchildren live with the dire housing crisis that policy caused. If you understand at least some of the rising ire about immigration as fear of even more competition for scarce resources, housing is right at its heart: in my experience, no other issue comes near its impact on everyday life.”

We have it in our power to embark on the biggest council housing programme since 1945. If we don’t take this opportunity and then lose out to Reform UK in 2029, it will be our own fault. Let’s not make this mistake!