Ramzy Alwakeel

tl;dr we need to build far far more homes for social rent – not homes in general, not ‘affordable homes’, but social rent homes specifically, because these figures are abysmal.

50% of councils approved zero social rent homes in six months Data from 119 English councils shows that council houses made up just 6% of planning approvals in Labour’s first half-year in office

And here (again) is Lucas’s brilliant original investigation, in which people whose families were crammed into cramped, unsuitable homes explained what it actually means to wait years for a decent home.
hyphenonline.com/2025/05/19/h...

Local Authority Housing Statistics data returns for 2024 to 2025 Local Authority Housing Statistics data returns for the financial year 2024 to 2025

Anyway the data itself is here:
www.gov.uk/government/s...

Also, under the previous Labour govt, councils didn’t start building enough homes to replace the ones being lost under right to buy until 2007.

2,300 people died waiting for a UK council house last year Investigation finds underhand tactics used by UK councils to cut wait lists as time runs out for thousands

Worth remembering that waiting lists go up and down not necessarily because people are housed or made homeless but because eligibility changes and councils take people off the list because e.g. they have died.
www.opendemocracy.net/en/council-h...

Incidentally, that particular figure of 1.34m households waiting is currently the worst it’s been in 12 years, though it was higher every year in the decade before that.

What we do know is that at least 1,340,435 households – each of them, potentially, containing several people – are on waiting lists across the country for this type of housing.

The caveat is that *some* homes *may* get designated as being for social rent later in the planning process than what the government’s own data captures. But previous years’ figures suggest the effect of this is pretty minimal.

The figure of 7,348 social rent homes granted permission would have been considered low prior to 2017/18 (unimaginably so if you go back decades, but low even by the standards of the coalition years), but since then it’s been about par for the course.

Anyway, of those that responded, well over half (147 out of 249, or 59%) didn’t grant planning permission for a *single* social rent home in that entire year.

This time, asked by the government for the same data, all but 47 local authorities out of 296 responded – which still isn’t that good, but a lot better than what we got.

Planning bill: Minister grilled over Hyphen’s findings - Hyphen Green party housing lead Ellie Chowns took Labour’s Matthew Pennycook to task during debate on planning and infrastructure bill

This was still bad enough that the government was grilled about it in the Commons the next day.
hyphenonline.com/2025/05/21/p...

At the time, only a third of councils responded to Lucas’s FOI requests with usable data, even after appeals, meaning he arrived at the slightly more generous figure of 6%.

50% of councils approved zero social rent homes in six months Data from 119 English councils shows that council houses made up just 6% of planning approvals in Labour’s first half-year in office

It confirms the findings of an investigation that @lucascumiskey.bsky.social carried out for @hyphenonline.com a year ago into the social housing pipeline during Labour’s first six months in office.
hyphenonline.com/2025/05/19/h...

🏠 Buried in housing data published by the government last month is something that should be getting more attention.

In the year to March 2025, English councils granted planning permission for just 7,384 social rent homes – 3% of the total 235,000 homes that they greenlit. 🧵

Reform mayor courted US oil and gas executive about fracking in UK Exclusive: Documents show Andrea Jenkyns asked how she could help firm after major gas find in Lincolnshire

I spent several months trying to get access to FOI documents of Mayor Andrea Jenkyns' correspondence with fracking companies in Lincolnshire.

Read about what I found in my latest piece for The Guardian!

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Hundreds of racism complaints led to no police officers sacked - Hyphen The 360 complaints were against Police Scotland and Avon and Somerset Constabulary, both of which had said they were ‘institutionally racist’

Full story by @lucascumiskey.bsky.social now leading
@hyphenonline.com 👇

hyphenonline.com/2026/03/11/p...

.@carladenyer.bsky.social: 'Properly investigating complaints and holding individual officers to account is a basic requirement to overcoming institutional racism in the police. Yet this data suggests there’s v little commitment... to repairing public trust and confidence or to justice.'

It shows that (when the data was compiled) no officers had been sacked over 194 complaints made to Police Scotland and 166 made to Avon & Somerset. Most had either been dismissed, dealt with using internal processes such as 'assurance' and 'learning from reflection' or withdrawn.

🔴 EXC by @lucascumiskey.bsky.social: 360 race-related complaints made to a pair of police forces after they declared themselves 'institutionally racist' did not result in a single officer being sacked in two years.

The data has only been released to us after an 8-month transparency battle.

not me but I'm sure someone more plumbed into the intricacies of YP politics will know!

I remember when someone on the NEC got busted for slagging Corbyn on a train while he was leader! No specific comment on JC or KM but it's such a patronising assumption to make about the public that they can't put two and two together.

never ceases to baffle me that people who work in politics are willing to have conversations like this in public places!

Lack of data hampering diversity in coroner's service - Hyphen Nadia Persaud, who was appointed to the role for England and Wales last year, also said the coroner’s service should be reorganised and run nationally

Full story by @sajeraj.bsky.social:

hyphenonline.com/2026/03/09/n...

🔴 The lead coroner for diversity in England & Wales has admitted that a lack of data is hampering efforts to broaden access to the job – and said she would support a shake-up of the sector to put coroners under a national umbrella service (currently managed by local councils).

Islamophobia: ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ definition ‘falls short’ - Hyphen Focus on intent and hostility rather than racism and Islamophobia met with disappointment by faith leaders and academics

🔴 Now leading @hyphenonline.com: two major British Muslim organisations, including the @mcb.org.uk, have said they cannot endorse the government’s new definition of Islamophobia, published last night following a year-long process.

Full story by Saman Javed 👇

hyphenonline.com/2026/03/10/i...

Wes Streeting slams ‘attempts to delegitimise’ Muslim voters - Hyphen Comments follow Reform-led backlash against Green victory in Gorton and Denton, but also put him at odds with Keir Starmer

🔴 Wes Streeting appears to be distancing himself from senior Labour figures – including Starmer – over the by-election loss on Thurs.

Criticises attempts to 'delegitimise' Muslim voters. Starmer wrote to MPs last week calling Greens 'sectarian'.

hyphenonline.com/2026/03/04/w...

Please read this thread as a 'micro-example' of what is going so wrong with the English court system - and note the 'butterfly' effect point.

Our court system is so rackety and improvised, one slip and so many other things will go wrong.

MCB chief: Muslims should focus charitable giving on UK - Hyphen Dr Wajid Akhter, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, says too much cash goes on mosque-building and to international causes

"We smirk when churches get sold and we buy them as mosques. But 20 years from now, we will be selling mosques. There is no way we will be able to keep them open."

Candid stuff from @mcb.org.uk chief Dr Wajid Akhter, speaking to Saman Javed for @hyphenonline.com.

hyphenonline.com/2026/03/03/m...

jfc what the actual fuck