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

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Dehenna Davison]

Absolutely—this is all about driving up standards. The plan is that the regulator will aim to inspect landlords with over 1,000 homes at least every four years, and those at highest risk could be subject to more frequent inspections. As I say, the regulator is doing detailed work to see how best to implement the measure, and it is important that we let it get on with that work before putting anything into the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the shadow Minister will withdraw the amendment.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I rise to support amendment 16 on the basis of 17 years’ experience of Ofsted. We know that unless a school knows that Ofsted is coming, problems begin. A substantial proportion of outstanding schools that were not inspected for five years have recently been graded as needing improvement. Organisations need to know that somebody is coming, and coming in a reasonable time.

I simply do not understand why we would oppose registered providers being inspected once every four years, or why we would choose to inspect large housing associations but not smaller ones. Are housing associations with 1,000 tenants or fewer not just as susceptible to poor standards, and are those residents not entitled to live under the same inspection regime?

If regulation just requires looking at the paperwork, things can be made to look brilliant. Who here has not been told by their housing provider that it does not have a problem because 80% of tenants say that its repairs system is fantastic? When we dig into the detail, we appreciate how few people respond to customer service requests and just how hard some of our constituents find it to complain or get themselves heard. We need a clear and strong inspection regime.

[Eddie Hughes]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. That is why we will do customer satisfaction surveys that have been agreed with the regulator. The format has been agreed. We will be able to compare housing associations and their relative performance in order to drill down and improve that performance. I understand her point, but the Government are making significant strides with the regulator to try to drive up customer and tenant engagement to ensure that we are genuinely getting the opinion of the majority, rather than a minority.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

That is not possible. We cannot construct a customer survey as emphatic or successful as that, because we have a broad span of residents and tenants, with different lives that determine whether they fill in forms. We as politicians, and people who deliver leaflets and get others to do so on our behalf, know that some people will always respond and others never will, even if, objectively speaking, they need to do so.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

Surely, if a tenant is aggrieved with the process, they are likely to fill in the survey response.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I have been an MP for 25 years and a member of the Labour party for 42 years. I am really interested in political communication and getting people to respond. I have to tell the hon. Member that a substantial number of people will never respond, and it is often those who live in the most dire circumstances. If we are serious about improving standards, we need the most structured inspection system that we can afford—I appreciate that it is public money.

I do not deny that anything done in the Bill is a step forward and an improvement, but if we are going to spend public money on behalf of some of our most vulnerable constituents, we want to make it the best-spent money that we can. Let us get it right. We are not starting with a clean piece of paper; we are starting with 17 years of experience with Ofsted and years of experience with the Care Quality Commission. We know a great deal about how inspection regimes work.

[Dehenna Davison]

On the point about making sure we get the system right, the hon. Lady mentioned public funds, which is clearly a crucial issue. That is precisely why the regime is being designed so that those who are most at risk will be inspected more frequently. That includes not just larger landlords but smaller landlords where there is a clear indication of issues that have been found previously. Inspections can also be done on a more reactive basis. If a report goes to the regulator to suggest that there is a specific issue with a smaller landlord, the risk profile will be there and the landlord could be inspected much more frequently.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I am glad that there will be reactive inspections. I am not suggesting that there should not be. What I am saying is that, along with reactive inspections, there should be a regular and rigid routine of inspections. That way, everybody knows that they will have an inspection once during a four-year period. That does not seem to me to be over-regulation, certainly given recent events in social housing stock.