Social Housing and Regulation Bill (First sitting)

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Dehenna Davison]

As I have just outlined, I will write to the hon. Member to pick up her point following today’s sittings.

The focus of the Regulator of Social Housing is on regulating the standards for registered providers of social housing. I believe that the regulator should remain focused on that vital role, and that greatly expanding its scope to include temporary accommodation could be a significant risk to its expertise. I do not believe that expanding the scope of the regulator into those areas, as proposed by the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, is the right way to address them. The regulator should continue to focus on ensuring that registered providers provide safe and high-quality social housing for tenants and on delivering the new consumer regime.

On that basis, I ask the shadow Minister to consider withdrawing his amendments today, but with a commitment from me to follow up with him before Report to see whether anything more can be done.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their compliments about me and my Bill. No doubt we will be debating it in one of these Committee Rooms in the not too distant future.

One concern about the position on supported housing is the number of regulators that get involved already. There is almost a confusion of regulation. There is another problem: as we legislators seek to plug gaps, the rogue landlords seek alternative ways of making huge amounts of money. We already know that nearly £1 billion in housing benefit was paid out last year on supported housing in exempt accommodation. Clearly, that was for people who are vulnerable and need help and support. They are from a wide variety of different backgrounds. They might be recovering drug addicts; they might be people who became temporarily homeless or people who have had mental or physical health problems. I could go through a long list of people, but they are vulnerable and need help and support.

However, I have a concern about the proposed amendments. They seek to plug a gap, but are they comprehensive enough? We need more discussion to make sure we have a comprehensive measure that includes everything and makes it clear who the regulator is. Given the interventions by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, we want to make sure, as a Committee and as legislators, that the laws we introduce are actually enforced.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

The shadow Minister made a very interesting point, and I believe his case has some merit. We have invested in pilots in several areas of the country so that we can explore the case more fully. When the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee looked at the procedure, there was some frustration on the part of Members about the fact that we cannot easily compartmentalise the breadth of people who are supported in the accommodation, so a range of organisations have oversight of the quality of the accommodation provided, supported or otherwise. We need further work to be done through the pilots to make sure that any intervention we make does not have unintended consequences for the providers who provide excellent quality supported accommodation.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, while the amendments may have good intentions, he makes a good point. We do not want the good providers, who are doing a fantastic job in supporting people to rebuild their lives, to face unnecessary burdens and regulation. It behoves the movers of amendments such as these to ensure that we have covered all those bases.

We must therefore ask: even though the amendments look superficially beneficial, do we have a comprehensive series of measures that plugs all the loopholes and does not burden good providers? Rogue providers are smart; they will look at any gaps in the law and for all opportunities to exploit the system and vulnerable people. The sensible thing would be to withdraw the amendment and have further discussion so that, together, on a cross-party basis, we can make sure that the Bill ends up in the right place.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. At the moment, we have two things going on. First, we have exempt accommodation, where private property developers access vulnerable people and place them in houses in multiple occupation, cream off large amounts of housing benefit and provide no support to those individuals. They are exploited and left until the police, in many cases, or mental health services come along and take them away. Secondly, neighbourhoods are completely terrorised by people who are vulnerable but unable to control their behaviour, and absolutely nobody regulates that.

I represent a suburban south-west London constituency. Do not get me wrong; properties are not cheap, but they are cheaper than in other bits of London. Companies such as Stef & Philips are exploiting wholesale every loophole and making large amounts of money to bring fear and distress to neighbourhoods and to the residents who occupy those premises.

Last week, a lady who lives in the Pollards Hill area came to my surgery. The 1930s semi-detached house next door to her had been converted into an HMO for five vulnerable tenants. There were no bins to collect the rubbish and no facilities to ensure people could live adequately. She lives next door and has cancer. One of the residents in that home had pulled a knife on her only the day before, and all the other vulnerable tenants in the house had to stay locked in their rooms to avoid that individual. Stef & Philips are making hundreds or thousands of pounds every week from that property.

In Ravensbury, another ward in my constituency, on Malmesbury Road, the same company had a man who was so vulnerable that the police raided the property and had to withdraw because he had a crossbow and they needed firearms support. The whole street was blocked off. That is St Helier estate, for any hon. Members who may know it. It is a beautiful local authority estate built after the first world war to provide homes fit for heroes. The house is beautiful, but not as an HMO for five vulnerable people. People in the street are terrified. Who knows how terrified the other residents in the property are? The company’s balance sheet goes up and up while people go out to work to pay ever-higher tax rates to sustain that company in exploiting people.

