Social housing tenants should be made to keep their gardens well maintained or face eviction, the chairman of Reform UK said, as the party said it would prioritise British-born workers under-35 for council homes.
Lee Anderson indicated to a press conference in London that people living on social housing could have to keep their homes “decorated” and gardens looked after, or face being kicked out. He was speaking as the party made its latest announcement that priority would be given to veterans and married couples with children, if it wins the next general election.
Standards after the Second World War
Mr Anderson said social housing tenants should maintain a minimum level of upkeep on their homes, as he recalled standards required after the Second World War. He said: “If you go back in time and look what actually happened… the people that rented council homes had to be married under a Labour, socialist government.
“They had to look after their property. They had to keep it well maintained. The gardens done and decorated, and they were inspected on a regular basis by officers from the council.”
He said tenants would previously be given chances and a “ticking off”, but added: “If after that you didn’t keep it up to reasonable standard, you were out, and they gave it to another couple who would look after their property.”
Plan for 50,000 affordable homes
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice set out a plan for the party to build 50,000 affordable social homes a year, which he says will require no new taxes or borrowing. Announcing their social housing policy at the event on Monday morning, Mr Tice said it was “not fair” that British people are “unable to get on the housing ladder” ahead of foreign nationals.
“We’ve got 1.3 million people in the queue, and we’re saying that the first people that one should be looking after are young British workers, under 35, young British married couples, young British veterans who’ve done the right thing,” Mr Tice said.
“They’ve got a job, doing their best, working in their community, setting a fine example. Because the role of the British government is actually to look after British citizens first, and we think that is the most important.”
Housing data and political reaction
UK or Irish nationals made up 88.5% of main householders – the person in whose name the social home is rented – in 2024/25, while 11.5% were non-UK/Irish nationals, according to the English Housing Survey. There are an estimated 470,000 non-UK and non-Irish citizens living in social housing. Reform UK estimates that 540,000 social homes are currently occupied by foreign nationals.
Housing charity Shelter said before the announcement that strict rules on social housing allocation would cause more homelessness, and the charity’s chief executive Sarah Elliot said Reform’s policies were designed to “stoke division”. The Conservatives have said they would revoke the right of foreign nationals to social housing, and claim it would free up around 230,000 homes.
Mr Tice, who is getting married again later this year, also said the stipulation for married couples was the party being “ambitious” about promoting marriage. He said civil partnerships would qualify. He said: “Marriage is a great thing. In a sense, when people get married, we all hope that it’s going to be for life. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it doesn’t work out. But I don’t think it’s wrong to be to be ambitious and to promote marriage, and that’s you know that that that’s the right thing to do in our judgement.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Reform is so desperate to try and deflect attention away from the scandals Nigel Farage is drowning in, they have cobbled together unworkable and unserious plans which they can’t answer even basis questions on.
“It would blow a £10 billion blackhole in the public finances, would create years of wrangling with the EU, and could leave British citizens without a place to call home.
“This Labour government is investing billions to deliver the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, to fix the housing crisis we inherited from the Tories.”
