{"id":729856,"date":"2026-08-07T00:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T00:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729856\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T00:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T00:04:11","slug":"conservatives-pledge-to-ban-foreign-nationals-from-social-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729856\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservatives pledge to ban foreign nationals from social housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conservatives have said they would end the provision of social housing for foreign nationals in England if they win power at the next election.<\/p>\n

The party said ending new tenancies for all foreign nationals, as well as current tenancies for couples where neither person is a UK, Irish or EU citizen, would free up an estimated 228,144 homes for British families.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives said Labour had “lost control of immigration” and British families had been left sitting on housing waiting lists as a result.<\/p>\n

But Labour said the policy was an “unserious, unworkable proposal, copied from Reform, that does nothing to tackle the housing crisis the Tories themselves created”.<\/p>\n

In June, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he would make it a requirement<\/a> for foreign national tenants to find private accommodation within three months or face possible deportation if his party won power.<\/p>\n

Under the Tory proposals, ineligible tenants would be expected to move out of their homes within six months. <\/p>\n

Any single person currently living in social housing who is not a UK, Irish or EU citizen would lose their social home. This includes those with or without children.<\/p>\n

Couples, where neither of them are UK or EU citizens, and they do not have EU settled status, will also lose their entitlement.<\/p>\n

Anyone with EU settled status would not be evicted.<\/p>\n

For future tenancies, UK nationals and those with EU settled status would be eligible but any new EU citizens without settled status would not be.<\/p>\n

Foreign nationals with settled status, refugee status, or specific humanitarian protections can currently qualify for social housing.<\/p>\n

Asylum seekers are not eligible for social housing, unless in exceptional circumstances such as domestic abuse cases.<\/p>\n

Social housing, usually provided by housing associations or local councils, is typically cheaper and more secure than privately rented homes.<\/p>\n

When they were last in government in 2024, the Conservatives were considering plans to make it a requirement for foreign nationals to have to live in the UK for 10 years<\/a> before qualifying for social housing. <\/p>\n

There are 1.34 million households on social housing waiting lists, as of March 2025, the latest government figures.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of social housing lettings are given to single people. <\/p>\n

In 2024-25, most lead tenants of new social lettings, the person in whose name the social home is rented, were UK nationals – 89% or 233,000 tenants.<\/p>\n

In the same period, 2.3% of new lettings were given to refugees – 800 refugees were UK nationals, while the remaining 3,900 were non-UK nationals. <\/p>\n

The most common nationality of refugees in a new social letting was Afghanistan with the second most common being Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conservatives have said they would end the provision of social housing for foreign nationals in England if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-729856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}