Background

The Government’s has launched its plan for social and affordable housing, Delivering a decade of Renewal.   The plan sets out how the £39 billion allocated for a new Affordable Housing Programme will be used to deliver an estimated 300,000 social and affordable homes. It also includes further details on Government plans for social rents, Right to Buy, building safety, Decent Homes, Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards  (MEES), Awaab’s Law, Electrical Safety Standards, competency and conduct standards and other matters.

Social and Affordable Housing Programme

The Government has allocated £39 billion for a 10-year Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP). Its ambition is that this will deliver 300,000 new social and affordable homes over the programme’s lifetime, of which at least 180,000 (60%) will be for social rent. The remainder will be other tenures, including shared ownership, affordable rent and intermediate rent. An unspecified number of additional social rent homes is expected to be delivered using Right to Buy receipts and s106 agreements. £11.7 billion of the funding is expected to be administered by the GLA and the balance by Homes England. A full prospectus will be published in the Autumn.

Rent Settlement

The Spending Review confirmed that social rent increases will be limited to CPI + 1% for 10 years from April 2026 and promised a consultation on a mechanism to allow all rents to converge to formula rents over a reasonable period, so that all social tenants pay the same rents for equivalent properties. The consultation paper has now been published. It includes options for capping additional rent increases to achieve convergence at either £1 or £2 a week. The consultation closes on 27 August. A final decision on the convergence mechanism will be made at Autumn Budget.

Council housebuilding

 Additional steps are proposed to reinvigorate council housebuilding, including reform of Right to Buy.  The Government has published its response to last Autumn’s consultation on this issue.  It is proposing radical reform of eligibility and discounts, including:

• increasing the time a tenant must have been a public sector tenant before they become eligible for RTB from 3 to 10 years.
• reforming discounts so they start at 5% of the property value, rising by 1% for every extra year an individual is a secure tenant up to the maximum of 15% of the property value or the cash discount cap (whichever is lower).
• exempting newly built social homes from Right to Buy for 35 years.

Legislation to introduce these reforms will be introduced “when Parliamentary time allows”. Current flexibilities on spending RTB receipts, which were due to expire in 2026, will be extended indefinitely, and from 2026/27 councils will be able to combine receipts with grant funding to support delivery of new homes.

The Government has also funded a Council Housebuilding Skills and Capacity Programme to be run by the LGA, with £12 million of funding in 2025/26.

Low-interest loans

The Spending Review announced that £2.5 billion in low-interest loans would be made available over the next 3 years to support the delivery of new social and affordable housing. The Government has now confirmed that providers will be able to combine these loans with grant from the SAHP and s106 contributions.  There will be a consultation over the summer on designing and deploying these loans.

Although the Plan does not state this explicitly, it is probable that this programme is aimed at PRPs. The discounted PWLB rate currently available to local authorities for HRA borrowing is due to end in March 2026.  A decision on whether to continue providing this discount beyond that date will be made in the Autumn.

Building safety

 Social landlords are to be given equal access with other building owners to Government remediation funding (the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety Scheme), for which funding for the next 3 years has been increased to £1 billion.

Housing Quality

 The plan includes new information on the standards that existing social housing will be expected to meet, including on Awaab’s Law, electrical safety, Decent Homes and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.

It also confirms that the new standard for the professionalisation of all social housing staff will come into force in October 2026, with a three-year transition period before senior housing managers and executives must have or be working towards a relevant qualification. This will be implemented by means of a direction to the Regulator of Social Housing which will be published in the Autumn.

Private Registered Providers will be required from October 2026 to publish information relating to management of their social housing, and from April 2027 to respond to information requests from tenants.  Local authorities are already subject to similar requirements by way of the Freedom of Information Act.

Later this summer the Government will launch a £1 million Resident Experience Innovation Fund to support projects that aim to deliver better outcomes for social tenants.

Awaab’s Law

In February, the Government laid regulations bringing Phase 1 of Awaab’s Law into force on 27 October 2025.  Phase 1 requires social landlords to meet strict timetables for responding to damp and mould hazards and all emergency hazards within 24 hours.  Draft guidance covering Phase 1 was published on 25 June.

Electrical safety checks

In 2022, the previous government consulted on extending the requirement for landlords to inspect and test their electrical installations at least once every five years to social landlords; it current applies only to private landlords. The Government has now published its response to that consultation, confirming that social landlords, including local authorities, will in future be required to make electrical safety checks.  Regulations implementing the requirement have been laid and, subject to Parliament’s approval, will come into force from November 2025 for new lets, and six months later for existing tenancies.

The new requirements apply only to homes let at social or affordable rents; the Government has not yet decided whether similar requirements might apply to landlords (freeholders) in relation to flats let on long leases.

Decent Homes

The Government has published a consultation paper proposing updates to the Decent Homes Standard, including:

• focusing on the state of repair of building components rather than their age;
• an updated list of facilities that should be provided in all homes, adding new requirements such as window restrictors;
• incorporating Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards
• a new emphasis on keeping homes free from damp and mould.

The consultation proposes that the new standard would come into force no earlier than 2035, to give landlords time to carry out the works necessary to meet it. The Government also proposes that the new standard would apply to privately rented homes.

The consultation closes on 10 September.  The Government’s intention is that the updated standard would be confirmed by the end of this year.

Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard

A consultation paper has also been published on a new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) for social and affordable housing.  Following a earlier consultation on reform of the Energy Performance of Buildings Regime, the Government is proposing to replace the current single EPC banding system with four metrics:

• a fabric performance metric which assesses energy performance based on the fabric efficiency of the building;
• a heating system metric which assesses the efficiency and emissions of the building’s hot water and heating systems and possibly cooking appliances;
• a smart readiness metric assessing energy performance and ability to integrate with a flexible energy system;
• an energy cost metric.

The MEES would require landlords to meet band C on the fabric performance metric and either the heating system or smart readiness metric.  The Government is proposing an implementation date of 2030, but with exemptions for the most expensive to treat homes, and to avoid disadvantaging landlords who have already invested heavily to bring homes up to the current EPC Band C.

This consultation also closes on 10 September.