Social Housing: Accountability to Tenants

15. Whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure that social housing providers are accountable to tenants.

We are taking action to improve the quality of social housing. The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, which received Royal Assent in July, will deliver transformative change across the sector, introducing proactive consumer regulation and rebalancing the relationships between landlords and tenants, ensuring that landlords are properly held to account for their performance.

I welcome the steps the Government are taking to support people living in social housing, but many people in Carshalton and Wallington who live in social housing are still concerned about the level of service they receive from their providers. I have received complaints about a number of housing associations, including Liberal Democrat-run Sutton Council’s housing arm, Sutton Housing Partnership, and Metropolitan Thames Valley, which provides housing in Roundshaw. Will the Secretary of State assure those residents that they have somewhere to go when things go wrong?

Yes, those residents absolutely do have somewhere to go. My hon. Friend, the excellent Member of Parliament for Carshalton and Wallington, stands up not just for his constituents, but for the most vulnerable in society, with clarity and moral authority. Our legislation will make sure that Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing and, indeed, Liberal Democrat-led Sutton Council are held to account for any failures.