Cold and Damp Homes

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) on bringing this important subject to Westminster Hall. The state of our private rental properties is an appalling open secret. One in four private renters live in fuel poverty; 1.6 million children are living in privately rented homes that are damp or mouldy. That is a shocking situation.

As we know, the UK has some of the oldest and coldest houses in Europe. More than half of tenants had issues with damp or mould last year. In my constituency of Bath, 31% had problems with hot water or heating, and 21% of privately rented homes do not meet the decent homes standard. These numbers are simply not acceptable. We need tougher inspections and much higher standards.

As the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley has pointed out, serious health risks can arise from mouldy and damp conditions. It was not long ago that a toddler in Rochdale died from prolonged exposure to black mould, yet MPs still hear every winter from constituents who are dealing with terrible cases of damp and mould. A constituent in Bath recently wrote to me that their walls are black with mould. Now, after months of relentless coughing, they have been referred for asthma testing. Another constituent described fungi growing up from the floor. Damp and decay have already damaged their belongings, and now they fear that the place they call home is no longer fit to live in.

Such cases are prevalent across the country. One in four of the complaints that Citizens Advice receives is about disrepair, damp, mould or excessive cold. Is it any wonder that the NHS spends £1.5 billion every year treating respiratory illnesses? There have been small-scale trials in which heating vouchers were given to at-risk households as a preventive measure, helping to avoid illness and reduce pressure on health services. Why not roll it out nationally?

It is not just privately rented properties with unaccountable landlords that have these issues. Many of the cases that I hear about come from tenants in social housing. My largest social housing association, Curo, has made it clear that housing providers face soaring costs. Repairs, decarbonisation, regeneration and new home delivery must all be funded from increasingly stretched social rents. Social rents are set by the Government using a “consumer prices index plus 1%” formula, but successive Governments have capped, cut and changed this model. In 2003, for example, there was a 7% rent cap, despite the CPI reaching 11% that year; meanwhile, the average operating cost per household unit rose by 11%.

The Government have ambitious house building targets, but that mismatch leaves providers struggling to maintain existing homes, let alone build new ones. Because funding is overstretched, increasing numbers of social tenants are not getting the repairs and upgrades that their properties need to prevent damp and mould in the first place. I ask the Government to look at this closely. A fundamental review of the rent and capital subsidy regime will make sure that providers can provide homes that are well maintained and managed, while also meeting their requirements to improve, regenerate and build new social housing.

At the heart of this regeneration must be a programme of home insulation, which is something that Liberal Democrats have been asking about for a long time. Well-insulated homes stay warmer, so insulation is key to reducing energy bills. Much of the housing stock in Bath is Georgian and grade II-listed. These homes are in dire need of insulation, but listed buildings are more expensive to insulate because of the specific regulatory requirements. For many of my constituents, the cost of insulating their homes is just too high.

The Government have announced the warm homes local grant, aimed at improving the efficiency of low-income, low energy-performance homes. However, in the recent funding award, Bath and North East Somerset council will receive a fraction of the amount that it requested: just 26% of what was felt to be needed to carry out the work following consultation with the warm homes team. The existing consortium was awarded approximately £11 million over two years under the home upgrade grant phase 2. The programme has improved 80 homes in Bath, helping fuel-poor residents to save money on energy bills and benefit from a more comfortable and climate-friendly home, but it has been cut under the warm homes grant. The council is now receiving a reduced budget of just £4.5 million a year over three years.

Thousands of homes in Bath are eligible for the warm homes grant, but a very small fraction will receive it. The programme is likely to be oversubscribed; I understand that there is a waiting list from the previous scheme that will account for the first year of upgrades. The ability to carry out funded work on homes helps to alleviate fuel poverty, improve health and reduce carbon emissions. Reducing the budget will have knock-on effects on all those areas.

The other national awards reflect a similarly bleak picture. Once again, we had a winter in which our constituents suffered in cold and damp homes. I am not aware of any public acknowledgment from the Government that funding for home energy upgrades has been cut. I ask the Minister whether that represents a rowing back on the targets in the warm homes plan, or whether it is a reallocation of resources in the warm homes plan. The Liberal Democrats propose a 10-year insulation programme, starting with free insulation for the most vulnerable homes. If we want to reduce household energy bills, insulating homes is the place to start, so I hope that the Government will sincerely consider that.

The state of our rental housing, both private and social, is simply not good enough. It is one of the many failures of the previous Conservative Government, so the new Government must now step up and deal with the problem. The stories from my constituents in Bath are echoed across the country: damp walls, black mould and cold, unliveable homes. We know the solution—higher standards, proper funding for repairs and investment in insulation—but we continue to see piecemeal action and shrinking budgets. I urge the Government to act fast so all our constituents can live in safe, warm and secure housing.

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

We speak regularly with our counterparts in the devolved authorities, but I will make a special point of ensuring that the comments that have been made today are passed on to the relevant Ministers within those authorities and, as I said, with colleagues in the Scotland and Wales Offices.

Once again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley on securing this important debate, and thank all those who have contributed to it. We all know the detrimental impact that non-decent housing has on the lives of our constituents, and that more must be done to drive up standards across housing tenures. I hope that this afternoon I have provided hon. Members with reassurance that the Government are working with determination to drive a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of housing in this country.

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

I call Alex Sobel to wind up.