Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Young of Cookham

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we believe that this is a very important Bill and broadly, it has our support. Today, we are discussing areas where we think it could be improved. I thank the Minister and her officials for the attention they have provided to our amendments and for the discussions we have had; they have been extremely helpful and we very much appreciate that.

My Amendment 3 would ensure that the panel is chaired by a tenant, and my Amendment 31 would ensure that the Secretary of State introduces “tenant satisfaction measures”. I have tabled these amendments because we believe it is vital that tenants are at the centre of any changes being brought forward through this Bill, that they are consistently listened to and that their concerns taken seriously and acted upon when that needs to happen.

The Government have already committed to introducing a set of tenant satisfaction measures. We know that all stock-holding local authorities will need to be adequately funded by the Government to deliver this new statutory requirement to collect housing-related data, in line with the new burdens doctrine. I thank the Local Government Association for its support for my Amendment 31, on tenant satisfaction. Can the Minister and the Government look at these areas again as we move through the Bill?

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, opened our debate, and we support her Amendment 2. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford said, talking about the continued importance of the removal of cladding and remediation around fire safety continues to keep that accountability on the face of everything that we are doing. We must not forget why we are here with the Bill in the first place.

I am pleased that the Government support Amendment 1 from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but, as other noble Lords have said, the energy demand and efficiency matters raised by various amendments in Committee and on Report are critical, and we believe that the Government need to give further consideration to them. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, I do not really understand the Government’s reluctance to act on this issue. We know that it can make a real difference not just to climate change and reducing energy use but to the cost of living crisis that we are facing. Given the recent warnings from the national grid about the prospect of power cuts this winter, the Government need to take this more seriously than they have.

I draw particular attention to Amendment 14, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As we have heard, it requires the Secretary of State to publish the social housing energy demand strategy, which she introduced extremely thoroughly. She went into some detail about how this can be achieved, why we need it and the importance of this amendment, and other noble Lords have stressed that they strongly agree with the noble Baroness. So again I urge the Minister to take this away and think about whether it is something the Government could do more on.

Like other noble Lords, we are pleased that the Minister has been able to accept Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but it simply is not sufficient. I completely agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, when she said that we need a long-term strategy, a detailed plan and—as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, also said—leadership. That is what we need to drive this forward.

I will not go into any more detail—we discussed this a lot in Committee and we have heard from noble Lords today—but, if the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, wishes to test the opinion of the House on this matter, she will have our full support.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing my cue and interrupting the wind-ups. I will speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 14. On Amendment 2, veterans from the Building Safety Bill will recall that much of the debate focused on the impact on social housing of the costs of remediating the defects. This amendment would give the regulator a role in ensuring that this remediation was concluded satisfactorily.

Some of the information asked for in the noble Baroness’s amendment is already available. Figures from the building safety programme published last week showed that all 180 high-rise social housing buildings, bar one, have had the dangerous materials removed. Remediation has started on the final building, but the cladding has yet to be removed. The Government initially expected remediation to be completed by June 2020, so, after a slow start, it seems that real progress has been made, which is welcome. But 37 privately owned blocks still have Grenfell-style cladding five years after the fire.

Turning to funding, can my noble friend confirm that the social sector ACM cladding remediation fund has enough resources to compensate the social housing sector for the costs incurred and that there will be no impact on its development programme or rents as a result of the remediation? It appears that 17 of its buildings will not receive any money from the fund; is there a reason for this? Is it because the remediation was funded by the developers? Are the Government planning to recoup any of the costs to the fund from those responsible? In that context, can my noble friend update the House on the ongoing discussions with the private sector to get it to accept its responsibility for this debacle, with its tragic consequences?

The noble Baroness’s amendment, however, goes further than the removal of unsafe cladding and refers to

“the remediation of other fire safety defects in social housing.”

Will my noble friend say what progress has been made on that front, and in particular how much that will cost and how it will be funded without impacting on rents or development? Presumably the work was undertaken at the same time as the cladding removal, so this information is available.

While the amendment has provided a useful peg for a debate, I am not sure we need it in the Bill. The removal of cladding and fire safety defects are clearly needed to make a building safe—covered in Clause 1 —and the regulator already produces an annual report and accounts, which could include the information in the amendment, but it would be helpful to have some information about funding and the impact on the social housing sector.

Finally, turning to Amendment 14, I, along with others, am a planetary Peer—although flying at a much lower orbit than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, the amendment requires targets and the targets are important, but they require funding. Ideally, the funding to pay for these energy conservation measures should not be at the cost to the new build programme—which brings me to the social housing decarbonisation fund, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which was set up to improve the energy performance of social homes in England, including local authority stock.

I know that that fund is the responsibility of BEIS and not of my noble friend’s department, but it is directly relevant to the debate on energy efficiency in social housing. There was a manifesto commitment in 2019 of £3.8 billion to this fund over a 10-year period. Will my noble friend confirm that that is still the case and that the sum has not been eroded in the meantime? What has been the take-up and evaluation of that programme and what assessment has been made of the number of homes that the sum could improve the energy conservation of? If my noble friend cannot answer now, perhaps she will reply in writing.

Finally, I understand that the amendment may be unacceptable to my noble friend, but I wonder whether she can show a little bit of ankle in her reply and indicate that this is not the Government’s final word on this and that as the Bill proceeds downstream in another place there might be the opportunity for further discussion and improvement.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Young of Cookham

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will introduce my three amendments in this group. First, Amendment 6 is supported by the National Housing Federation and the Local Government Association. It would amend Clause 2 to ensure that there is diverse regional representation among the members of the proposed advisory panel and that those members can then provide the regulator with information and advice on issues that may arise or vary at a regional level.

