Consultation on future social housing rent policy

Overview

Topic of Consultation

This consultation seeks views on a new Direction from the Secretary of State to the Regulator of Social Housing in relation to social housing rent policy. It focuses on the introduction of a new rent policy from 1 April 2026.

Scope of Consultation

The Direction would require the Regulator to set a standard on rents that will apply to Registered Providers of social housing. This encompasses:

• Private Registered Providers (including housing associations that are Private Registered Providers)
• Local authority Registered Providers (i.e. local authorities with retained housing stock)

Section 197 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 gives the Secretary of State the power to direct the Regulator of Social Housing to set a standard on rent, and about the content of that standard. Once issued, a Direction is binding on the Regulator.

We propose to use this power to issue a new Direction to the Regulator on rent, and to revoke directions on rents that were issued by the previous government in 2019 and 2023. The proposed Direction and an accompanying policy statement have been published alongside this consultation.

Geographical Scope

The proposals will apply to rents charged by providers registered with the Regulator of Social Housing. They will therefore mainly affect tenants of social housing in England.

Why your views matter

We are gathering evidence from tenants, landlords, lenders, investors and other organisations associated with the social rented sector with views on the terms of the next social housing rent settlement, to come into effect on 1 April 2026.

If you can provide us with information on this subject, please complete the survey. 

What happens next

This consultation document and consultation process have been planned to adhere to the Consultation Principles issued by the Cabinet Office.

Representative groups are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond.

Information provided in response to this consultation will be published to comply with section 197 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. Names of individual respondents will not be published. In addition, responses may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), the General Data Protection Regulation, and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Owing to the legal requirement to publish responses, we cannot guarantee confidentiality in respect of your response. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the department.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) will process your personal data in accordance with the law and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is included below.

Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested.

Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read our consultation document and respond.

Are you satisfied that this consultation has followed the Consultation Principles? If not or you have any other observations about how we can improve the process please contact us via the complaints procedure.

Personal data

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are be entitled to under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Note that this section only refers to your personal data (your name address and anything that could be used to identify you personally) not the content of your response to the consultation.

The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer    

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or by writing to the following address:

Data Protection Officer
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Why we are collecting your personal data  

Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the consultation process, so that we can contact you regarding your response and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters.

We will collect your IP address if you complete a consultation online. We may use this to ensure that each person only completes a survey once. We will not use this data for any other purpose.

Sensitive types of personal data

Please do not share special category personal data or criminal offence data if we have not asked for this unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of your consultation response. By ‘special category personal data,’ we mean information about a living individual’s:

• race
• ethnic origin
• political opinions
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• trade union membership
• genetics
• biometrics
• health (including disability-related information)
• sex life; or
• sexual orientation.

By ‘criminal offence data,’ we mean information relating to a living individual’s criminal convictions or offences or related security measures.

 Our legal basis for processing your personal data

The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by MHCLG of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Section 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018 states that this will include processing of personal data that is necessary for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department i.e. in this case a consultation.

With whom we will be sharing your personal data

MHCLG may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the Department and under our instruction, to help analyse the responses to this consultation. Where we do

we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.

For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period.

Your personal data will be held for two years from the closure of the consultation, unless we identify that its continued retention is unnecessary before that point.

Your rights, e.g. access, rectification, erasure 

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right:

a. to see what data we have about you

b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record

c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete

d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances

e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or

Knowledge and Information Access Team
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Your personal data will not be sent overseas.

Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making.

Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system

We use a third-party system, Citizen Space, to collect consultation responses. In the first instance your personal data will be stored on their secure UK-based server. Your personal data will remain on the Citizen Space server and/or be transferred to our secure government IT system for two years of retention before it is deleted.