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[Bob Blackman]

The hon. Member is making a very clear case about the problems in her constituency. One problem that local authorities face is that they have no powers to prevent such properties from being turned over in this way. Does she agree that one issue we have to deal with, which is not addressed in this amendment, is that local authorities need powers? Those powers might be around planning permission to do with HMOs and HMO regulation, to control the type of housing that she quite rightly describes as being a challenge in her area; or they might be over a licensing system to make sure that the operators of supported housing projects are fit and proper persons who will not exploit their position.

Further, data-sharing should be spread across the country. These rogues might well jump from Merton to Croydon to somewhere else, because they know that the local authority does not know about them. However, that is not within the scope of the amendment, although it is in the scope of my Bill, which I will be debating later. Although we would all agree that the issues that the hon. Member has raised are a scandal and need to be addressed, we must be clear that that is not within the scope of the amendment.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I believe that the regulator should have power to look at this area of housing. It is all very well for councils to get more powers, and I would be the first to agree with that, but many councils already have a lot of powers that they cannot use because they cannot afford to. They do not have access to social housing units. They do not have access to the level of environmental health officers that they need. They do not have access to the number of planning officers they need in the area of planning enforcement.

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Given the social housing deficit that exists in the country and the need for more accurate data to properly address whether the supply of social housing in England and Wales is sufficient to meet reasonable demands, we believe there is a strong case for placing this additional duty on the regulator. I hope the Minister will rethink the Government’s position on this issue and new clause 2, or at least take away the arguments I have made and give further thought to how we might address the issues raised by both the new clauses.

[Bob Blackman]

I agree with the shadow Minister that the provision of affordable social housing in this country is far too low. It has been far too low for far too long. That has been the case not just under this Government, but under successive Governments for more than 30 years.

The shadow Minister has put forward his case, and he quoted one report claiming that 145,000 units are required per year. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and I have always taken the view that 90,000 units per year would be required just to get us back to where we should be. From that perspective, it is clear that there needs to be more investment in affordable social housing, and we need to get to a point where people have a place they can call home, a rent that they can afford, and the option to buy when their circumstances allow.

The new clauses seem to put extra burdens on the regulator, for example by requiring them to report on the amount of social housing there should be in this country. I do not think that is an appropriate role for the regulator. It is right that organisations, such as those the shadow Minister quoted—Shelter, Crisis, CIH and others—should be reporting and commenting to Government, but I do not think it is the role of the regulator to report to Government.

I think the role of the regulator is quite clearly to report on the condition of social housing. I hope as we go through the Bill—and I will challenge the Secretary of State on this particular issue—we will see some amendments that strengthen the role of the regulator to ensure that social housing providers are performing as they should be. That means providing a high-quality standard of accommodation. We have heard about what has happened in Rochdale, but the issue of the condition of property is not confined to Rochdale. It goes up and down the country.

We need to see dramatic improvements in the provision of not only the quantity of social housing, but the conditions within those units. It is a sheer scandal in this country that we are paying huge salaries to social housing providers who are pocketing the money while providing a very poor service for their tenants. We need to call them to account. I believe that comes through the role of the regulator. That is the way it should be. I hope we can see some strengthening of the Bill on that point through Government amendments, at least when we get to Report stage.

On safety defects, there is clearly an issue about data, performance and the funding of removing unsafe cladding and dealing with fire safety defects. The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will know that I have been on this case for quite some time—since before Grenfell. One of the key issues here is about whether the regulator should be reporting on it, but frankly I think the regulator should be enforcing it. They should be making sure the providers actually do their job of providing safe accommodation for people.

While I recognise that the new clauses are well-intentioned, I do not think they hit the nub of where we need to be going. I hope the Government will come forward with some new clauses to strengthen the Bill when we get to Report stage, particularly in light of the scandal in Rochdale and the conditions people are facing up and down the country.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Thank you, Sir Edward, for your generosity in calling me. I realise I registered quite late that I wanted to speak.

