Tories pledge to ban foreign nationals from social housing

The Conservative Party has announced plans to exclude foreign nationals from access to social housing in Britain. The BBC reports the policy would apply to those without indefinite leave to remain. The Mirror warns the move would leave families at risk of homelessness, while the Sun frames it as ending a "free ride".

The proposal arrives as Reform UK unveils parallel enforcement measures: a pledge to shut down businesses that fail to pay fines for hiring illegal migrants under what they are calling a "Deliveroo law". The Independent describes the Conservative plan as "unserious and unworkable", though the mechanism for enforcement - and the legal basis for evicting existing tenants - remains unspecified.

The tension here is not new. Social housing has been rationed since the stock was sold and never replaced; foreign nationals are now being positioned as the bottleneck rather than the thirty-year failure to build. The question the policy leaves unresolved is whether someone loses their tenancy the moment their visa status changes, and what happens to their children if they do.

What to watch: whether the policy survives contact with housing law, the European Convention, and the arithmetic - the waiting list is long because the stock is short, and evicting one household only moves the problem down the queue.