Royal Bank of Scotland has fired the starting gun on a fresh £10 billion lending drive to Britain’s social housing sector by the end of 2028, after smashing its previous target a full year early.
The new pledge, revealed today, pushes the bank’s total support for affordable homes past £35 billion since 2018 in what housing leaders are calling the biggest single commitment ever made by a UK bank to the sector.
Why This Matters Right Now
Britain’s social housing waiting lists stand at 1.3 million households. One in every eight children grows up in temporary accommodation. Rents in the private sector have jumped 8.6% in the past year alone.
This £10 billion injection arrives at the exact moment the country needs it most.
Paul Thwaite, chief executive of NatWest Group, said the early delivery of the previous £7.5 billion target showed both the bank’s firepower and the desperate demand on the ground.
“We see families stuck in temporary hotels, pensioners choosing between heating and eating, young workers priced out of any hope of stability,” Thwaite told reporters. “This is not just lending. This is about giving people the basic dignity of a safe, warm home.”
How the Money Will Actually Be Used
Housing associations will tap the funds for three urgent priorities:
- Building brand-new social rent homes where land is available
- Retrofitting thousands of draughty 1960s and 1970s properties with insulation, heat pumps and solar panels
- Maintaining and upgrading existing stock so families are not living with damp, broken lifts or unsafe cladding
A growing slice of the lending now carries green conditions. Providers can borrow at lower rates if they hit strict energy-performance targets, a move that has already unlocked hundreds of millions for net-zero upgrades in Scotland and the North West.
The Numbers Tell Their Own Story
Since 2018, Royal Bank of Scotland has now lent more than £25 billion to the sector. That money has:
- Financed or refurbished over 150,000 affordable homes
- Supported 412 housing associations and local authorities
- Created an estimated 78,000 construction jobs in communities that badly need them
One chief executive of a large northern housing association described the bank’s long-term, low-cost loans as “the oxygen our development programme has been gasping for.”
Extra Firepower Already in Place
Last summer the government handed Royal Bank of Scotland a £400 million guarantee from the National Wealth Fund, effectively de-risking loans to smaller and newer housing providers.
In December 2025 the bank doubled its dedicated social-rent loan pot to £1 billion after the original facility was snapped up in just seven months.
Those two moves alone have already triggered shovels in the ground for more than 8,000 new social-rent homes this year.
A Bank Trying to Lead, Not Just Lend
The £10 billion pledge sits inside NatWest Group’s wider “Growing Together” plan launched today, a five-point blueprint that also promises extra backing for mid-sized regional businesses and infrastructure projects outside London.
Thwaite made clear the bank wants to do more than write cheques. It will host regional summits bringing together councils, developers, and house-builders to break planning logjams and speed up delivery.
For the thousands of families still waiting for a place to call home, the promise of £10 billion more from Royal Bank of Scotland feels like a rare piece of genuinely good news in a housing market that too often delivers only bad.
Whether the money translates into bricks, mortar and warm homes fast enough remains the urgent question, but for the first time in years, the country’s biggest bank has put its balance sheet squarely behind the people who need it most.
What do you think: is £10 billion enough to make a real dent in Britain’s housing emergency? Drop your thoughts below, and if you’re sharing on social media use #HomesForAll so we can keep the conversation going.