Why are we sitting here in this Bill Committee today? We are sitting here because, under the coalition Government’s bonfire of the quangos, we set fire to the housing inspectorate and the Audit Commission in the belief that no regulation of damp or mould growth in properties was required, that all the adjudicator had to do was look at the financial structure of housing associations, and that that would be enough. What a terrible error that has been.

In my constituency, the largest social housing provider is Clarion Housing Association. After an ITV news programme about some of its standards, it was referred to the regulator. The regulator’s decision was that it could not investigate because there was not a systemic problem. That is where we have got to. How many of us were distressed by Awaab Ishak’s death? How many of us know that we have plenty of social housing units in our constituencies with the same damp and mould growth problems? At the moment we have no form of regulation that can tackle that.

The adjudicator does not go out and look at properties or inspect procedures. The adjudicator is interested in the financial structures. I would never argue that we should not look at the financial viability of a housing association, but I also want to know what it does when it has problems of damp and mould growth. I want to know that a Government inspector goes out and sample-tests and looks at properties.

We would never accept an Ofsted that did not inspect schools or a Care Quality Commission that did not go in and inspect hospitals, care homes or local authority social services, but we have accepted that the regulator has no responsibility for going into social housing properties and inspecting their conditions.

When we look at reducing regulation, we must remember Awaab Ishak, and remember that we do not have a regulator in our country that would do anything about that.

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[Bob Blackman]

The shadow Minister is making a good point. We want to empower tenants, but his proposal could have an unintended consequence. Supposing tenant representatives on the board cannot agree among themselves who will be the chair, the panel could meet, but obviously that would be a difficult situation. There may potentially be social tenants from various parts of the country, representing different organisations. It is therefore not appropriate to prescribe a chair on the face of the Bill; that would defeat the objective. It might well be that we could find some suitable wording about the number of representatives, but I do not think we should force the panel to have a particular individual or representative as the chair.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The point about obvious issues around tenant representation and selection is well made, although those issues exist for the quality residents panel and the 250 members it selects. They have existed every time we have tried to create a body that gives voice to residents, so I do not think they are insurmountable. I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman thinks a minimum level of tenant representation on the panel is a good thing, and I urge the Government to think again about that.

We ultimately want to achieve tenant empowerment on the advisory panel so that tenants can be confident that, when the advisory panel gives information and advice to the regulator about the new system of regulatory standards, its voice is properly heard and it can bring issues to the attention of Ministers if required. I hope the Government will take away the points we have made about the amendments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

We welcome the Government’s decision, in response to concerns raised during the passage of the Building Safety Act 2022, to carry out a consultation on the introduction of mandatory checks on electrical installations for social housing at least once every five years and to include measures within this Bill to partially implement such checks—only partially, because the section of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 that this clause seeks to amend is concerned with properties let by landlords, not owner-occupier leaseholders. That is an important distinction, for reasons I will explain.

As we know, there is currently no legal requirement in England for social landlords or leaseholders to undertake electrical safety checks of their dwellings. The situation is distinct from that in the private rented sector, where the Housing and Planning Act introduced mandatory safety checks on electrical installations at least once every five years.

We know that fires in numerous tower blocks, including Grenfell, Shepherd’s Court, and Lakanal House, were caused by electricity. Home Office fire data shows a consistently high level of accidental electrical fires in high-rise buildings with 10 or more flats. Campaign groups such as Electrical Safety First have been at pains to stress that those buildings were mixed-tenure buildings containing an assortment of owner-occupier leasehold and social rented units and that there is therefore a case, given that the fire safety of a building depends on the safety of all the units within it, for ensuring parity in electrical safety standards across all tenures in high-rise residential blocks.

The Government’s own consultation on this issue noted that the National Federation of ALMOs supported introducing electrical safety requirements for owner-occupiers in mixed-tenure blocks and highlighted that properties being considered by authorities for London’s right to buy-back programme often have electrical installations that are

“in a state of significant disrepair.”

Given that we know that many high-rise social housing blocks contain owner-occupied flats owned on a leasehold basis, it surely cannot be right that a leaseholder living next door to a social renter will not have their electrical installations mandated to be checked every five years. To put it another way, what good is having the electrical installations of two thirds of a building checked every five years if the other third is not? The risk of a potentially life-threatening fire obviously does not discriminate by tenure.

