Tories unveil ‘unserious and unworkable’ plan to evict foreign nationals from social housing to free up homes

The Conservatives have been accused of copying Nigel Farage’s Reform Party with an “unserious and unworkable” proposal to bar foreign nationals from social housing.

Kemi Badenoch’s party claims around 230,000 homes would be freed up through the plan to limit entitlement and force evictions.

But critics warned the plan could breach the UK’s international obligations and end up in the courts, while Labour said it would put many long-term UK residents, including NHS workers, at risk of homelessness and ultimately end up more costly for taxpayers.

Under the proposal, which is similar to a scheme announced by Mr Farage, any single person currently living in social housing who is not a UK, Irish or EU citizen would lose their social home. The policy would apply regardless of whether they have children, the party said, and tenants who failed to qualify would be expected to move out within six months.

For new tenancies, only UK nationals and those with EU settled status would be eligible. New arrivals from the EU would not qualify, while couples in which neither partner is a UK or EU citizen with settled status would also be ineligible.

At the moment, foreign nationals with settled status, refugee status, or specific humanitarian protections can currently qualify for social housing.

Asylum seekers are not generally eligible, unless in exceptional circumstances such as domestic abuse cases.

Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “Making Britain your home should be earned by working, paying tax and integrating. It should not come with a free ride on the benefits system. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world.”

She said Labour had “lost control of immigration and lost control of the welfare bill, and it is British families picking up the bill and sitting on waiting lists”.

“The next Conservative government will make foreign nationals ineligible for social housing. Nearly 230,000 homes could go to British families.”

Her comments come despite the fact that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said as recently as 2024 that 90 per cent of social lets went to UK nationals, with the remainder allocated to “EEA, Swiss and Irish citizens or migrants in severe housing need”.

Separately, the Migration Observatory at Oxford University says that in 2021,15 per cent of people living in social housing were born outside the UK, slightly lower than the foreign-born share of the UK population.

Meanwhile the Tories have been warned that the policy would like breach rules.

Manjinder Kaur Atwal, director of housing law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, said: “This proposal is far more legally complicated than the headline suggests. Parliament can change future eligibility rules, but retrospectively evicting existing lawful tenants – including refugees and others with humanitarian protection – simply because of their nationality would almost certainly breach the European Convention on Human Rights and UK equality law, and in some cases the UK’s international obligations.

“Coming amid renewed debate about leaving the ECHR, this looks more like a political statement than a workable policy – a blanket six-month eviction requirement based on nationality would be extremely difficult to implement without triggering legal challenge.”

Labour also hit out, saying the policy “does nothing to tackle the housing crisis the Tories themselves created”.

“People without Indefinite Leave to Remain are already ineligible for social housing, so this policy would primarily affect refugees and long-term UK residents who have contributed to this country but are not British citizens, including NHS staff. It would also leave more families at risk of homelessness, while driving up the use of temporary accommodation at the taxpayers' expense,” a spokesman said.

“No amount of headline-chasing, or following Reform to the extremes, can hide the damage the Tories did to our housing system. The least they could do is acknowledge their failures and apologise.”

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Let’s set the record straight, there are already strict rules on eligibility for social housing. Homes are not handed out to people on arrival. To access social housing, you need to be legally settled, have recourse to public funds, pass a local connection test and have reached the top of the council waiting list.

“These divisive plans would brutally kick people out of their homes, including thousands of families and pensioners who have lived in them for decades. And let’s not forget that social tenants pay rent, which goes back to the public purse and into society. It is completely senseless to ruin people’s lives, drive up homelessness and put extreme pressure on councils.”

Jasmine Basran, head of policy and campaigns at Crisis, said: “Currently, it is almost impossible for non-UK nationals to access social homes – with official figures showing that the vast majority of social tenants are UK citizens. It’s simply not the case that people can just come to this country and be given a home.

“The reason waiting lists have topped record levels is because successive governments have failed to build enough social homes for decades.”

Reform UK’s shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf, however, said the proposals didn’t go far enough.

He said: “The Tories are trying to copy Reform UK policy, but they still end up betraying their instincts to prioritise foreigners. Incredibly, Kemi Badenoch’s new policy is to allow tens of thousands of foreign nationals from the EU to occupy British social housing funded by British taxpayers.

“Reform UK will ensure British social housing is strictly for British citizens. The Tories say they will continue to give it to foreign nationals while our own people and veterans are left to fend themselves.”