What does the King’s Speech mean for housing associations?

The recent King’s Speech announced legislation to implement the government’s welcome reforms to Right to Buy, through the Social Housing Renewal Bill, alongside the previously-trailed reform to leasehold and commonhold, and further detail on the Remediation Bill.  

Below we’ve summarised the key points of the announcements and included our initial responses.   

You can also read more in our press response, the government’s guide to the Social Housing Bill and the Housing Minister’s letter to the sector. 

Social Housing Renewal Bill 

The government has set out plans to protect existing social housing and support the delivery of new homes, including: 

• Legislation to enact the previously-announced reforms to Right to Buy to better protect social housing stock, including longer eligibility requirements, changes to discounts, and exemptions for new homes. 
• Greater protections for tenants who are survivors of domestic abuse, to give more security and stability. 
• Repealing provisions in previous legislation that have not worked for residents and providers – including the requirement for local authorities to sell high-value homes, and the ability for providers to grant flexible (fixed-term) tenancies and charge higher income tenants higher rents. 

We welcome the government’s focus on protecting the supply of social homes and providing social housing providers with greater clarity to invest in new homes. Social homes are a vital resource, which have been depleted for decades. 

We also welcome the government's commitment to strengthen protections for survivors of domestic abuse and look forward to seeing the detail. 

We will continue our work to ensure that the legislation delivers for housing associations, enabling the sector to work in partnership with the government and deliver a decade of renewal for social housing. 

Leasehold and commonhold reform 

The government has reconfirmed its intention to bring forward legislation to reform and ultimately replace the leasehold system, following the publication of the draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill earlier this year. 

We support reform of the leasehold system and the principles of commonhold. Getting the legislation and its implementation right will be critical to ensure it is deliverable and provides meaningful benefits for residents, and we have been working closely with our members and the government over recent months. 
 
We will continue our work to ensure that these reforms allow for mixed tenure development, and work across the sector, particularly for retirement housing. 

Building safety and cladding remediation 

The government has committed to speeding up the remediation of unsafe cladding through the Remediation Bill. This will strengthen accountability for those responsible, including stronger powers for regulators, a legal duty on those responsible to fix unsafe buildings and processes to ensure remediation can proceed where progress has stalled.

Further details include: 

• Construction product manufacturers will be made to pay towards fixing problems they caused. 
• A new legal duty to remediate will compel those responsible for the safety of their buildings, to identify, assess, and fix their buildings without delay. Those responsible must act, or face the consequences, including criminal prosecution, in the most egregious and severe cases.   
• Mandate how external wall assessments are carried out, to ensure a nationally consistent approach to remediation work. 
• Introduce an 11-18m building register to identify all remaining buildings that need remediation work. 
• There will be a new 'remediation backstop' which would allow a third party, such as Homes England, to step in and carry out remediation work themselves. 
• Fix gaps in previous legislation to protect residents and guarantee a route to remediation – even where ownership is absent, unclear, or negligent. 

We are in close contact with the bill team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the cladding safety team at Homes England to ensure the legislation is workable and accelerates remediation for residents. 

Next steps 

We’ve been in discussion with senior government officials to shape and understand more detail about each piece of legislation relevant for our sector.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll share further information on how you can help shape the NHF’s approach and engage with the government on the design and impact of proposed legislation.