Oral Answers to Questions

Elliot Colburn Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

I remind the hon. Lady that 99.75% of the electorate were able to vote successfully. I also remind her that it was the Electoral Commission that called for voter identification. It has existed in Northern Ireland for two decades and was introduced under a Labour Government, and it exists in most European countries.

On the hon. Lady’s point about ethnic minorities, everyone deserves fair and free elections, and it has been ethnic minorities in areas such as Tower Hamlets and Birmingham who have been the victims of electoral fraud.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

15. Whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure that social housing providers are accountable to tenants.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

We are taking action to improve the quality of social housing. The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, which received Royal Assent in July, will deliver transformative change across the sector, introducing proactive consumer regulation and rebalancing the relationships between landlords and tenants, ensuring that landlords are properly held to account for their performance.

[Elliot Colburn]

I welcome the steps the Government are taking to support people living in social housing, but many people in Carshalton and Wallington who live in social housing are still concerned about the level of service they receive from their providers. I have received complaints about a number of housing associations, including Liberal Democrat-run Sutton Council’s housing arm, Sutton Housing Partnership, and Metropolitan Thames Valley, which provides housing in Roundshaw. Will the Secretary of State assure those residents that they have somewhere to go when things go wrong?