Draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
Draft Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.
Matthew Pennycook
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I will speak to both sets of regulations, and note that the draft hazards in social housing regulations are commonly referred to as phase 2 of Awaab’s law.
Alongside our commitment to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, the Government are driving a lasting change in the safety and quality of social housing. Both regulations are integral to that effort, and once brought into force they will play an important role in keeping social tenants safe by ensuring that social landlords are clear as to their responsibilities and respond to complaints in a timely manner. I will take each of the regulations in turn, starting with the second phase of Awaab’s law.
As hon. Members know, Awaab’s law is named in memory of Awaab Ishak. Awaab was just two years old when he died in December 2020 as a result of a severe respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould in the social home that his family rented from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. His parents repeatedly expressed concerns about the conditions that the family were living in, but their landlord failed to act. Confronted with the grief of a loss so overwhelming, Awaab’s parents determined that they would secure justice for not only their son but all renters. We remain deeply grateful to them for the dignity and tenacity that they have shown in fighting for change and bringing us to this point.
Awaab’s law is vital legislation that empowers social tenants to hold their social landlords to account, using the full force of the law if landlords fail to investigate and fix hazards in tenants’ homes within set timeframes. When it comes to those hazards, I want to be clear that social landlords had legal obligations to keep homes fit for human habitation, free from HHSRS—housing health and safety rating system—category 1 hazards, and to remedy disrepair before the first phase of Awaab’s law commenced in October last year. Awaab’s law does not introduce new obligations in respect of new hazards; it is designed to compel and expedite the meeting of existing obligations by introducing clear time-bound requirements and a robust route to enforcement.
As I mentioned, phase 1 of Awaab’s law, covering significant damp, mould and emergency hazards, came into force in October last year, and it is helping to drive up standards in the social housing sector. The draft hazards in social housing regulations extend the requirements of Awaab’s law to the following significant hazards: excess cold and excess heat, falls, structural collapse and falling elements, fire and explosions, electrical safety and hygiene.
In addition to expanding the range of hazards that are within scope of Awaab’s law, we are drawing on feedback and lessons learned from the roll-out of phase 1 to make two groups of changes, with a view to ensuring that policy works as effectively as possible. First, we have clarified thresholds for the types of hazards covered by Awaab’s law and updated the definitions of “emergency” and “significant” in respect of the hazards that fall within the scope of it. That will help landlords to make more effective assessments, will provide tenants with greater clarity as to when landlords must act and will support a more consistent application of the requirements across the sector.
Secondly, we have made changes to avoid duplication with existing fire safety rules. Where fire risks relate to parts of buildings that are already covered by existing fire safety legislation, such as communal areas, we have clarified that those are to be managed under those rules, rather than also being subject to the requirements of Awaab’s law. The changes are reflected in updated guidance that we have published covering all phase 1 and 2 hazards, with a view to helping tenants and landlords determine precisely what is and is not within scope of the requirements.
Once the draft hazards regulations are in force, Awaab’s law will operate as follows: potential significant hazards must be investigated within 10 working days; following the conclusion of an investigation, landlords must send written summaries to tenants within three working days, and they must take action within five working days; and potential emergency hazards must be investigated and made safe within 24 hours. If the landlord cannot make the home in question safe within the relevant timescales, they are required to secure suitable alternative accommodation. Additional works to prevent the hazard from recurring must begin as quickly as possible, but no later than 12 weeks from the time of the investigation, and they must be completed within a reasonable time period.
Once the draft hazards regulations are in force, all social landlords will have to comply with the requirements of Awaab’s law in respect of the wider range of hazards covered. If they do not, tenants can take legal action through the courts for a breach of contract or seek redress through the Housing Ombudsman.
I should point out that Awaab’s law provides for a statutory defence in instances where a landlord can prove they have used all reasonable endeavours to comply with the requirements but have been unable to do so. In other words, if failure is due to circumstances completely beyond the control of the landlord, they will not be liable for a breach of the regulations.
As per the commitments we have made, next year we will expand the requirements of Awaab’s law to apply to the remaining hazards, as defined by the HHSRS, excluding overcrowding. In doing so, we will continue with the “test and learn” approach we took to phase 1, so that any beneficial lessons arising from the implementation of phase 2 can be addressed. To return to a point I made earlier, the phased approach we are taking does not mean that social landlords have leeway when it comes to meeting their existing duties to provide safe and decent homes for their tenants.
It is important that tenants are aware of the protections they are entitled to and that landlords are clear on their responsibilities. The Make Things Right social housing information campaign will launch in January to raise awareness of the new protections among social housing tenants and residents. Ahead of the regulations coming into force in November, I will write to all social landlords in England, setting out clearly what the regulations require and the standards landlords must meet.
I will now turn to the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. As hon. Members may recall, last year we brought social housing into scope of the electrical safety requirements that private landlords have had to meet since 2020. As a result, all landlords must now check the electrical installations in their properties at least every five years.
The regulations are required to ensure that those existing requirements align with the latest version of the relevant British standard, namely BS 7671. As a result of the changes required, the existing references to “further investigative work” are no longer relevant and have been removed. We are also clarifying that a pre-tenancy inspection and test is not required if the previous inspection and test took place within the last 5 years and the report is still current.
