Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to recent English Housing Survey statistics which show that four per cent of local authority housing and 13 per cent of social housing fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of restoring central Government funding for housing providers to enable the remaining non-decent homes to be improved.

The Decent Homes Standard has driven improvements to the quality of social housing. Between 2011 and 2016 Government provided a total of £1.76 billion to 45 councils across England to tackle the backlog of non-decent homes, making over 158,000 homes decent.

Local Authority Housing Statistics show that the proportion of non-decent local authority dwellings was 4 per cent 1 April 2018. The English Housing Survey shows that, in 2017, 13 per cent of social rented homes overall (516,000) were considered non-decent, down from 20 per cent (759,000) in 2010. This is lower than the proportion of private rented (25 per cent) and owner occupied (19 per cent) homes.

The Social Housing Green Paper asks if there are any changes to what constitutes a decent home that we should consider, and whether we need additional measures to make sure homes are safe and decent. We are currently considering the responses to the consultation.