By Roger Jarman

Michael Gove, DLUHC Secretary of State, has had a busy week or two. Primarily, he’s been dealing with the fallout from the tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died of respiratory failure while living in a flat owned and managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Homes (RBH). The flat was plagued by severe mould and condensation, which was the primary cause of death. The coroner’s report can be found here.

Following the tragedy, Gove wrote to all social housing providers reminding them of their responsibility to ensure their properties are fit for human habitation and, specifically, that their tenants live in homes that are free of mould and condensation.

Gove is also widely believed to be behind the sacking of RBH’s CEO and was directly responsible for cutting grant funding to the provider by £1m as a sanction for their failures over the Ishak case.

But the secretary of state has also been caught up in the split in the Tory Party on house building targets. The 2019 Conservative Party Manifesto set the incoming government a target to build 300,000 new homes of all tenures by the end of the parliament. The short-lived Truss government was revisiting the commitment, with ministers referring to the targets as ‘Stalinist’. (Question: does this mean that targets in the NHS, for instance, for patients to be seen in A&E within four hours or those linked to the control of immigration can also be denigrated by the same epithet?)

The debate on the relevant legislation – the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill – has been postponed as the wrangling within the governing party continues over this and other issues, including the potential relaxation of planning restrictions in England on the building of onshore wind turbines. (The Sunday press is suggesting that Gove himself seems to be supporting such a move.)

The set piece event of the week saw Gove in front of the Parliamentary DLHUC Committee last Monday (21 November). He was gently quizzed about the wide-ranging business of his department. Over almost two hours he took questions on social housing regulation (see below), housebuilding, the private rented sector, rough sleeping, building safety, planning, business rates and intergovernmental relations.

Gove was supremely confident in front of the committee and showed he was in command of his extensive brief. He had no outriders. No ministers or even civil servants were flanking him to offer advice or field difficult questions. His performance contrasted starkly with that of his fellow cabinet colleague Suella Braverman, who appeared before the Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday 23 November. She stumbled over her responses and deferred on several occasions to her official advisers.

As might be expected, most of the DLUHC Committee focussed on the regulation of social housing, given the apparent failures of RBH to keep safe one of its young residents. Surely an effective regulatory system should have prevented the death of Awaab Ishak, committee members asked.

Gove acknowledged the failings of the current regulatory system, but he was legislating to provide the RSH with “more teeth” when dealing with failing providers. He was especially keen to see tenants given a voice to raise concerns with their landlords and also to raise complaints through the Housing Ombudsman. He referenced the unlimited fines providers could face if they breached the consumer standards, although simultaneously acknowledged that the fines would take resources away from the sector.

Natalie Elphicke (Conservative, Dover) was particularly exercised that RBH had only last year secured a G1 rating from the regulator for its governance performance. She told the committee that the provider had set out that tenants raising issues with the Ombudsman or through solicitors would be classed as “behaving unreasonably” and as such would have access to the provider restricted. Gove concurred that this was unacceptable and reiterated that tenants must be listened to when raising concerns about the performance of their landlords.

At this juncture Gove revealed that he had written to six providers – housing associations, as it happens – that his department had judged had most conspicuously let down their tenants. A common failing was that the associations had been complacent and seemed to put their own “bureaucratic interests” over the interests of tenants. Subsequently, the department released the identities of the six offending associations (viz. Clarion, Southern Housing Group, Onward Homes, Catalyst, PA Housing and Johnnie Johnson Housing).

The committee saw value in having more councillor and tenant involvement in the running of housing associations (in particular). This may be desirable but the two providers that have been most in the spotlight for unsafe housing practices – RBH and the K&C TMO – have governing bodies where tenants and other local interests are well represented.

Elphicke was on a roll. She demonstrated her knowledge of the sector by quoting the global accounts for housing associations. With surpluses of £4.6bn from social housing letting activities alone, monies must be available to ensure association properties are in a good state of repair and are safe to live in? Gove agreed. Providers must ensure that existing tenants receive a good service and live in decent accommodation before resources are invested in new build (for instance).

Florence Eshalomi (Labour, Vauxhall) told the committee that her email inbox was full of complaints from constituents that had been failed by their social landlords. She noted that the Grenfell tragedy was over five years ago and yet the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill was still not on the statute book. Gove acknowledged that the government had been slow to introduce the reforms needed on social housing regulation. Here he called for performance indicators that measured the speed of response of providers to complaints but didn’t refer to the tenant satisfaction measures being introduced by the RSH.

The committee chair – Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield South East) – summed up this part of the session by calling for ministers to work with the NHF and LGA on developing a funding framework that would ensure resources were available to meet the sector’s decent homes standard. There was general agreement that providers would need more resources if they were to meet the challenges posed by an enhanced focus on service delivery and stock condition.

Also, over the last week the spotlight on Gove shifted from his responsibility for running a large government department to other matters. Seemingly, he’s become embroiled in the controversy surrounding Baroness Mone’s access to officials overseeing the government’s programme to provide PPE for the NHS during the early stages of the pandemic.

One way or another Michael Gove has certainly been the focus of a lot attention in recent days – and this is unlikely to diminish as he steers the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill through the House of Commons in the weeks before Christmas.