By Roger Jarman, HQN Associate.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill was presented to the Lords on 8 June. Boris Johnson was prime minister then and the Secretary of State at DLUHC was Michael Gove. Of course, a lot has happened since then but, perhaps remarkably, Gove finds himself back at his old department.

Indeed, he presented the bill to the House of Commons earlier this week following its successful passage through its stages in the Lords (7 November). The full debate can be found here.

During the interregnum there was some debate as to whether the Truss government would fully support the bill. Those concerns no longer apply as Gove pushes on with his reform agenda for social housing.

Doubly so, too, as the debate shows there is all-party support for these reforms. Indeed, there is every prospect of the bill achieving Royal Assent early next year, with the committee stage of the legislation due to be completed by 13 December. (The committee stage sees MPs scrutinising the bill on a line-by-line basis.)

In the debate, the opposition, led by Lisa Nandy as Gove’s shadow, pressed the government on three points.

First, Labour wants the advisory panel to be set up under the legislation to be tenant-led. This panel will advise the regulator on policy development and the conduct of its regulatory functions. Currently, landlords and others would be represented on the panel as well as tenants.

Secondly, Nandy welcomed the amendments inserted into the original bill in the Lords that would see the state promoting the professionalisation of the housing management function. Labour would carefully scrutinise the government’s proposals to ensure that housing staff are trained to both listen to tenants and give them the respect they deserve.

Thirdly, Labour would push for sufficient resources for the regulator to carry out its functions efficiently and effectively. Labour MPs particularly wanted to see significant resources allocated to the inspection function. (Later in the debate, MPs were advised that £4.6m had been allocated to the regulator in 2022/23 to take on its new functions.)

The focus on professionalisation was taken up by a number of those that contributed to the debate, including Theresa May, the former PM. Originally, this issue was being addressed by government and others as a separate stream of work and was not set to be part of the legislation. Its significance has been enhanced by its inclusion on the face of the bill.

Government interest in the professional training of housing staff raises several issues. This must raise questions of the role of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) which has been setting standards and overseeing the training of housing staff since, according to some, the days of Octavia Hill in the late nineteenth century. The CIH is working with the government on the current proposals.

Several MPs took up the concern expressed in some parts of government that state involvement in the professionalisation of the sector might prompt the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to, once again, re-classify housing associations as part of the public sector. In 2015/16, housing associations temporarily lost their status as private sector bodies because of the enhanced oversight of their operations by the government and its agents at that time.

Ministers are worried that another re-classification would place the £90bn debt accumulated by housing associations on the state’s balance sheet – obviously not a welcome prospect given the UK’s current fiscal fragility.

But the professionalisation of the sector is just one element of the bill that would see more state involvement in the operation of housing associations. The proposals to publish performance indicators (or tenant satisfaction measures) as well as the measures to introduce an equivalent to a freedom of information framework for housing associations are just two of many parts of the bill which might prompt a re-classification by the ONS.

During the debate, opposition MPs took the opportunity to berate the government for its failure to develop more social housing over its 12 years in office. This had led to an affordability crisis that is only getting worse. Labour MPs also took the opportunity to push their party’s policy objective to ensure social housing regains its place as the second largest tenure in the country (after owner occupation).

MPs from all sides recounted cases of where social landlords (but particularly housing associations) had delivered very poor services to their constituents. Some providers were ‘named and shamed’. The MPs welcomed the legislation as a key means by which housing management services in the country – and their own areas – could be improved.

In summing up for the opposition, Matthew Pennycock welcomed the Lords’ amendment which would impose a duty on the secretary of state to publish 12 months after Royal Assent a strategy for addressing ‘energy demand’ in the social housing sector (effectively a plan for achieving net zero in the sector by 2050 if not before).

However, government seems to be rowing back from the position it appeared to be taking in the Lords. Dehenna Davison (DLUHC minister) for the government advised the House that “we are considering the energy efficiency issue and will update the House shortly”.

The debate ended with Mark Francois (Tory MP) calling for a new name for the regulator. Of course, we had these debates in 2008/09 when eventually the name Tenant Services Authority (TSA) was chosen as the name for regulator.  The TSA is probably a good choice actually – given as we are winding the clock back to the 2000s with the changes being introduced by Gove and his colleagues.