Tice said he wanted the rules on who was allocated a home to be changed away from need to suitability, putting British families, workers and veterans at the front of the queue, saying: “This comes down to fairness.”
“We’re saying that the first people we should be looking after are young, British workers – under 35, young British married couples, young British veterans – who have done the right thing,” he said.
“They’ve got a job, they’re doing their best, working in their community, setting a fine example, because the role of the British government is actually to look after British citizens first.”
Rules would be changed to reserve at least half of all social homes in England for British-born workers aged under 35, with prioritisation also given to married couples, veterans, victims of domestic violence and care leavers.
Tice claimed there were currently 540,000 existing affordable social homes occupied by overseas nationals and he wanted that to change.
“It’s not fair that young British working families can’t get on the housing ladder when overseas nationals have come to the UK and, because of the current rules based on need rather than suitability, they have jumped ahead in the queue,” he said.
“We just don’t think that’s right: I can’t think of another country where you rock up with a family and you expect the local taxpayer in that country to pay for your housing needs.”
UK or Irish nationals made up 88.5% of main social home householders in 2024/25, according to the English Housing Survey.
That means around 11.5% of main householders, the person in whose name the social home is rented, were non-UK or Irish nationals.
For its part, Reform estimates 540,000 social homes are currently occupied by foreign nationals.
Reform has previously announced it would evict foreign nationals from social housing – a plan criticised by housing charity Shelter which said building more homes is the solution, rather than “changing the order of the queue” and “stoking division”.
Tice also said Reform would raise £10bn a year to build new homes, in part by reintroducing the Right to Buy scheme of the 1980s, allowing people to buy council homes at a discount.
“The failure then was they didn’t reinvest the proceeds into building more affordable homes,” he said, adding he believed reinvestment would raise a third of the investment needed to build 50,000 homes a year over a decade.
Tice said another third would be raised via housing authorities, and the final third would be money from local government pension schemes.
Labour insisted social housing is already “tightly controlled”.
“Illegal migrants, asylum seekers and migrants on student or work visas are not eligible for social housing,” the Labour spokesperson said.
Labour said the Reform plan would target long-term UK residents that have contributed to our country but are not British citizens, including NHS staff.
“It would leave more families at risk of homelessness and drive up use of temporary accommodation at the taxpayers’ expense. It would also mean renegotiations with the EU, resulting in years of wrangling.”
The Conservative Party, which also said it would revoke the right of foreign nationals to social housing, accused Reform of “trying to catch up” with its policies.
The Tories have said their plan, which would allow Irish citizens and some EU nationals to remain in social housing, would free up around 230,000 homes.
Sir James Cleverly, shadow housing secretary, added: “The Conservatives have already set out comprehensive plans to ensure British nationals are at the front of the queue for social housing. Now Reform are trying to catch up.
“We also believe in a home owning society and that those who work hard should be able to buy their own home, without unnecessary barriers standing in their way.”
Liberal Democrat spokesperson Gideon Amos said that Reform’s plan was a “cruel gimmick”.
Green MP Siân Berry said her party would tackle housing issues by ending Right to Buy, building and buying hundreds of thousands of new council homes, and introducing rent controls.
She added: “Another blatantly racist and cruel policy from Reform, adding to a host of plans to create a two-tier Britain – one for those born in the UK and one for everyone else.”
