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Tips, insights, and advice to help you find, rent, and manage your next home with confidence.
After months of debate in the House of Lords, the Social Housing Bill 2026-27 has arrived in the Commons, where its second reading is scheduled for 10 September 2026. For anyone with a stake in social housing — whether as a tenant, a landlord or a local authority — this is one of the most consequential pieces of housing legislation to move through Parliament in recent years, and its passage so far tells us a great deal about where policy is heading.
More than 10,000 households are waiting on Lewisham's housing register, and 2,450 households are currently living in temporary accommodation. Behind each of those numbers is someone waiting for a front door of their own, which lends real weight to the council's latest announcement.
The Social Housing Bill has completed its third reading in the House of Lords, which took place on Tuesday 1 September. No amendments were put forward ahead of third reading, and members instead discussed the progress of the bill at the conclusion of its Lords stages.
For years, councils have been largely spectators in the business of building homes. That changes this week: on 25 August, the Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner announced the first wave of funding from the government's £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme, with nearly £10 billion now allocated.
A garden left to go wild could cost you your home, if Reform UK ever gets the chance to govern. The party's chair, Lee Anderson, announced at a press conference that social housing tenants would be evicted for failing to keep their properties decorated and their gardens maintained, a rule he insists is simply a return to how council housing was once run.
Where someone was born could soon determine how long they wait for a subsidised home in Britain, if Reform UK gets its way. The party is set to unveil a social housing policy at a press conference in London on Monday that would reorder the queue so that people born in the UK take priority over British citizens who were born overseas.
The UK housing market is sending mixed signals, and anyone trying to read it right now needs to look beyond the headline numbers. According to the UK House Price Index, house prices rose by 2.0% in the year to June 2026, which sounds like steady growth.
Social housing has been thrust into the centre of the immigration debate in a way few in the sector could have predicted. First Nigel Farage announced that, under a Reform government, all foreign nationals in social homes would have three months to leave or face deportation.
For most renters, the biggest obstacle to owning a home is not the hunt itself but the deposit: years of paying full market rent leave precious little to set aside. Rent to Buy schemes offer a possible way through that impasse, and with Uswitch having published a fresh guide on the topic this September, now is a sensible time to examine how these arrangements work and whether one might suit you.
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