Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the removal of the Regulator for Social Housing’s veto power over the registered provider status of organisations which are taken over, merge or fundamentally change their constitutions.

The Government removed the need for the Regulator of Social Housing to give consent for takeovers, mergers or other fundamental constitutional changes as part of a package of deregulatory measures to ensure that housing associations would remain classified as private bodies.

Measures included in the new Social Housing Regulation Bill ensure that the Regulator will continue to have clear sight of where these changes take place and is aware of the structure of registered providers after a change has occurred.