There is now a broad political consensus that Britain is in a housing crisis. This is reflected in rising rents, long social housing waiting lists, insecure tenancies, and increasing pressure on households being steadily pushed into the private rented sector.
In the North East, this is not an abstract national debate. It is visible in the everyday reality of people trying to secure stable housing in a system where wages, rents, and availability are increasingly out of alignment. It is also visible in the pressure placed on local authorities dealing with rising homelessness and constrained housing stock.
The Renters’ Rights Act, particularly the long-awaited abolition of Section 21, which addresses ‘no-fault evictions’, is rightly being described as a landmark shift. It will change the balance of power between landlords and tenants, and for many renters it will provide a greater sense of security than they have had before.
But the central question remains: is this the point at which the housing crisis begins to be solved, or simply becomes better managed? Because while this reform improves fairness within the private rented sector, it does not fundamentally resolve the deeper structural pressures shaping housing in regions like the North East.
A fairer system, but not a larger or more secure one
Ending Section 21 is a significant change. It removes landlords’ ability to evict tenants without providing a reason and replaces it with a system based on defined legal grounds such as arrears, anti-social behaviour, or the sale of the property.
In practice, this will matter. It reduces one of the most destabilising features of the private rented sector and gives tenants more confidence to challenge poor conditions or unfair treatment without immediate fear of eviction. Alongside this, proposals for an ombudsman service and stronger expectations around housing standards aim to improve accountability and provide faster routes to resolve disputes.
These are important reforms. But they remain corrective rather than transformative. They improve how the system functions rather than changing the scale or structure of housing supply itself.
Investment exists – but it does not fully reshape outcomes
Alongside regulatory reform, government has committed significant capital funding for housing through the Affordable Homes Programme, worth around £39 billion over multiple years. On paper, this is a substantial level of investment and a serious attempt to increase supply.
But the reality is more complex.
A significant proportion of homes delivered through this funding are not traditional social rent homes but include affordable rent products set at up to 80% of market levels, alongside shared ownership and other intermediate models. While these forms of housing play a role in widening access, they do not always provide the same level of long-term security or affordability as social rent. In lower-income regions, where wages remain significantly below the national average, even “discounted” market rents can remain out of reach.
As a result, there is a gap between headline investment and the expansion of genuinely secure, deeply affordable housing stock. The system is active, but not yet transformative.
The structural issue we keep working around
Beneath this sits a longer-term issue: the gradual reduction of social housing stock over time, particularly through policies such as Right to Buy.
While originally designed to extend home ownership, Right to Buy has contributed to a steady erosion of the most secure and affordable form of housing in many areas. Replacement has not consistently matched loss, creating a long-term imbalance in the system.
- The result is a destabilising housing structure:
- • fewer social homes are available,
- • more households are pushed into the private rented sector,
- • pressure on rents increases, and
- • the housing benefit increasingly subsidises market rents.
In other words, the system is not just short of homes: it is shifting tenure away from security and towards market exposure. And then we regulate that market more tightly, without fully rebuilding the alternatives to it.
What should happen next: devolution as the turning point
This is where the conversation needs to move on. Because if housing is now widely understood to be central to economic strength, health, and opportunity in the North East, then regional leadership cannot simply be about implementing national policy. It has to be about shaping outcomes. That is where devolution becomes more than an administrative reform. It becomes the mechanism through which housing stops being managed in fragments and starts being treated as a coherent regional system.
In practical terms, that means mayors and combined authorities being clearer about what success looks like in their own context. This would be mean that there are not just more homes built, but also a commitment to increasing the number of genuinely secure, affordable homes over time — measured in net terms, not just headline delivery.
Further, this would mean not simply accepting broad national definitions of ‘affordable housing’ but recognising where those definitions fail to reflect local wage levels and housing pressures. It would mean not just responding to shortages as they emerge, but treating housing as core regional infrastructure alongside transport, skills, energy, and industrial strategy.
Housing is not separate from economic performance in the North East. It is one of its defining constraints and enablers. Devolution, at its best, should allow that reality to be addressed directly. Without that shift, it risks becoming administrative rather than transformational.
With it, however, housing becomes one of the clearest tests of whether devolution is delivering real change in people’s lives or simply reorganising how decisions are made.
Reforming renting is not the same as solving housing
The Renters’ Rights Act will improve fairness within the private rented sector. The removal of Section 21 is a genuine and overdue reform that will strengthen tenant security.
But while regulation improves how renting works, and while investment supports new supply, the underlying structure of housing in the North East remains shaped by long-term loss of social housing and continued pressure in the private rented sector.
That is why the next phase of the debate cannot remain at the national level alone.
It must be for regional leaders, mayors, and combined authorities to move from managing housing pressures to actively reshaping outcomes. They must use the powers of devolution not simply to administer housing policy, but to define what success in housing actually looks like for this region.
Until that happens, we will continue to improve fairness inside the system without yet changing the system itself. And for the North East, that is no longer enough.
