Housing Secretary's speech to Lloyds' Social Housing Forum

Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, spoke today at Lloyds Banking Group's Social Housing Forum 

Thank you very much, Charlie.

I'm delighted to be back here at Coin Street. It's in my old stomping ground of Lambeth where I used to be council leader back in the day, with so many people who are quite literally helping to build a better future.

I want to start by thanking those at Lloyds, and particularly you Charlie, for organising such a great event and bringing together people who are making a difference in social housing. 

The partnerships that we see here are at the heart of our work together to turn around the housing crisis.

That work includes the Small Sites Aggregator, which has been developed jointly with many people in this room and which I am proud to say we will be rolling out across the country following the current pilot.

Now, I'd like to reflect on what we are doing in government to support your work.

I was delighted to see last week that social housing starts were up again

And that starts on homes for social rent by Homes England and the GLA have now doubled with this Government.

[Political content removed] of the 1980s undermined social and council housing in a [Political content removed] attempt to re-engineer communities.

Housebuilding fell and the benefits bill soared and kept on soaring.

Over the past two years, this [Political content removed] government has set out to reverse that trend.

And I'm pleased to see the plan is beginning to work.  We support home ownership, let me make that clear, but not at the expense of providing the social housing this country needs.

Good, decent social homes are not just a necessary part of the housing mix, they provide a level of security for residents of the communities that Britain desperately needs.

We have committed to the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, and we are backing councils and housing associations to get on and build at scale.

But we also need existing stock to get a lot better, and I want residents to have more control over their homes and their estates.

In the ten months I've been in this job, I've worked with many of you to break out of the housing crisis in this country and I am proud of the progress that we have made.

We are guided by our five-step plan to drive a decade of renewal -

First, the biggest boost to grant funding in a generation.

Second, rebuilding sector capacity.

Next, an effective and stable regulatory regime.

Then, reinvigorating council housebuilding.

And finally, a stronger partnership with the sector.

We know in each area we have now made significant progress and we need to get on and finish the job.

We have committed to the biggest boost in social housing for a generation, and we have made good on that promise through a generational long-term increase in grant funding.

The erosion of our social and council housebuilding stock has been a disaster both for families and for taxpayers.

There are 134,000 households in temporary accommodation, at huge social cost that's also costing taxpayers billions of pounds.

There are over a million families on council housing waiting lists and we've seen a near-doubling of the housing benefits bill since 2010.

Taxpayers pay tens of billions in benefits to subsidise private landlords to rent out homes that taxpayers also paid to build.

Today, over four in ten homes sold under right-to-buy are rented out privately.  That's the same home now rented out to tenants at twice or three times the rent compared to when it was a council home.  And taxpayers pick up the bill for the difference.

This Government has started to turn the tide. At the core of our plan is the simple common sense that it's better to spend taxpayer's cash building new homes than subsidising buy-to-let landlords.

We're radically overhauling right-to-buy to protect the social housing stock and stop newly built homes being sold off.

To be clear again, we support the aspiration of tenants who want to own their own home, but we also support the aspiration of the million-plus people on council waiting lists to have somewhere decent where they can afford to live. 

We're rebuilding the capacity of councils and registered providers who were hammered by austerity and soaring inflation.

And we're investing a record £39 billion through our Social and Affordable Homes Programme to fund the biggest increase in social and council housing in a generation. That includes a target of at least 60% of homes to be for social rent.

We are now seeing hugely ambitious plans for delivery from right across the sector, and building work has already started.

Council housebuilding today is at its highest level for a quarter of a century.

The £2 billion downpayment of funding announced in March 2025 is helping schemes move quickly from bid to build.

One scheme in York, led by Joseph Rowntree, is now building 117 homes through that funding, 60% of which are for social rent.

In addition to this, we are supporting new and innovative financing of social housing, like the Small Sites Aggregator, which will forge new partnerships to build homes for social rent.

And we recently announced our ambition to scale this model up to a national programme, with a target of 10,000 homes a year by the end of this Parliament.

This level of ambition and innovation is only possible through the close working between the public and private sectors.

We are always open to hearing new ideas for investment that meet our core principles

and we are always ready to work with you to build more homes for social rent and create high quality sustainable communities for the long term.

So, please keep bringing your ideas forward, and let's see how we can work together to make them happen.

Our new investment is only one part of the plan for increasing supply we also need to rebuild the sector's ability to borrow and invest.

A combination of building safety requirements, rising costs, and real-terms rent cuts has weakened the capacity of housing associations and councils.

This Government is committed to strengthening it.

Alongside grant funding, the Government is introducing a series of targeted reforms.

On rent policy, we have provided a 10-year settlement which allows landlords to raise rents annually by CPI+1%

and our rent convergence policy will allow for additions above that, for those below formula.

We have also introduced equal access to government remediation funding schemes, providing over £1 billion of new investment between 2026-27 and 2029-30

and to support the delivery of more homes, we will make available £2.5 billion of low-interest loans to Private Registered Providers.

Local authorities are central to our ambitions, so to reinvigorate council housebuilding we are rebuilding skills and capacity.

We have also extended the Public Works Loan Board preferential borrowing rate for council housebuilding until March 2027, giving councils greater certainty to increase their supply plans.

And through the Social Housing Bill, we will protect our critical social housing stock by reforming the right to buy scheme, so that homes are not sold off more quickly than they can be replaced.

Our ambitions for social housing are more than just the numbers we also want to see lasting change in the safety and quality of homes.

We are pushing forward the new Decent Homes Standard, which will give the sector long-term regulatory certainty.

Alongside this, we are supporting strategic business planning and investing in stock improvements alongside new supply.

We are listening carefully to the sector's feedback about deliverability and later this year we will publish guidance on quaity regulations.

My ambition for the future of social housing is that residents should have more control over their homes and the estates where they live.

I'm listening to landlords about the best way we can work together

But given that people like me who are lucky enough to own their own home can choose who does the repairs and the quality that work is done to I don't see why that same dignity should not be extended to social housing tenants too.

Our new Right to Manage will give residents more opportunity to take over how their homes are managed if their social landlord fails to improve substandard services. 

That's in addition to our Social Housing Innovation Fund, which has funded 20 projects so far working to give tenants a bigger say.

I want to see housing association tenants benefit from this too, so we are opening a consultation to listen to ideas on how best to make that happen.

Through the Social Housing Resident Panel, we will continue to listen to residents directly as we develop and implement this policy.

I am proud of all that we have achieved so far, but if we are to meet residents' expectations, this can only be the start.

What comes next must be an ever-greater push towards quantity, quality, and putting residents in control.

We can't build a stronger country if we don't build stronger communities with opportunity open to everyone.  And we can't build stronger communities if we don't build the housing that people need to live in. 

And that means the biggest increase in social and council housing this country has seen in a generation.

To everyone here today you're not just building homes, you're building hope.

Hope of being able to move out of Mum and Dad's.

Hope for a garden where the kids can play.  

Hope for a future without being moved on from one B&B to another.

It's such a fantastic thing to dedicate your working life to achieving.

So together, let's do this, let's build a future where there is safe, decent and affordable homes for every person and for every family in our country.

Thank you for your attention.