Improving Social Housing Quality and Strengthening Tenant Voice

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)]

Alongside our commitment to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, the Government are determined to drive a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social housing.

The Government recognise that many social housing landlords provide safe and decent homes to their tenants, ensure they receive services that meet their needs, and act quickly to resolve complaints.

We appreciate the vital role that providers of social housing play, and we commend those who strive continuously to ensure they are fulfilling their core purpose and are treating their tenants with fairness and respect. We remain committed to working in partnership with the sector to improve the quality of life for those living in social housing across the country.

However, it is not in dispute that far too many tenants still live in homes that are not well managed or maintained and often struggle to secure adequate redress. English housing survey data makes clear that in 2023, 7% of social rented homes had a damp problem and 4% had hazards rated at the most dangerous category 1 level. It is imperative that we take action to address this indefensible situation.

This statement sets out the next steps the Government intend to take to clamp down on damp, mould and other hazards in social homes by introducing Awaab’s law to the social rented sector. It also updates the House on other measures we will introduce in due course to drive up the safety and quality of social homes.

Awaab’s law

I wish to pay tribute once again to the parents of Awaab Ishak, Faisal Abdullah and Aisha Amin. They have tenaciously and courageously fought to secure justice, not only for their son but for all of those who live in social housing.

Awaab’s law is vital legislation that will empower social tenants to hold their landlords to account using the full force of the law if they fail to investigate and fix hazards within their homes within set timescales. It will also allow tenants to access the housing ombudsman if their landlord does not adhere to strict timelines for action.

While progress is also dependent on a more fundamental change in the culture and values of social housing providers, Awaab’s law will play an integral role in ensuring that all social landlords take complaints about hazards seriously; respond to them in a timely and professional manner; and treat tenants with empathy, dignity and respect.

Over 1,000 responses to the consultation on Awaab’s law were received from social housing landlords, social housing tenants, industry experts and members of the public. The Government thank everyone who took the time to respond for their constructive engagement on this critical policy.

We have carefully considered all the responses submitted to the consultation and have been working closely with campaigners, social housing tenants, and social landlords to ensure the implementation of this landmark reform will be effective, proportionate and of lasting benefit to social housing tenants. We will publish shortly the full Government response to the consultation alongside further detail on Awaab’s law and guidance to support implementation.

The Government will bring Awaab’s law into force for the social rented sector from October this year. We intend to act as quickly as possible to bring all relevant hazards within the scope of new legal requirements, but to ensure its effective implementation we will implement Awaab’s law through a phased approach.

This sequencing will allow us to apply the protections that Awaab’s law provides to damp and mould earlier than would be the case if we sought to apply it to a wider group of hazards from the outset. It will also provide for an initial period of testing and learning to ensure the reform is being delivered in a way that benefits social tenants and secures the lasting legacy that Awaab Ishak’s family have fought so hard for. As we progressively extend the application of Awaab’s law, we will continue to test and learn to make sure the new legal requirements are operating effectively.

While we believe a phased approach is the best means of putting in place a law that works, we appreciate fully that both social landlords and tenants want clarity and certainty about when all hazards will be covered by Awaab’s law. The proposed phasing will be as follows:

From October 2025 social landlords will be required to address damp and mould hazards that present a significant risk of harm to tenants, within fixed timescales. From the same point in time, they will also have to address all emergency repairs, whether they relate to damp and mould or any other hazard, as soon as possible and within no longer than 24 hours.

In 2026, requirements will expand to apply to a wider range of hazards beyond damp and mould. The hazards we expect to extend Awaab’s law to in this second stage of implementation include excess cold and excess heat; falls; structural collapse; fire, electrical and explosions; and hygiene hazards.

Then in 2027, the requirements of Awaab’s law will expand to apply to the remaining hazards as defined by the HHSRS (excluding overcrowding). The full list of hazards can be found in schedule 1 to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (England) Regulations 2005.

It is important to stress that the phased approach to introducing Awaab’s law set out above in no way means that social landlords have any leeway when it comes to meeting their existing duties to address dangers to health and safety present in their homes before Awaab’s law is fully implemented.

Awaab’s law establishes timeframes for social landlords to act. It will also be enforceable through routes such as the housing ombudsman and, ultimately, the courts. However, social landlords already have a duty to keep their homes fit for human habitation and free of category 1 hazards and to remedy disrepair. The Government expect those duties to be met. Social landlords must ensure that their homes meet the decent homes standard, and it is critical that they take action as quickly as possible to resolve any issues of concern in the homes they let and to guarantee the safety and comfort of their occupants.

We intend to lay regulations in Parliament to implement Awaab’s law on the basis of the sequencing outlined above as quickly as possible and will work to provide the sector with clarity and the necessary time to prepare ahead of the damp and mould requirements coming into force in October. Precise timings on the commencement of each phrase will be set out in those regulations.

Transforming social housing and putting tenants at its heart

Every social housing tenant deserves to live in a home that is decent, safe and secure and to receive a high-quality service from their landlord. However, it is also critical that tenants have a strong voice and that more is done to build trust and transparency between landlords and tenants.

Change is already under way. Having listened and heard both the Grenfell community and the family of Awaab Ishak, we are acting on the lessons so painfully learned from these entirely preventable injustices.

Since April 2024 a new consumer regulatory regime has been in force for social housing. The regulator of social housing now proactively seeks assurances that registered providers are meeting the outcomes set by consumer standards and it has stronger powers to hold social landlords accountable for providing quality homes and services to their tenants.

The consumer standards not only require landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service, but also to take tenants’ views into account in their decision-making and give tenants a wide range of meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise their strategies, policies and services.

Alongside this, the Housing Ombudsman Service now has stronger powers and greater capacity to ensure social tenants have faster and easier access to redress when things go wrong, and that landlords take appropriate action when the ombudsman finds evidence of mismanagement.

In the coming months we will bring forward further reforms designed to drive up standards across social housing to build greater trust and transparency between landlords and tenants. The Government will:

Consult on a new decent homes standard and minimum energy efficiency standards, to ensure tenants’ homes are made safe, warm, and free from disrepair;

Legislate to require social landlords to carry out electrical safety checks at least every five years, as well as mandatory appliance inspections on all electrical appliances that are provided by the landlord;

Introduce new access to information requirements for private registered providers, so tenants can request information about the management of their homes, to support them in holding their landlords to account; and

Set new standards for the competence and conduct of staff, to ensure tenants are always treated with dignity and to support the creation of a thriving, professional and skilled social housing workforce.

We are also taking powers through the Renters’ Rights Bill to extend Awaab’s law to the private rented sector. We will be consulting in due course on how to apply Awaab’s law to privately rented homes in a way that works for the sector and is fair and proportionate for tenants and landlords.

Lastly, we must make sure that tenants’ voices are heard. We already have a range of initiatives in place including our social housing resident panel and our Four Million Homes tenant education programme and Make Things Right communications campaign, which supports tenants to better understand and exercise their rights. The Government are exploring what more might be done to strengthen tenant voice so that tenants can speak for themselves on a more equal footing with other interests and can more effectively influence policymaking and regulation.

[HCWS423]