These changes will make sure there is clarity and consistency on the standards that are expected of landlords in both rented sectors. With that, I commend both sets of draft regulations to the Committee.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank hon. Members for those contributions. I am pleased that there is general support for both sets of draft regulations and their intentions in respect of improving the safety and quality of social housing. A series of questions have been put to me, and I will endeavour to respond to each in turn.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, put to me two questions on who enforces the electrical safety requirements and what the implications are of that enforcement duty in respect of local government reorganisation. Local councils enforce the regulations, as the shadow Minister made clear. If a local council has reasonable grounds to believe that a landlord is in breach of one or more of the duties in the regulations, they must serve a remedial notice on the landlord requiring remedial action. Should a landlord not comply with the notice or should urgent remedial action be required, the local council may arrange itself for remedial action to be taken.
I note the point the shadow Minister made about the burden that that places on local councils. I do not immediately make the link between local government reorganisation generally and that point. He is more than welcome to write to me with further details, or if he has evidence of particular local authorities that think they will have problems enforcing these quite simple and straightforward regulations, because I would be interested to know about that.
The shadow Minster then asked what if the hazards in question are caused by the tenant—they are the tenant’s fault? First, it is important to say that the Government are completely clear that it is unacceptable for social landlords to assume that a hazard such as damp, mould or pests are based on a tenant’s lifestyle. In fact, Awaab’s family had that allegation put to them. The Housing Ombudsman has been incredibly clear on that point. It is rightly the responsibility of landlords to identify and address underlying causes, where they exist, such as structural issues, repairs or inadequate ventilation. The same goes for other hazards such as pests. However, landlords should, of course, continue working with tenants to make small, reasonable adjustments to their behaviour if that is required and appropriate to reduce those risks.
The shadow Minister then put to me a series of points about the cost to the sector. We have taken a approach to regulation generally that ensures that it is proportionate and that timescales, in particular, are sufficient for social landlords to enact those regulations in a proportionate way. We have done that with minimum energy efficiency standards and the modernised decent homes standard, and we are doing it with Awaab’s law by rolling out the requirements in phases to give landlords time to adjust and to embed the necessary processes and so that, through that approach, as I referenced in my opening remarks, we can test and learn what works and what needs clarifying.
In terms of the cost, we have published a final stage impact assessment for phase 1 of Awaab’s law. Having updated the policy in the light of consultation feedback from both the sector and tenants, we have assessed that costs have been kept to a reasonable level while delivering the necessary impact for tenants. Social landlords that will incur the greatest costs are those not currently meeting their obligations regarding hazards and decency. I come back to the point I made in my opening remarks: these are existing obligations that we are trying to ensure are better enforced.
Alongside laying phase 2 regulations, we are publishing an impact assessment. Our estimate is that the total cost to the sector of the proposals will be £146.3 million over the 10-year appraisal period for phase 1 and £190.2 million over a 10-year appraisal period for phase 2. However, as I said, the duty to make repairs is not a new burden on landlords, and the costs associated with the investigation and repair timescales are likely to be the result of additional staffing, familiarisation costs and the preparation and postage of written summaries.
To the point from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire, I have Shelter’s letter here. I was not going to detain the Committee by responding to the two main points that it has made, but he has challenged me to do so, so I think it is important to just put them on the record.
In respect of the definition of “significant hazard”, we heard very clearly from tenants and landlords in our phase 1 “test and learn” that it was difficult to distinguish between an emergency hazard and a significant hazard. We have therefore changed the definitions of both emergency and significant hazards to remove the ambiguity around the previous language, which asked landlords to assess whether they would “take steps to” address the hazard and
“as a matter of urgency”.
We have instead made it clear that landlords must make an assessment of whether a reasonable landlord would make the hazard safe within 24 hours for an emergency hazard, or within 15 working days for a significant hazard, to determine whether the hazard falls within the scope of Awaab’s law. For a significant hazard, the 15 working day period has been used to align with the existing timescale of 10 working days to investigate and then five working days to make safe upon the conclusion of the investigation.
There is an objective test of what a notional reasonable landlord would do, and landlords should not factor in their own considerations, such as budget or staff availability. To determine what a reasonable landlord would do, we would expect landlords to take into account the risk to the tenant, information about their health circumstances and how feasibly the hazard can be made safe within three weeks. Landlords should also consider whether a reasonable landlord would use temporary measures to make hazards safe, where that is a necessary as a first step.
Shelter also raised concerns about fire hazards in communal areas not being covered. I can see the Committee urging me to bring my remarks to a conclusion, but my hon. Friend can be assured that we will respond to Shelter in full on both points. I am more than happy to share that response with colleagues if they are interested.
Lastly, on the point from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, about why we have excluded overcrowding, Awaab’s law is intended to address hazards that result from defects, disrepair or a lack of maintenance for which landlords are responsible. We came to the conclusion that overcrowding is a complex issue that is not usually the result of disrepair or something that can be fixed via repairs or maintenance. We therefore took the decision to remove overcrowding from the scope of Awaab’s law, to ensure that these regulations are focused on repairs issues.
Social landlords will obviously still be expected to take overcrowding issues seriously, and the sector must continue to address those through transfer and allocation policies. Tenants concerned about overcrowding will be able to seek redress through the Housing Ombudsman Service, and tenants in housing association properties can obviously report overcrowding issues to their local councils. Beyond that, as the hon. Member knows—I know he shares my ambition in this area—we need to boost the supply of new social and affordable homes to ensure that more families who are overcrowded or severely overcrowded can be moved into appropriate accommodation.
To conclude, it is imperative that we continue to work to improve the safety and quality of social housing. These regulations will enable us to do so. They will play a vital role in ensuring that social landlords are clear as to their responsibilities and respond to complaints in a timely manner. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.