The LGA has further suggested that the Bill could also ensure diversity of councils on the panel in terms not just of region but of authority size, the quantity and quality of housing stock and social housing management arrangements. We agree with the LGA that it is vital that the membership of the panel comprises a diverse range of councils so that consumer issues right across the sector can be effectively represented. However, although we support the panel, we are disappointed that the proposals stop short of making it a permanent national representative body for tenants. Why has the decision been taken not to make this permanent? Do the Government intend to review this at some stage?

Improving tenant engagement and listening to what tenants say is clearly one of the most important lessons from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, so tenants need to be right at the heart of the advisory panel. This is why I have put forward Amendment 7, which says that the panel must be chaired by a tenant with responsibility for agenda setting. I hope that the Minister understands why it would make a huge difference to tenants’ trust and belief if the panel were to really give them a voice.

I thank the noble Lords who supported my Amendment 30: the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and my noble friend Lord Whitty. It seeks to create a power for the Secretary of State to require managers of social housing to have appropriate qualifications and expertise. The fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017 was a stark example of what underregulated and unprofessional management in social housing can lead to. Bringing some level of professionalisation into the housing sector has been argued for consistently and cogently by members of Grenfell United. I thank them for their continued work and persistence and for the time they gave to discuss their concerns in this area with me.

Grenfell United believes that a more professional housing sector is one of the main ways by which to create a fitting legacy for the 72 lives that were so needlessly lost on 14 June 2017. In the social housing White Paper, the Government said that they would

“Review professional training and development to ensure residents receive a high standard of customer service.”


But the Bill introduces no measures that would enable professional standards to be mandated in law. Poorly managed and maintained social housing can cause serious harm to renters’ health and well-being—yet there are no requirements to be properly qualified or to undergo professional development.

Ministers have described social housing as the first social service. Well-managed social housing, offering adequate levels of support to residents, takes pressure off health and social care service as well as early years and school support services. But, first and foremost, we believe that professional qualifications and development should be mandatory for senior managers working in social housing. Qualifications and training should aim to provide housing management staff with the skills and knowledge needed to do the job, as well as instilling the values and ethics needed to deliver a care-centred service for residents.

Having senior staff with the appropriate skills and qualifications would ensure that the teams of housing officers and other junior staff that they manage are professionally run, thereby delivering a quality service for all residents. This would balance the need for professionalisation, while not creating barriers to housing associations and councils finding enough staff. We do not intend this amendment to be prescriptive: it requires regulations to define what types of work would require a qualification.

The Minister will no doubt be aware that the Government are currently conducting a review into professional standards within the social housing sector. We believe that there should be legislative backing to ensure that its conclusions can be implemented and upheld effectively. It is also important that the review is published in time for its recommendations to be considered as part of the development of this legislation, so can the Minister confirm that it will be available during the progress of the Bill?

Since the fire at Grenfell Tower, survivors and thousands of tenants of social housing have demonstrated time and time again that they do not have trust in the regulator on its own. The Government rightly recognised the need for action and accountability following the fire and promised a new deal for social renters. This amendment would allow for the monitoring and enforcement of professional standards in the social housing sector, including clear government direction and accountability. Surely this is an area in which the Minister could agree with us, and perhaps we could work together to take some of these issues further forward.

Finally, I am aware that my noble friend Lord Whitty has Amendment 47 in this group. I assure him that we support what he is trying to achieve with it, and I look forward to hearing more detail from him.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will add a brief footnote to the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who spoke to Amendment 30, to which I have added my name, as she said. As we have been reminded throughout the debate, Grenfell Tower was a tragic reminder of the need for professional management in social housing. Unlike private tenants, social tenants have few options to move to an alternative landlord if they do not get the service that they are entitled to.

During the passage of the Bill on social care, I urged the Government to do more to drive up professional qualifications in the social care sector so that it could compete more effectively with the health service in the recruitment of staff, develop a proper career structure with improved conditions of service and, as a crucial outcome, drive up the quality of care received by the customers. Much of that argument applies equally to social housing, where many of those employed will come across vulnerable families and where those managing social housing need the capacity that comes with relevant training to ensure that those families get the support that they need.

I am well aware of the counterargument that was deployed in the debate on social care and that may well be deployed against this amendment—namely, that there are many committed people working in the sector who have no professional qualifications but none the less provide a first-class service, and we do not want to lose them. We also do not want to introduce barriers to entry for a service that often finds it difficult to recruit. But I believe that the amendment addresses those objections by requiring those managing social housing to have appropriate professional qualifications or satisfy specified requirements. There is sufficient flexibility, not least in proposed subsection (3), which refers to a

“specified qualification or experience of a specified kind”.

Of course, the amendment only applies to those in a managing role, not others involved in the sector.

Now I believe that the Government are aware of this need to drive up standards and quality of management in the sector, as their White Paper said they would undertake to:

“Review professional training and development to ensure residents receive a high standard of customer service.”


I am sure that the Chartered Institute of Housing, which represents those employed in the sector, would help develop the appropriate modules of training, building on its existing expertise—as indeed would the National Housing Federation. However, at the moment, the Bill is simply silent on this issue, which is highly relevant to the regulation of social housing. As the noble Baroness said, the department has set up a working group to review professional standards, but that is no substitute for the clear statement of intent set out in the amendment. As the noble Baroness said, we need to know when that working group will publish its report.

So what I think we are hoping for from the Minister in response to this amendment is a clear restatement of the principle set out in the White Paper, coupled with some identifiable milestones so we can monitor progress towards that destination, and a commitment to a serious and sustained dialogue with the professional bodies concerned so that we get the details right. I look forward to my noble friend’s response.