The government has announced proposed reforms to its Right to Buy scheme to make it harder for council tenants to purchase their homes.
The Social Housing Bill, which returned to Parliament this week for its second reading, is intended to repair long-term decline in social housing provision.
More than two million homes have been sold under the Right to Buy scheme since 1980, with many never replaced.
Between 2012 and 2025, around 133,000 council homes were sold, with 51,000 replacements. There are 1.3 million households on waiting lists for social homes and more than 175,000 children are living in temporary accommodation.
Under the proposals, Right to Buy reforms will see eligibility rise from three to 10 years. Newly built social homes will be protected from the scheme for 35 years, and hard-to-replace rural homes will be exempt.
Discount rules will be updated to reflect the cash cap introduced in November 2024. This means discounts will start at 5% of the property value, increasing by 1% per annum up to a maximum of 15%, subject to the revised cash caps (whichever is lower).
Councils will also gain a stronger right of first refusal to buy back properties, theoretically helping recover homes lost to the scheme.
The bill also removes requirements from the Housing and Planning Act 2016, including rules forcing councils to sell high-value homes, offer fixed-term tenancies and charge higher rents to higher-income tenants.
Chief executive of the National Housing Federation, Kate Henderson, said: “Reforms to Right to Buy are an essential step towards protecting social housing stock. The policy has led to the sale of over 2 million social homes in its lifetime, severely depleting numbers available for low-income families.
The Social Housing Bill was confirmed in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026 and introduced to Parliament on 14 May 2026.
Under the proposals, social landlords will get new powers to evict domestic abuse perpetrators from social homes. It will also close a loophole that previously let abusers serve a notice to quit to make victims homeless.
For joint tenancies, courts will be able to transfer the tenancy into the victim’s sole name or require the landlord to provide suitable alternative accommodation.
Last year, around 15,000 households in England were forced to find a new social home because of domestic abuse.
