Lord Bassam of Brighton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultation they have completed on the introduction of fixed-term local authority tenancies.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The previous Coalition Government consulted on proposals to create a new local authority flexible tenancy with a minimum fixed term of two years in November 2010 – in ‘Local decisions: a fairer future for social housing’. The flexible tenancy was introduced by the Localism Act 2011.

In the Summer Budget 2015, the Government announced the intention to review the use of lifetime tenancies in social housing to limit their use and ensure that households are offered tenancies that match their needs and make best use of the social housing stock.

Since then DCLG officials have engaged with local authority landlords, through a series of meetings and regionally based focus groups, in developing proposals to introduce a new fixed-term tenancy of between 2 and 5 years.