Thread by @luciemheath

Today the Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities Committee begins its inquiry into the regulation of social housing and the poor quality of social homes. You can watch along on parliament tv or follow me for updates: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/e8…

In the first session we'll hear from Darren Hartley from @TAROETrust, Suzanne Muna from @HAWRNet and Pat Turnball from @LondonTenants

Clive Betts starts by asking how widespread the problem is of poor quality housing and the poor practice of social landlords.

All the panelists highlighted various horrendous problems that they have been confronted with, including damp and mould, ceilings falling down etc.

Both Pat and Suzanna pointed especially to the poor quality of housing that is earmarked for regeneration (the excuse given by Clarion for the poor conditions on its Merton estate). Pat said housing associations don’t view these estates as peoples homes but as “prime real estate”

When asked if the proposals in the Social Housing White Paper will change things, Suzanne said "absolutely not". She said focus on data monitoring will be helpful for the regulator but will not speed up the complaints process for tenants.

Darren said the white paper has some positive improvements, but is only "initial starting point" and other things are needed such as national platform for tenants

Clive Betts asked about the controversial topic of 'claim farms' for disrepair claims. Darren said the best defence against such claims is "making sure you've got high quality services in the first place"

Suzanne said she was concerned about the narrative that was being developed around this. She said disrepair claim lawyers are not the source of the problem.

Asked their thoughts on the new tenant satisfaction measures being introduced by the regulator, Darren said it was good but a "peripheral" matter. Pat called it "box ticking exercise". Suzanne said her members "shrugged their shoulders and said how will this help me?"

Panelists asked if poor service can sometimes be attributed to racism? Suzanne said racism is definitely an issue, alongside discrimination against tenants with disabilities.

When asked whether they thought commercialisation may have the potential to improve the experience for tenants, the panelists were quite clear that they did not think this was the case.

On the ombudsman - Suzanne said fines issued were "nothing" for a housing association to pay. Pat said priority must be dealing with root problem - suggested gov should commission analysis on what it should cost to maintain a property compared to how much is being spent.

Bob Blackman asks if the regulatory regime is fit for purpose. Darren says regulator does good job of financial regulation but “the travesty and reason that it fundamentally isn’t fit for purpose” is lack of consumer regulation

Next up we're hearing from Clarion CEO Clare Miller, L&G Affordable Homes CEO Ben Denton and Ian Cole, Chair of Board of Management, from South Yorkshire Housing Association

When asked if they thought the recent criticism of social landlords was fair, Ian said the conditions revealed by ITV investigation were “appalling” but problems aren’t widespread and its a shame ITV doesn’t feature positive stories

Clare Miller said she was “ashamed” by conditions in Clarion properties discovered by ITV and that Clarion must learn from it. Ben said there is a journey to go for sector to deliver much better customer service.

Clare is now being asked specifically about the Eastfields estate. She said Clarion got estate as part of stock transfer and that it was identified as needing regeneration. She said it took longer than they hoped to start regen and in the meantime they had made decision...

...not to continue with planned replacement of components and they were just responding to residents requests so they “missed the deterioration” of the homes.

She acknowledges that work still needs to be done on the Eastfields estate. When asked if she is happy with condition of estate right now she said "I am happy that we are doing all we can to intervene on a estate at the end of its life"

.@Grainne_Cuffe's story about a Clarion resident whose ceiling fell on her head is raised with Clare Miller. She said she can't talk about specific case, but said Clarion's repair service responds to its tenants. insidehousing.co.uk/news/clarion-t…

Next question is about impact of fire safety/decarb costs on repairs spending. Clare said it doesn't effect their repairs but effects new build programme. Clarion plans to spent £150m over next 5 yrs on fire safety which means it won't build 1,800 new homes.

On financial challenges, Ben and Clare both say that HAs need more certainty over the rent settlement. Clare said the four-year rent freeze cost Clarion £181m and "that would have gone back into investing in our existing homes"

On claims management companies Clare said there is "something fundamentally wrong with that as a means of redress" as solicitors are earning twice as much as tenants in the claims Clarion is involved with.

When asked about racism in the sector, Ian said SYHA has “turned the organisation upside down in the last 12 months in response to black lives matters”. Clare said it is “very important” Clarion’s frontline staff reflects the communities in which they work.

On the commercialisation and growth of big housing associations, Clare said “there are huge advantages that come with size” such as the charitable work that they can do and Clarions big development programme, which she said provides “much needed” homes.

She said she does not believe that Clarion's size contributed to the poor conditions in Merton and that evidence shows the regulator is just as likely to intervene with small organisations

Ian Byrne quoted this this article from the Guardian on the recent fire in the Bronx that is well worth a read: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

“When you make the decision to stop directly funding housing for the poor, and you decide to involve private entities to do it for you, then you introduce market forces into the process of providing affordable housing...

...and those market forces have created an incentive on many of the landlords to neglect their properties for many decades, to where we see things like the tragedy at Twin Parks.”

"Follow the money, and you will find a line from the broken doors and heaters in buildings all over the city to the big banks that finance affordable housing deals."

Ben Denton responds by saying there is a place for for-profit housing associations and that L&G is looking to deliver more social housing than most HAs. Clare Miller says Clarion only does commercial work due to the lack of government grant available.

And that's it for today's session. Will have a piece up on what was covered tomorrow