British-born workers under the age of 35 will be given priority for council housing, Reform UK has said. They will be placed at the front of the queue along with married couples with children, veterans and Britons in work.
Nigel Farage’s party has already promised to remove foreign nationals from social housing, pledging to evict them after a short grace period. The move is expected to free up hundreds of thousands of social homes.
Reform's housing estimates
Reform estimates 540,000 social homes are currently occupied by foreign nationals. Of the 1.3 million people currently on waiting lists, 15% – some 195,000 households – are foreign-born.
Deputy leader Richard Tice will unveil the shake-up on Monday, as well as laying out the party’s plans to build 50,000 affordable social homes a year. Reform insists the investment required for the scheme will be “fiscally neutral”, requiring no new taxes or borrowing.
Richard Tice's statement
Mr Tice, the party’s business, energy and trade spokesman, said: "There are now 1.3million people waiting for social housing in Britain.
“The vast majority of them do not have jobs. In terms of the social houses we have, less than half of households are in work and over half a million social homes are currently occupied by foreign nationals.
"Meanwhile, young British men and women, who are working hard, can’t afford to move out of their family home, and when they do often find themself sharing a house with strangers, with no realistic prospect of forming a family or getting on.
"It is time for us to prioritise young British workers, and that is what our policy is about.”
Conservative and Labour responses
The Tories recently announced that foreigners will be banned from getting council houses, with tens of thousands of existing tenants evicted. Nearly 300,000 socially rented homes have a foreign national as a lead tenant, figures show.
Plans from the Conservatives mean those legally considered to be single, and who do not hold UK, Irish or EU citizenship, would lose their property. Under Kemi Badenoch’s plans, some 228,144 council homes would be emptied, with tenants losing the right to stay there. Those properties would then be given to British citizens on the social homes waiting list.
Sir James Cleverly, Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: "This is yet another unfunded announcement from Reform and shows they have not done the hard work needed and is so often the case their maths simply doesn’t stack up.
“The Conservatives have already set out comprehensive plans to ensure British nationals are at the front of the queue for social housing. Now Reform are trying to catch up.
"We also believe in a home owning society and that those who work hard should be able to buy their own home, without unnecessary barriers standing in their way.
"That is why we will scrap Stamp Duty on the primary home to help hard working people across the country to get onto the housing ladder.”
Labour branded the proposals "unworkable". A Labour Party spokesperson said: “These unserious and unworkable plans are a desperate bid to shift headlines away from Reform’s sleaze, scandals and infighting.
"Access to social housing is already tightly controlled. Illegal migrants, asylum seekers and migrants on student or work visas are not eligible for social housing.
"This policy would go after long-term UK residents that have contributed to our country but are not British citizens, including NHS staff.
"It would leave more families at risk of homelessness and drive up use of temporary accommodation at the taxpayers' expense.
"It would also mean renegotiations with the EU, resulting in years of wrangling.
“While Reform push gimmicks and division, Labour is doing the hard yards to build more homes and bring back hope across our country.”
