Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure student accommodation meets the necessary standard.

The government is committed to fundamentally improving the private rented sector and providing a better deal for renters, including by halving levels of non-decency in all rented homes by 2030. The 2022 Queen's Speech committed to introducing a Renters Reform Bill and the government will do so as soon as possible in this Parliament.

This bill includes the introduction of a new Property Redress Scheme (PRS) Ombudsman which all PRS landlords who rent out property in England will be required to join. The introduction of an Ombudsman to the sector will enable all tenants, including students, to challenge poor practice and standards and confidently hold landlords to account. We also want to give local councils strong and effective tools for enforcement, to crack down on non-compliant landlords and poor practice.

If a student in a purpose-built student accommodation has as any concerns about their accommodation, they should in the first instance raise their complaint with their accommodation provider using that provider’s own complaints process where relevant.

If their concerns remain unresolved, and their higher education (HE) provider is involved in the provision of the accommodation, students at providers in England or Wales can ask the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE to consider their complaint.

If the accommodation provider is a member of one of the codes of practice, students can raise a complaint under these codes, which can be found here: https://www.thesac.org.uk/, https://www.unipol.org.uk/the-code/how-to-complain and https://www.nrla.org.uk/about-us/code-of-practice.