Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Best

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 17 is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Thornhill, whose support is much appreciated.

This amendment, first tabled in Committee, would oblige the Regulator of Social Housing to carry out regular inspections into the affairs of all social landlords. The objective of such inspections would be to ensure that the new regime introduced by the Bill, with its emphasis on consumer protection for residents—the missing element in the current regulatory regime—was actually achieved. By visiting social landlords and talking with residents, inspections would enable the regulator to see whether its set of standards was being properly met and to take action if not.

The Government have previously mentioned Ofsted-style inspections, perhaps every four years and maybe covering providers with 1,000 or more homes. Such statements in press releases are all very well but are not a substitute for a requirement on the regulator set out in the Bill.

We have all been deeply affected by the efforts of the Grenfell survivors, represented by Grenfell United supported by Shelter, to secure real change as a lasting legacy for the 72 lives lost. They have made the case tenaciously. Without a requirement in the Bill for regular inspections, this key component in support of the Bill’s intentions could evaporate. Without a basis in law, the regulator could not be challenged in the courts if it failed to inspect an organisation large or small. The Grenfell families want to ensure that their efforts have made a difference, and this needs to be evidenced by a legal duty for the regulator to conduct regular, routine inspections.

Meetings have been held with the Minister and the Bill team. As a result, the Government devised Amendments 22 and 38, which come close to fulfilling the ambitions of Grenfell United and its supporters at Shelter. They require the regulator to make a plan for regular inspections, spelling out the basis for them, their frequency and their variations for different cases and circumstances, and they ensure proper consultation with tenants and their representatives.

The Minister has been involved with Grenfell families for many years and is clearly deeply committed to meeting their wishes in so far as she is able. The new government amendments on inspections are intended to secure the outcome sought by Grenfell United and I am extremely grateful to the Minister for bringing them forward. It may be that, on reflection, further tweaks would be helpful when the Bill moves through its Commons stages—Shelter’s excellent briefing on this theme illustrates possible additional refinements— but at this moment I am delighted to support the Government’s amendments and will not take my Amendment 17 to a vote.

In conclusion, I hope that all those who have suffered so much as a result of the disgracefully poor management of those Grenfell homes will recognise that it is their efforts that have improved the Bill in this regard. More than this, it is their perseverance, eloquence and sincerity that have led to this whole legislative change. Because of their courage and perseverance, hundreds of thousands of those living in social housing will now benefit from the significant extra dimensions to their protection from poor landlords that this Bill will accomplish.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Thornhill is not well and is unable to be here today. She put her name to the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just spoken, so I am speaking on her behalf as much as anything.

These amendments are really important, because at the heart of the debate is the safety of social housing tenants. It is a similar debate to the one we have just had about whether there should be more professional qualifications for housing managers. Like that one, it is based on the social housing White Paper, in which the Government have suggested introducing Ofsted-style inspections for social landlords. This is, in essence, what the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, proposes. In mandating inspections but leaving their frequency to the Secretary of State, and allowing them to exempt certain providers, Amendment 17 is robust but workable.

There was widespread support across the House for the same amendment in Committee, with organisations such as the National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing welcoming stronger and more proactive regulation of the consumer standards. As the CIH stated in its briefing, it is vital that the regulator has the resources to undertake these inspections. Ultimately, these inspections will help not only to avoid the catastrophic lapses in safety that led to the Grenfell tragedy—among others, but obviously Grenfell is by far the worst—but to strengthen the ability of the social housing sector to provide warm, secure and affordable housing.

The Government have tabled Amendments 22 and 38, and the Minister has again shown that she is listening and seeking to respond to what was said in Committee. But in the opinion of these Benches, the government amendments do not appear as robust as the one tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best. Inspections are not mandated; rather, the plan must outline whether they “should” take place and at what frequency. The regulator

“must take appropriate steps to implement the plan.”

Perhaps the Minister can outline what the steps could be. What are these “appropriate steps”? What teeth does the regulator have to implement inspections? Will the Government review these provisions to determine whether they have been successful or whether further steps will need to be taken to make sure that inspections are happening? What timeframe will we see for the plan? When will it be published and how often should it be reviewed? There are lots of questions, and lots of answers are needed if we are to be able to judge whether the proposals from the Government are sufficiently robust.

Given that tenants, providers and the Government all seem to agree on the need for more proactive regulation, we on these Benches hope that the government amendments will be all that is necessary for inspections to be frequent and effective. We just hope that we will not look back and wish we had used this opportunity to further strengthen the law on this issue, as the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, would allow us to do.

