Social Rented Housing: Domestic Abuse
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what monitoring his Department is carrying out to capture data on local authorities not exempting domestic abuse survivors from local connection tests for social housing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook
The government has taken action to remove barriers for victims of domestic abuse to access social housing.
Regulations, which came into force on 10 July 2025, mean that victims of domestic abuse moving as a result of that abuse will no longer need to meet a local connection or residency test in order to access social housing.
We will monitor the impact of these regulations at local authority level through the Local Authority Housing Statistics. The next return will capture implementation as of 31 March 2026 and will be published later this year.
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