Rayner promises new remediation plan and accountability to deliver ‘faster repairs and complaints’

News23.09.249.45 AM by Stephen Delahunty

Angela Rayner has used her opening speech at the Labour Party Conference to announce a new cladding remediation plan in the autumn.

Angela Rayner has announced a new cladding remediation plan (picture: Alamy)

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Rayner promises new remediation plan and accountability to deliver ‘faster repairs and complaints’ #ukhousing

Speaking at the ACC Liverpool conference centre, the housing secretary made the pledge in a speech that reiterated the rest of her party’s key reforms, which it hopes will protect renters and deliver more new homes.

Ms Rayner said: “Working with the prime minister on the Grenfell Inquiry was the most sobering moment of my career: 72 lives lost, 18 children, all avoidable. A fatal failure of market and state. A tragedy that must never happen again.

“It is completely unacceptable that we have thousands of buildings still wrapped in unsafe cladding seven years after Grenfell.

“And that’s why we will bring forward a new remediation action plan this autumn to speed up the process and we’ll pursue those responsible – without fear or favour. This must lead to new, safer social housing for the future.”

At the conference, the housing minister said: “We will also ensure social housing staff have the right skills and experience. And I will ensure 2.5 million housing association tenants in this country can hold their landlord to account for their high-quality services and homes – so that repairs and complaints are handled faster, but more importantly, so social housing tenants are treated fairly.”

Ms Rayner also took aim at the previous government’s record on housebuilding.

She said: “The Tories failed to meet their targets year, after year, after year. Michael Gove handed back nearly £2bn to the Treasury in unspent housing funds. Mortgages have soared.

“Leaseholders are left at the mercy of eye-watering charges. Renters face crippling rent hikes in damp and mouldy homes. Homelessness is all around us. The simple aspiration of a safe, secure and affordable home is further out of reach than ever and we can’t go on like this. So change must begin at home.

“We are tackling the Tories’ housing emergency. We will get Britain building, and building decent homes for working people.”

The deputy prime minister referenced the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, announced in July, which will see an increase in housing targets by around 50% and tougher local affordability assessments.

She also talked about her party’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which will ban Section 21 no-fault evictions for new and existing tenancies, introduce a number of standards for the private rented sector, and crack down on tenants outbidding each other on rental properties.

Ms Rayner said: “Our long-term plan will free leaseholders from the tyranny of a medieval system. And a cross-government taskforce will put Britain back on track to ending homelessness. Whether you’re a leaseholder, a tenant, a home-buyer or without somewhere to live – this government is on your side.

“But my mission is not just to build houses, it is to build homes. Because we cannot build at any cost. These new homes must be warm, secure and – most importantly – safe.

“We will give families the security they need to have the best start in life. I know first-hand the difference a decent home can make.

“When I was growing up we didn’t have a lot. But we had a safe and secure home. Today, not everyone does.”

While the government has still not set a hard target on the number of social homes it would like to build every year, Ms Rayner set out an ambition to build more social homes than are lost within the first financial year of this Labour government.

Ahead of her speech, she told the BBC that she wants the government’s Right to Buy scheme to continue but that it needed to be fairer to the taxpayer.

The number of Right to Buy homes now in the private rented sector has risen by 3.2 percentage points since 2014-15, meaning around 109,000 more former council homes are being let privately than a decade ago.

Mr Rayner added: “I want to give you my promise that this Labour government will take action to ensure all homes are decent and safe, and residents are treated with the respect they deserve.

“And conference, of course, many housing associations, councils and landlords do good by their tenants and I know how hard they’ve had it after 14 years under the Tories.

“Which is why I will work in partnership with the sector to deliver the change. I will clamp down on damp and mouldy homes by bringing in Awaab’s Law in the social rented sector this autumn and we’ll extend it to the private rented sector, too.

“We will consult and implement a new Decent Homes Standard for social and privately rented homes, to end the scandal of homes being unfit to live in.”