I want to end the debate in this House on this very important Bill by recognising, as others have done, the powerful commitment that Grenfell United has made to making the Government and the rest of us understand the importance of social housing being of the highest quality and safe and secure, with managers who know what they are doing and with a regulator who has teeth. None of us ever again wants to be party to a terrible tragedy like that which occurred in June 2017.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Best

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Best (CB)]

In the absence of others, I rise to speak to Amendments 94A, 94B and 97A, which seek to strengthen the hand of the new homes ombudsman. At Second Reading, I congratulated the Government on introducing this new dispute resolution service. I noted just how important it was for consumers to have an accessible and effective means of handling their numerous complaints against shoddy workmanship, building defects and appalling service in rectifying these problems, not least by the oligopoly of volume housebuilders.

My concern has been that the new homes ombudsman will not have sharp enough teeth to deal with these powerful players, and at Second Reading I posed a number of questions to the noble Lord the Minister accordingly. He was able to give me some reassurance on the independence of the new ombudsman from the industry. The housebuilders will be required to fund the ombudsman’s costs and will have a major say on the New Homes Quality Board, which will oversee the ombudsman service and agree the code of practice to be used, but the Minister assured me that the independence of the ombudsman will be preserved.

Subsequently, I have received a lengthy and extremely helpful briefing from the chair of the New Homes Quality Board, Natalie Elphicke MP. From that it is clear that considerable effort has gone into ensuring the genuine independence of the new arrangements from the influences of the housebuilding industry. I am grateful for those reassurances and for other details of the work that has been going on behind the scenes, which I hope will now receive the publicity it deserves.

Only Parliament in statute can endow the ombudsman with legal powers, and two of my amendments before the Committee today are intended to bolster the ombudsman’s jurisdiction to achieve better behaviour by the housebuilders. At present, the Bill makes provision for the ombudsman to make “make recommendations” about changes that developers and housebuilders should make to improve standards of conduct or standards of quality of work where,

“following the investigation of a complaint the ombudsman identifies widespread or regular unacceptable standards of conduct or standards of quality of work”.

This is good stuff, and making recommendations to this end is an admirable task for the ombudsman. However, making recommendations is not the same as placing requirements upon the builders to up their game. Amendments 94A and 94B add a power for the ombudsman to go further and place “improvement requirements” on the members of the scheme—that is on all the builders and developers selling homes, where widespread unacceptable standards of conduct or quality of work are found.

Amendment 97A seeks to strengthen the ombudsman’s hand in another way. At present, the remit of the ombudsman only covers any faults, defects, snagging problems and so on during the first two years after a new-build home is purchased. Certain defects that emerge after two years would be the subject of a claim under the 10-year warranty, which is a compulsory part of the sales process. The trouble with this cut-off of two years for the ombudsman is that the warranties thereafter do not cover all kinds of issues that may not be catastrophic defects but are, none the less, aggravating problems that can cause endless anxiety, annoyance and cost to the purchaser.

One example is that roofs are not covered when properties are converted into new homes. A more commonplace example might be a buyer trying to get a French window repaired or replaced who raises this with the builder within the first few months but does not take it to a formal complaint to the ombudsman until after the two-year time limit is up. Or the buyer has a plumbing problem that gets fixed but returns, gets worse and finally leads to an ombudsman complaint, only to discover that the issue is now too late to be considered.

Amendment 97A would enable the owner to take a complaint to the ombudsman up to six years after the property was first purchased, where the complaint cannot be dealt with under the warranty. It will not be possible to complain about the warranty to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles redress in relation to warranty providers, because these warranties do not cover snagging and minor defects. Most warranties are pretty tightly drawn and some are worse than others. There is a strong case for giving the ombudsman the power to insist upon all warranties satisfying proper quality standards.

But specifically in relation to the housebuilders, what the consumer needs is for their complaint about the multiplicity of things that the builder gets wrong to be handled by the new homes ombudsman without the buyer being told that they are out of time. The purchaser may simply have been giving the builder the benefit of the doubt, or the particular defect may not have emerged immediately, or the buyer was just not sure of their rights. Two years is simply not long enough. Six years matches the traditional time for liability in other circumstances, as in the Defective Premises Act. The Legal Ombudsman, for example, will investigate claims up to six years after a relevant incident is reported.

While not detracting from my congratulations to the Government on bringing forward the proposals that will create a much-needed new homes ombudsman service, I believe that these amendments—which would place requirements for better behaviour on all house- builders and support the consumer for six years, instead of two, after their purchase—would sharpen the ombudsman’s teeth and help ensure that the new arrangements can make a real difference to the performance and behaviour of this industry.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we were waiting for the government Minister to introduce his amendments, so that we can then respond.