The Social Housing Bill: Second reading briefing (Commons Stage)

In July 2025 survivors of domestic abuse were officially made exempt from the local connection test used to qualify for social housing. This was a literally life-changing piece of regulation passed by government, and we hope we can maintain this momentum for change.

In December 2025, CIH co-authored a report alongside Mel Nowicki and Katherine Brickell, ‘You can’t bid because you are in the red’. It highlighted, the problems faced by domestic abuse survivors when housing related debt rules included in allocations policies act to limit a survivor’s ability to find a safe home.

At this time, Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, led by co-secretariat Shared Health Foundation, sent a letter to Alison McGovern MP, Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, asked for regulatory change to be implemented. 30 parliamentarians signed their name in support alongside leading sector organisations.

The government, as part of the ‘National Plan to End Homelessness’ has committed to updating statutory guidance in the announced allocations review. We acknowledge and welcome this important work being undertaken by the department to ensure access to social housing improves for those who need it most.

However, given the opportunity of making legislative change right now compared with statutory guidance change at a future, unspecified date, we believe government should make the necessary legislative changes in this bill, giving the matter the weight it deserves. We believe that it is appropriate that these matters concerning eligibility and priority should be made by legislation (rather than guidance), otherwise the powers under sections 160ZA(8) and 166A(7) (i.e., the power to make regulations such as these) would not exist.

Economic coercion and control are major components of domestic abuse, and the costs of fleeing a perpetrator can leave a survivor struggling financially and facing homelessness. Nearly one million women who have suffered domestic abuse in the UK were prevented from leaving a dangerous partner because of economic coercion and control . This economic abuse drives rent arrears and other debt. In December 2025, MHCLG quarterly homelessness figures for England reported 6,790 relief duties were owed to households due to domestic abuse. Placed in temporary accommodation, domestic abuse survivors can then face barriers to securing social housing due to local authority rules on housing related debt.

Research found that 88% of LAs have a disqualification policy and 54% have a de-prioritisation policy in their schemes. Although 94% of LA housing allocation policies in England mention domestic abuse, less than 1 in 5 (17%) specifically state that they exempt survivors from housing-related debt rules.

These policies and rules are leaving survivors, including children, trapped in temporary accommodation, unable to bid for social housing until arrears and other forms of debt are cleared, or they prove their ’intent to pay’.

In one month alone (December 2023), over 1,500 children across England were denied secure housing because of LA’s housing related debt rules . Child victims of domestic abuse, in ‘extremely high numbers’ are living in temporary accommodation, which has been linked with compounded trauma andother negative health impacts, including higher instances of child mortality . Delayed move-on is an inefficient expenditure of public money given the accelerating costs of temporary accommodation to local authorities – totalling over £2.8billion per year. 

The report by CIH outlines a range of strategies that housing providers do and can employ to ensure the strongest possible support is in place for survivors of domestic abuse who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness. However, it is the government that needs to change the statutory framework to ensure that debt does not unfairly discriminate against domestic abuse survivors and their children, regardless of where they live. 

In the House of Lords Baroness Neate tabled amendment 76 with the support of the Chartered Institute of Housing, King’s College London and Shared Health Foundation, to introduce new primary legislation to strengthen the bill and exempt domestic abuse survivors from housing-related debt which can deprioritise them or make them ineligible from social housing.

The amendment attracted cross-party support, including former Prime Minister Baroness May, who said: "I hope that the government are going to look favourably on the amendment ... given the knowledge we now have of the forms that domestic abuse can take and the greater understanding we have of the circumstances in which people can be left that are nothing to do with their behaviour, but purely because they have been the victim of a perpetrator." It also received cross-party approval from the Local Government Association.  

But further to commitments made by government, the amendment was not moved, and we have decided not to pursue an amendment in the House of Commons. However, there are further details and commitments required from the government to achieve the commitments laid out on this issue.

Baroness Taylor outlined in the House of Lords that the government was sincere in its commitment to “address the barriers faced by survivors of domestic abuse with debt when applying for social housing.”

She stated that “In A National Plan to End Homelessness we committed to ‘address the barriers faced by survivors of domestic abuse with debt when applying for social housing’ as part of our update to statutory guidance on social housing allocations. We continue to believe that guidance is the right route, rather than a rigid rule in primary legislation for an area that is inherently complex and case-specific, which could give rise to unintended consequences.”

However, she also said that “If guidance proves insufficient, we have the option of making regulations to amend the legislation—we have the powers to do that—as we did to exempt domestic abuse survivors from local connection tests. I am happy to commit to the house today that we will pursue changes to regulations, should the review of statutory guidance show that to be necessary.”

We welcome the government’s commitments to update statutory guidance and to amend legislation if the guidance proves insufficient. Currently the government has a call for evidence open until the  2October 2026 relating to the allocations review, which will be followed up by a consultation in early 2027. We will be working closely with MHCLG on this. 

However, new Freedom of Information Act data gathered by Professor Katherine Brickell at King’s College London, included below, shows that at the moment most local authorities cannot adequately report on the true impact of these policies on domestic abuse survivors. When asked, a vast number of local authorities do not know how many domestic abuse survivors living in temporary accommodation are subject to these rules. 

Therefore, the government will be unable to monitor any changes that the renewed statutory guidance may have or set a benchmark and timeline for their promise of regulatory change, if the impact of statutory guidance change fails to stop (or significantly reduce) the practice of barring domestic abuse survivors from accessing social homes on the basis of rent arrears incurred as a part of their abuse.

• In one month alone (December 2025), local authorities identified at least 86 households in temporary accommodation owed a homelessness duty because of domestic abuse who were ineligible/disqualified to bid for permanent social housing because of rent arrears. This should be seen as a minimum estimate, rather than a national count
• This means that 5.2% of households identified as being ineligible/ disqualified to bid for permanent housing because of rent arrears were owed a duty because of domestic abuse
• The number is likely to be significantly higher as only 13% of local authorities were able to provide a specific figure. If that number were extrapolated to all 317 councils that would suggest around 737 households
• Many authorities who reported significant numbers of disqualified households were unable to provide any domestic abuse breakdown, reporting the FOI cost limit being exceeded (e.g. Westminster who disqualified 835 households). Local authorities with the largest debt-related exclusion numbers were often those that could not identify whether domestic abuse survivors were among those affected
• Apart from local authorities who do not disqualify households, common reasons given for being unable to provide the information to Q4 were that the information was not held; that domestic abuse data is not recorded in allocations systems; that data on housing-related debt disqualifications is not recorded; or that homelessness and housing allocations systems are separate and require manual cross-referencing which would exceed FOI cost limits. The repeated references to unlinked databases, manual checking, non-reportable systems and missing data suggest that many authorities are unable to systematically monitor the impact of their own policies on domestic abuse survivors.

If you would like to discuss the recommendations in more detail, please contact Chloe Fletcher, head of policy and external affairs at Chloe.Fletcher@cih.org.uk