Last year, the Conference Arrangements Committee ruled out all resolutions calling for urgent action to resolve the housing crisis. The CAC claimed that the resolutions submitted did not “relate to a new issue not substantially covered in the National Policy Forum report.” When it was pointed out to the CAC that there was no substantial coverage of any issues related to the housing crisis in the NPF report, the CAC acknowledged that they might have been mistaken. They would review the decision and would let the submitting constituencies know the outcome of their deliberations. Needless to say, nothing more has been heard from the CAC. Nearly one year on, are they still searching for the relevant passages within the document to back up their decision?
The recently published National Policy Forum report 2026 indicates a similarly low level of interest in dealing with one of the most pressing social issues of our time.
On page 12 there is a sentence in which the policy commission “welcomes Labour’s radical reform of the planning laws to drive housebuilding forward- in addition to the record £ 39 billion for building new social and affordable homes, including council homes, and new investment to accelerate the remediation of existing social housing.”
On pages 15 and 16, the report refers to consultation responses received by the policy commission as follows:
“Consultation responses welcomed Labour’s commitment to building 1.5 million new homes this Parliament, and highlighted the critical role of social housing as part of this ambition”.
On page 16, the report mentions consultation responses that “referenced the changes on Right to Buy in the government’s Social Housing Bill, which ensures that newly built social homes cannot be sold for 35 years.’ and ‘Lorna, South West’ is quoted as saying in her consultation response.
There needs to be a programme of council house building for working people and families, to give people fair rents and security and a settled life for children.”
But there is no policy response to Lorna’s point, no policy strategy around the critical role of social housing or plans for how this will be funded; a crucial point, particularly when it’s clear to anyone who knows about these things that, whilst the £ 39 billion allocated to the building of new social and affordable homes may be a record figure, after decades of under investment, it isn’t nearly enough to build at anything like the scale needed. Particularly when we have a year-on-year net loss of council housing stock as it is sold off under the right to buy.
When the content above is all that appears in the 100-page NPF report, it cannot be claimed that resolutions calling for the solutions to the housing crisis, as set out in our model contemporary resolution, raise issues that have been substantially covered in the NPF report.
The most recent government statistics show a relentless increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation to a record level of 135,580, including 177,530 children. The rush to beat the reduction in the Right-to-Buy discount has resulted in 14,275 council homes being sold in the year 2025/2026, a 90% increase on the previous year, with a replacement rate of only 3,542. homes in the same period. In light of these indicators of a worsening housing crisis, we must continue to push for a discussion around the urgent action needed to resolve it.
We must not let this discussion be excluded by the CAC from the Conference debate again. If you have a CLP meeting before the submission deadline of 17th September, please encourage your CLP to submit a motion on housing.
Carol Hayton
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 