[Bob Blackman]

This is a very significant point, particularly with what happened at Grenfell. We should reflect on that carefully. Who does the hon. Gentleman suggest should carry out the inspections and how would they be enforced? One of the problems that is clearly still relevant is people buying second-hand white goods that are not safety checked, which could then be faulty and cause electrical fires. In his research, has the hon. Member come up with any proposals as to how this measure could be implemented and work could be undertaken?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point—it is a point well made. I do not have a comprehensive answer to hand. There are provisions in this clause that apply to mandatory electrical safety checks for social rented properties. There are similar requirements in place for the private rented sector. My instinct is that it would seem obvious that those could be applied to the owner-occupier sector in a way that the provisions in the clause perhaps could not be. Whatever way we cut it, what we want to see are mandatory checks on all electrical installations in all units in high-rise buildings, because, as I said, fire does not discriminate between tenure. I hope the Minister will take the points away for further consideration.

Social Housing and Regulation Bill [ LORDS ] (Second sitting)

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)]

As I said on Second Reading, the Government are fully committed to driving up housing management standards by improving the professional behaviours, skills and capabilities of all staff in the sector. The Grenfell tragedy and our subsequent social housing Green Paper consultation highlighted the fact that many staff did not listen to or treat residents with respect, provide a high-quality service or deal appropriately with complaints. The circumstances surrounding the death of Awaab Ishak have once again shown the tragic consequences that can occur when staff lack empathy and when tenants are not listened to. That is why clause 21 makes provision to enable the Secretary of State to direct the regulator of social housing to set standards for the competence and conduct of social housing staff. Registered providers will be required to comply with specified rules concerning the knowledge, skills and experience of social housing staff. They will also be required to comply with specified rules concerning the conduct expected of such individuals when dealing with tenants. Those factors are crucial in determining the quality of services provided to tenants.

Our approach offers a holistic solution to the issue of professionalisation. It champions the value of skills, knowledge and experience, and maintains landlords’ flexibility in choosing the most appropriate training programmes and qualifications to equip their workforces. The standards set under this clause will ensure that social housing staff develop the core skillsets and behaviours required to treat tenants with the empathy and respect that they deserve. They will also empower staff to take appropriate action to support tenants.

New clause 4, tabled by the shadow Minister, takes a different approach to achieving professionalisation. It gives the Secretary of State the power to stipulate, through regulations, that a person

“may not engage in the management of social housing or in specified work in relation to the provision of social housing unless he or she—

(a) has appropriate professional qualifications, or

(b) satisfies specified requirements.”

As both myself and the Secretary of State set out on Second Reading, there is a real risk that mandating qualifications for all housing management staff would lead to the reclassification of housing associations to the public sector. The sector is close to the threshold for reclassification, and we saw that happen in 2015. Since then, a number of deregulatory measures have had to be taken before housing associations could be reclassified back to the private sector.

To make this point very clear, reclassification would bring around £90 billion of debt and all housing association annual spending on to the public ledger, and would likely reduce the ability of housing associations to improve the quality of their stock and build new homes. We have to be mindful of that risk and that outcome, which could be harmful to tenants.

However, we have listened carefully to the arguments made both in this House and the other place in support of mandatory qualifications. As I committed to do on Second Reading, I met with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) to discuss this issue before the Bill reached Committee stage. We are continuing to look at whether there is any scope to include qualifications requirements in the competence and conduct standards without triggering reclassification. If we can identify a solution, then we will be able to bring that forward on Report.

We continue to believe that the existing provisions in the Bill, which will enable us to direct the regulator to set standards for the competence and conduct of all staff, will be an effective means of professionalising the sector. Our approach has been informed by the findings of our professionalisation review, which we will publish in full early next year. There is no doubt that housing management qualifications are an important aspect of professional development for some staff. Our review heard no clear evidence that such qualifications in and of themselves lead to better staff behaviours or improved tenant experiences. Qualifications such as those offered by the Chartered Institute of Housing will be an important part of how landlords ensure their staff have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours they need to deliver professional services, as required by the competence and conduct standards. Qualifications will sit alongside external and in-house training and more informal developmental tools such as staff supervision, mentoring and reflective practice.

Our review findings echoed what we heard after the Grenfell tragedy and more recently in relation to the death of Awaab Ishak—that what tenants most want and need is for all of the staff they deal with, whether housing managers, officers, or contact centre staff, to treat them with respect and empathy, to listen carefully and take appropriate and timely actions in response to their issues and concerns. We heard that these behaviours, and the interpersonal skills and attitudes that underlie them, are more likely to be achieved through a combination of organisational culture change led by senior executives and boards, adoption of codes of ethics and values, delivery of bespoke on-the-job training and effective supervision by experienced staff, than they are necessarily by formal qualifications.

