The Tory plan to ban migrants from social housing is cruel, divisive, and dangerous.
For the women we support, many of whom are fleeing domestic abuse, access to social housing can be the difference between escaping a violent household and being trapped with a perpetrator. Social housing provides a vital route to long-term stability and independence for victim-survivors who may have had to leave their home, finances and support networks behind in order to escape abuse.
These proposals would deny access to social housing on the basis of nationality and immigration status, including to people with indefinite leave to remain (ILR) who are lawfully and permanently settled in the UK. They would also evict existing migrant tenants – including single mothers and their children – from their social homes with just six months’ notice.
For migrant women experiencing abuse, the consequences could be devastating. Many already face significant barriers to accessing housing and refuge provision because of No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). Restricting access to social housing even further risks leaving more women with an impossible choice between homelessness and staying with abusers.
The claim that this would free up around 230,000 homes “for British families” is a cynical distraction from the real problem: the chronic shortage of social housing. The English Housing Survey shows that just 11.5% of main social housing tenants are non-UK or Irish nationals. Evicting migrant families will not build a single new home. It manufactures division and scapegoats migrants for a housing crisis they did not create.
This is the latest escalation of a hostile political environment that treats migrants – and particularly migrant women – as less deserving of housing, safety, and dignity. It risks creating a two-tier system in which access to social housing, and for some women their ability to escape abuse, is determined by nationality and immigration status.
We urge all political parties to reject this politics of division and scapegoating. The answer to the housing crisis is to invest in and build the social homes this country desperately needs – not to remove migrant families from the homes they already have or shut them out of social housing altogether.
Access to social housing and safety from abuse should not depend on the passport you hold.
