Shelter Briefing: Social Housing (Regulation) Bill Committee Stage

Five years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the Government has introduced the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, which represents a real opportunity to provide fairness and accountability for people living in social housing.

Shelter are campaigning, alongside Grenfell United, to ensure that the Bill is robust enough to truly deliver on promises to provide a proactive system of regulation that effectively holds social landlords to account.

The removal of the ‘serious detriment test’, the introduction of stronger enforcement powers, and the power for the Social Housing Regulator to arrange emergency repairs are changes within the Bill that are all strongly welcomed by Shelter.

However, to truly meet the promises made to tenants after the Grenfell Tower fire, the Bill must be amended to:

Ensure the Regulator conducts routine, ‘Ofsted-style’, inspections of social housing landlords, as promised in the Government’s Social Housing White Paper.

See Lord Best’s amendment (17) here

Ensure that senior managers who work for social landlords are properly trained and qualified to manage social housing.

See Baroness Hayman’s amendment (23) here