The review also highlighted how important flexibility is in designing staff development programmes, given the sector’s diverse structures, operating models, role types, and breadth of service provision. Mandating qualifications for all housing management staff could hinder landlords in delivering the right mix of qualifications, training and development for their staff. Through the review we also heard that mandating qualifications for all staff would likely add to the recruitment and retention challenges faced by many landlords. Recruiting staff who have the right attitudes and aptitudes is more important to building a caring and empathetic workforce than employing people who possess formal qualifications. So we are concerned about the recruitment issues in that regard.

The standards that we are bringing forward will drive a holistic and organisation-wide approach to professional development, and deliver the empathetic, forward-looking and professional housing services the sector deserves, with staff who treat tenants with respect and act swiftly to remedy issues.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dehenna Davison]

Two to choose from—I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East.

[Bob Blackman]

The clause refers to the standards and competence that we expect to be achieved in this sector, and the amendment goes further and expands on them. However, it is silent on sanctions when they are not achieved. It is all very well having qualified people, but, if they do not perform properly, sanctions have to be available and directions by the Secretary of State should be possible. I wonder whether my hon. Friend will look at how we might strengthen the position when we get to Report stage.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will respond to him and then perhaps I will have answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North wanted to ask. It is right that the regulator must have the right powers in place to deal with breaches of its standards. With regard to competence and conduct, the Bill enables the regulator to require providers to produce and implement a performance improvement plan to be approved by the regulator. If a provider fails to implement a plan, the regulator can issue an enforcement notice and levy an unlimited fine if that notice is not complied with. So the regulator will have teeth to ensure the kind of conduct that we expect. I hope that that answers the question from one hon. Friend.

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The Government did the right thing in inserting clause 21 into the Bill, but they must go further. The Minister says the Government are in listening mode. I suspect that Ministers are minded to push much further on this matter. We look forward to seeing what they bring back.

[Bob Blackman]

The shadow Minister is applying quite a long list of prescriptions, and I think Members on both sides of the Committee would probably agree with much of what he is saying. One of the problems with putting such provisions into the Bill is that they are very difficult to amend at a future time. I accept that what he is proposing now is that regulations “may” be made; I wonder whether a better approach might be for a Government amendment to set out that regulations may be made. The prescription he has put in his new clause could then be made under regulation and, therefore, be easier to amend in the event that matters change. Otherwise, we would have to introduce primary legislation.

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[Dehenna Davison]

Clause 29 commits the regulator to the delivery of regular inspections by providing it with a duty to publish, and take reasonable steps to implement, a plan for regular inspections. The clause will reinforce the regulator’s commitment to deliver the policy objective set by the social housing White Paper, while ensuring the regulator has the freedom to design the inspections regime following engagement with the sector.

As members of the Committee know, a key part of our efforts to drive consumer standards is the introduction of routine inspections by the regulator for the largest landlords. Inspections will help the regulator to hold landlords to account and intervene where necessary, ultimately driving up the quality of homes and services provided to tenants. That measure is integral to the success of the proactive consumer regime facilitated by the Bill.

However, I cannot accept amendment 16, which seeks to introduce a specific duty for the regulator to conduct inspections of all RPs every four years. As I have said, clause 29 puts the Government and the regulator’s shared commitment to inspections into legislation, through requiring the regulator to publish and take reasonable steps to implement an inspections plan. The clause also ensures that the regulator maintains a level of operational flexibility to allow it to respond on a risk basis to significant developments in the sector.

The regulator is committed to developing a robust approach to inspections, and continues to develop the details of how it will manage consumer inspections via a process of targeted engagement with the sector and social housing tenants. I do not feel that we should bind the regulator’s hands by putting into legislation detailed requirements about inspections that would pre-empt the work it is currently undertaking.

The system of inspections will be based on a risk profile to ensure that those landlords at greatest risk of failing, or where failure might have the greatest impact on tenants, are subject to greater oversight. As part of that provision, the regulator will aim to inspect landlords with more than 1,000 homes every four years. We will, of course, hold the regulator to account to deliver and implement its inspections plan, and the regulator continues to be accountable to Parliament for the delivery of its statutory objectives.

