Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I broadly support the Bill, but as it stands its scope is clearly too narrow to address the crisis in social housing, as I think the Secretary of State accepts.

I would like to focus briefly on one issue. The Bill proposes a new access to information scheme, which would make social housing providers more accountable to their tenants and regulator. However, it appears that the scheme falls short of making social housing providers truly accountable as council providers have to be, as it does not bring social housing providers under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Without being subject to that Act, social housing providers can refuse and have refused to be transparent about important elements of their business practices, even though they are receiving public money through rent and support.

Indeed, in 2021 Greater Manchester Law Centre ran an investigation into covid evictions in which it sent freedom of information requests to 23 social housing providers across Greater Manchester. It found that six social housing providers claimed not to be classified as public authorities and that they were therefore not subject to freedom of information requests—they refused to answer. Some 13 failed to reply at all. It is clear that the Bill must be amended to make social housing providers subject to the 2000 Act. I hope that the Secretary of State and Minister will make that simple yet necessary amendment as the Bill proceeds to Committee.

More widely, I have serious concerns that the Bill fails to address the crisis. When the news broke of the shocking and tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale, I am sure that, like me, many Members were shocked to their core. Little Awaab’s lungs had been exposed to damp and mould in the flat where he lived with his family, and it was found that his death was directly linked to those poor living conditions. The court recently heard that Awaab’s family battled the problems at their home for a number of years, even before Awaab was born. Indeed, they had filed a disrepair claim against the housing association.

What is clear is that Awaab’s death should have brought great anger to this country—one of the richest economies in the world. It should have been a moment of reckoning: the instigation of a national mission for decent homes that would have seen the rapid deployment of Government funding to build new homes and bring existing ones to a decent standard. But sadly, I do not think we have yet seen such promises from the Government—indeed, we face threats of further austerity over the coming weeks. Although the Bill suggests a regime of routine inspections of social housing, we have yet to see any detail about how that will actually be delivered and funded.

Along with other Salford MPs and our city Mayor, I wrote to all our housing providers because we were extremely worried. We asked for urgent reports detailing the quality and condition of each of the properties that our housing associations manage, evaluated against the decent homes standard. But the fact is that years of effective cuts and freezes on rents without Government funding to match have meant that housing associations often do not have the resources to inspect properties routinely, let alone upgrade them regularly to the standard required.

Let us also remember that in 2010 funding for new social rented housing stopped completely and that an affordable rent tenure was introduced, in which homes are rented at up to 80% of their market rent. As Inside Housing has reported, although many housing associations tried to use their own funds to keep building some social rented homes, in 2010 nearly 36,000 social rented homes were started; the next year, after funding cuts, that number reduced to just over 3,000. The National Housing Federation and Crisis have shown recently in their research that 90,000 new social rented homes need to be built every year, but a lack of funding has meant that only about 5,000 are being built.

In the meantime, how can any of us in this House be sure that our local residents are not living in the same conditions as little Awaab’s family, stuck in old, unsuitable properties that are riddled with issues? The fact is that at the moment we cannot be sure, because unless our residents come to us directly we do not know. When that occurs, it is usually because they feel they have not been listened to. They have tried everybody else first and felt that every single door has been shut firmly in their face.

Although we of course all have positive success stories of issues being addressed quickly by housing associations—I have worked with some brilliant housing association personnel in Salford—we also have myriad cases in which they have not been dealt with, there is not enough funding to deal with the issues, or the resident needs to be rehoused and there is simply nothing suitable available for them.

It would take me many hours to go through my list of cases, but let me give a few examples. I have cases of young families living in high-storey tower blocks without baths for their children because there are no suitable properties for their needs and they have been put in properties that are suitable for those with medical needs and given wet rooms instead. I have residents who have been told that they cannot open the windows at their properties properly because the window is too heavy and might fall out.

I have residents living in freezing buildings this winter where all the cladding has been removed but not yet replaced because the Government at first refused to fund its replacement. The local housing association had to secure a loan to carry out the works, and now structural issues have been identified that need urgent repair. Not only were the residents refused Government help during the fire safety crisis in the first instance, but there is now no additional Government support for them as they face a winter of sky-high energy costs because their buildings have no cladding. Many report to me that they are now just not putting the heating on, which is quite frightening.

I also have reports of people battling mice and rats. They should be moved out of their properties but there are no other houses available to put them in. I have elderly people with mobility issues who have been placed in upstairs flats when they need a ground-floor property to have any semblance of quality of life. Again, no suitable properties are available.

The list is endless. Social housing has been fundamentally crushed by this Government over the past 10 years. In the city of Salford alone we have almost 6,000 households on our housing register and there are 108 bids per property advertised. What does that mean? It means that families are crammed into unsuitable accommodation because there is simply nothing else available. Those who do get properties are supposedly the lucky ones who should be grateful for what they have received, while the housing team creaks under the volume of people who have not been so lucky and are desperate to find a decent home to live in.

As the cost of living crisis bites, a crisis is coming down the tracks this winter in the shape of social housing rent affordability. The Salford City Mayor and deputy mayor, along with Salford MPs, recently wrote to the Government to request a social rents freeze across the board and that they make available the funding to deliver this locally. We have yet to receive any semblance of a response from the Government.

Yes, I support the Bill. It goes some way towards regulating the sector, but it does not tackle the root causes of the problems that my local residents face, it will not provide the homes and repairs that they need now, and it will not ensure that a decent, warm, safe and secure home should be a right for all. Only a change in Government will do that.