Debate contribution: Housing Costs

Debate contribution by Mrs Ciara Ferguson on 19 January 2026.

MLA

Mrs Ciara Ferguson

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

19 January 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Housing Costs

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5322584

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I begin by reiterating the fact that the right to housing is a fundamental human right enshrined in international law. Every person should have the right to live in security, peace and dignity, but, as of 30 September 2025, there were 49,588 household applicants on our social housing waiting list. Of those, over 77% were deemed to be in acute housing stress. Furthermore, significant concerns exist in relation to the continuation of an unregulated, unaffordable and insecure private rented sector. Coupled with the lack of support to date from the British Treasury to allow our largest social housing sector landlord to borrow more money to build more social homes, that means that we face an ever-worsening situation where demand far outstrips supply, fuelling unaffordability, substandard conditions and housing insecurity. I commend the Finance Minister for allocating £29·8 million to meet in full the Department for Communities bid for the social housing development programme, enabling the much-needed delivery of up to 1,750 new home starts in 2025-26. I also acknowledge the role of the Minister for Infrastructure in continually emphasising the historical underfunding of our water infrastructure and working to secure additional funding through in-year monitoring and strengthening collaboration and innovation to tackle that ongoing challenge. Notably, it is welcome that, since autumn 2024, her Department has been able to unlock waste water capacity to enable future connections for almost 5,000 new homes, including the allocation of an additional £19·5 million to NI Water from the October monitoring round, enabling the building and connection of 2,300 new homes across Derry, Antrim and Tyrone. I commend the proposer on the motion's intention, particularly the recognition of the ongoing challenge of rapidly rising rents across the region. Last April, our data was incorporated into the price index of private rent and house prices, which found that, as of September 2025, average rents had increased by 6·4% on the previous year to £871 and average house prices had increased by 7·1% from the same quarter in the previous year to £193,000. Our amendment calls on the Minister to:

"explore options for the introduction of robust rent controls"

and to establish:

"a public body to regulate the rental sector and deliver a fair rental system".

We ask all parties to support us. Folks, we know about the incredibly worrying situation for low-income and vulnerable households in particular. The ever-increasing shortfall between tenants' financial housing support and rental costs leaves many families facing arrears or looming homelessness. The recent decision by the British Government to freeze the rate at which housing benefit is set until at least 2027, against a backdrop of insufficient supply and rising rents, is shameful and will lead directly to homelessness. I thank the Institute for Fiscal Studies for outlining that a tight financial situation is no excuse for a system that creates uncertainty for renters and unfairness between areas. It has outlined the poor policymaking on local housing allowance rates, which are upgraded only occasionally and then frozen for years at a time. We have a duty to recognise the failure of Britain's policy and to do all that we can to explore local options for a more regulated and fairer private rented sector. We ask for support for our amendment, which calls on the Minister for Communities:

"to explore options for the introduction of robust rent controls"

and for the establishment of:

"a public body to regulate the rental sector and deliver a fair ... system."

As of October 2025, 5,408 households here were living in temporary accommodation. That is an increase of 85% over the past five years and includes 4,834 children under the age of 18. Rising house prices, rising rents and rising homelessness cannot be adequately addressed without tackling the chronic undersupply of social housing and developing more genuinely affordable housing. While we very much welcome the move by the previous Minister for Communities, Deirdre Hargey, in 2022 to abolish Housing Association tenants' statutory right to buy, the need to address the continued loss of Housing Executive properties remains. In 1974, there were approximately 455,500 dwellings across all housing sectors in the region; now, we have 841,872. While around 34% of housing back then was social rented accommodation and almost all of that was owned or managed by the Housing Executive, Thatcher's unmitigated disaster of a policy means that, despite that growth, we have been left with approximately 80,000 Housing Executive homes. To put that in context, we lost 212 homes in 2024 and 2025 alone. Meanwhile, the Housing Executive's annual spend on temporary accommodation increased by 16% last year to nearly £40 million. That included a spend of almost £17 million on non-standard accommodation, such as hotels and B&Bs, with Derry accounting for over half of that figure. Those two realities existing in tandem is not only totally illogical but irreconcilable and fiscally irresponsible. I emphasise to the Minister for Communities that it is unjustifiable in that context for his party's amendment to suggest a review of the house sales scheme. The Minister has been in office for almost two years, during which time he has enabled the continuation of a scheme that sells our public social housing stock at a discounted rate of up to £24,000. That is a far cry from the radical action on housing that is desperately needed. We must plan properly, invest consistently and treat housing as essential infrastructure that underpins education, health, employment and community life. Delivering social housing at scale and delivering better housing policy are not optional extras; they are the measures of our commitment to the people we represent.

932 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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