[Bob Blackman]

Clearly, the providers with the most complaints against them to the regulator will be placed most at risk. In my view, some could be subject to an annual inspection, while providers that are doing a really good job and do not warrant an inspection could be left, although, clearly, if there were complaints, the inspection could be brought forward. Is that my hon. Friend’s understanding of how this will work? Obviously, the regulator will have limited resources to ensure that standards are improved.

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I was pleased to work with the hon. Member for Harrow East on his Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 in a previous Parliament. As members of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, we saw evidence that a change in the duties on councils could make a real difference to the prevention of homelessness. I was also pleased to have his support for Georgia’s law, as I am naming the new clause, when I introduced it under the ten-minute rule earlier this year. This is a similar situation. A small change in duties could make a big difference to a very vulnerable group of people who need more support.

[Bob Blackman]

Does my hon. Friend—I classify her as my hon. Friend because we have co-operated on so many other things—not accept that one of the problems is the shortage of suitable accommodation? I had a similar event in my constituency: a family was encouraged by the police to seek alternative accommodation, the registered social landlord said, “We don’t have any,” and naturally there was a problem as a result. Does she accept that providing suitable accommodation within a reasonable distance that allows children to go school, perhaps, and the tenant to get to work will be very challenging? I wonder whether she has considered that she is putting the onus on the registered social landlord to provide that. They may not operate within suitable areas, or may not be able to get co-operation from another registered social landlord. Would it not be better to have a range of potential organisations that might provide accommodation in what are, as she said, exceptional circumstances, rather than putting the onus on the registered social landlord?

[The Chair]

Order. This is a very long intervention.

[Bob Blackman]

I understand that, Sir Edward, but this is an important issue that merits further explanation.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. The new clause would impose a duty of co-operation on registered social landlords, which is designed to deal exactly with such a circumstance, where accommodation cannot be found that is safe for the tenant within the area in which the current landlord holds property. These are of course very challenging cases. I have certainly come across constituency cases in which the tenant simply cannot bring themselves to move from their home because the consequences are so dire for them, even when an offer has been made in an area that is considered by the police to be safe for them.

The new clause will not resolve every single circumstance, but in Georgia’s case, when I phoned a senior director in her large registered housing provider she was provided with a new tenancy in a safe borough, and signed that tenancy within a week. With greater will on the part of registered providers, and I believe that placing a duty would prompt that greater will, much more can be done to stop the cycle of violence in our communities.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

May I start by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and, in particular, my role as a vice-president of the Local Government Association? That is an important starting point for why I so strongly welcome this Bill and commend the Government team, especially for new clauses 1 and 2, which are going to be the main focus of my contribution this afternoon.

It was immensely useful, and terrifying, having served as a London local authority councillor and as an office holder in the LGA, to see the things that we learnt about the regulation of our housing market following the Grenfell disaster. Local authorities across the country will welcome the fact that this Bill begins to bring a degree of definition to the situations where regulation that perhaps in the past had been vague could apply, and a greater degree of rigour, which enables a greater degree of accountability in respect of landlords who may be falling short in their responsibilities.

I wish to flag up the fact that some issues remain to be addressed, because although the model of Ofsted as a regulatory framework is a good one, the weakness of Ofsted is that it focuses its inspections through the role of the local authority and the local authority’s powers in a diverse and complex education market are limited, just as they are in the context of a very diverse and complex housing market. I would simply say that, following the situation at Grenfell where large numbers of landlords suddenly realised that they would be required to address quite serious safety issues, we saw a number of examples around the country where private landlords with substantial blocks that were entirely occupied by tenants on social leases through the local authority essentially put those blocks into liquidation and walked away. Therefore, there was a need for a local authority in those kinds of situations to step in. How we deal with perhaps sharp business practices by landlords, who may seek, under a single brand, to register large numbers of individual properties or developments separately to try to evade—at least to some degree—the scope of regulation will be an ongoing challenge, and one that we already face in the buy-to-let market.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the consultative way in which she has guided the Bill through the House. Having gone through the Lords and now reached Report, the Government have tabled four new clauses and a substantial number of amendments. What consideration is she giving to the consultation that will be needed on those new clauses with the organisations involved, to make sure we get the regulations right when she brings forward the secondary legislation?