The Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) annual report on the Government’s progress towards the target of net zero by 2050 was published this month. A key area of concern highlighted was the lack of progress made on reducing emissions from homes where the CCC flagged current plans as insufficient. The report explained that record-high energy prices make the case for energy efficiency and electrification of home heating stronger than ever so the opportunity to act is now. 

In the North, there are high concentrations of older, draughtier homes that need to be upgraded. Currently, more than 60% of homes across tenures in the North do not meet EPC C (the energy efficiency benchmark). Upgrading these homes in the region would reduce carbon emissions, cut energy bills, make homes warmer (and cooler in the summer), reduce reliance on gas, and bring new green jobs to the North.   

On 6th July, Peter Gibson (Conservative MP for Darlington) took the issue of poor energy performing homes in the North to Westminster Hall. Debates in Westminster Hall allow MPs the opportunity to raise issues of local or national importance where they receive a response from the relevant government minister. 

Peter Gibson opened the session by thanking North Star Housing, the Conservative Environment Network, the Northern Housing Consortium and the National Housing Federation “for their insightful and helpful engagement with me on this important issue in preparation for today’s debate”. 

Gibson began the debate by stating improving home energy efficiency is part of the long-term solution to fuel poverty as it would reduce the amount of money spent on wasted energy lost through the fabric of homes. This statement is important as the cost-of-living crisis continues to impact severely on households and communities in the North. With record-high inflation driven largely by high energy costs and with the North having a higher proportion of poorly-insulated homes, the region is experiencing a higher level of inflation than the rest of the country. 

Peter Gibson described energy efficiency as a “win-win” for our homes and the environment. Paul Blomfield (Labour MP for Sheffield Central) later commented that it is actually a “win-win-win-win-win” as energy efficiency can cut carbon, cut bills, improve health, reduce reliance on gas, and create jobs. The NHC agrees with these assessments. 

As the NHC highlighted in a recent briefing, Gibson explained during the debate that upgrading homes in the North from EPC D to EPC C would lead to savings of nearly £3bn per year. Citing the Northern Housing Monitor, he said in the North we need to upgrade around 4 million homes to reach the Government’s energy efficiency targets.  

The brilliant work already being carried out in the Tees Valley was mentioned, with reference to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, of which the region received £2.6m of Wave 1 funding. Peter Gibson said this good work must continue and be rolled out more widely. Wave 2 is expected to open later this summer (guidance published here). 

Connecting housing decarbonisation with net zero will be important, said Peter Gibson, and we need to make it clear to communities how they stand to benefit from more energy efficient homes. This clear communication will be key in the transition away from gas boilers towards new technologies.  

On job potential in the North, Peter Gibson referenced the NHC’s Northern Powerhomes report with IPPR North that found a large-scale programme of housing retrofit in the social sector could lead to 77,000 direct jobs in the region by 2030s. 15,000 of these roles would be in the North East.  

Upfront costs were identified as a key barrier to this work. Gibson said he has had discussions with Angela Lockwood (Chief Executive) and Emma Speight (Executive Director of Assets and Growth) at North Star Housing about prohibitive costs faced by housing associations. He spoke of one of their pilot projects which aims to bring a late-Victorian terraced house up to EPC A and to then monitor its performance. The cost of doing this will be £45,500, with £12,000 of this spent on solid wall insulation alone. The value of the property is estimated at around £70,000, highlighting viability issues for housing providers in parts of the North and the need for further targeted support and assistance from Government. 

The costs are high, but he was clear about the benefits of investing in homes now: healthier places to live and a permanent reduction in household energy bills. He asked the Minister what the Government can do to deliver more. 

Scott Benton (Conservative MP for Blackpool South) supported this, saying Blackpool has received £1.4m through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and said further action is now needed given the pressure on household budgets. 

Navendu Mishra (Labour MP for Stockport) added that several government schemes aimed at improving energy efficiency have been poorly delivered, but noted the direct impact this could have on household bills if done effectively. 

Paul Howell (Conservative MP for Sedgefield and recently appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Treasury) said energy efficiency is more relevant than ever. He responded to Mishra’s comment to say the Green Homes Grant scheme was not perfect but it was broadly popular. Howell added that such schemes will be vital as not all households will be able to afford upgrades, and highlighted particular issues in rural areas. Howell commented that the innovative solutions for homes already exist, we just need to make sure they reach the households that need them. 

In parts of the North East, weighing up the cost of upgrades with the value of properties can be difficult, but the reduction in energy costs are worth it, argued Howell, echoing Gibson’s earlier points. He said there are concerns that private landlords will not make the investments needed and instead will choose to sell properties. BEIS are expected to respond to a consultation on updating the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) for the PRS that would require landlords to upgrade homes for new tenancies to EPC C from April 2025, and for all tenancies by April 2028. NHC local authority members have highlighted that improving the quality of PRS homes is essential for communities and tenants but there are concerns around the lack of capacity to enforce new standards. We will be monitoring MEES when it comes forward, as well as the challenges being faced by members to implement changes. 

Mike Amesbury (MP for Weaver Vale) outlined there are 35,000 homes in Halton alone that need to be upgraded and 96,000 across Cheshire West and Chester area. Amesbury said the potential for 77,000 homes in the North that Peter Gibson cited from Northern Powerhomes is a strong case for Government action. He asked the Minister about their plans to work with education and training providers to make sure we have the skills we need to fill these roles. 

Margaret Greenwood (Labour MP for Wirral West) highlighted worries about this coming winter, warning the impact of rising energy bills on households should not be underestimated. The NHC has joined the #WarmThisWinter campaign to call for the next Prime Minister to set out an urgent plan ahead of winter to support households, insulate homes, and drive up renewable energy. 

Alan Whitehead (Labour MP for Southampton Test and Shadow Minister for Energy and the Green New Deal) said the North East has one of the largest gaps between emissions from new and existing properties. Per new home, there are 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted per year from a new property, compared with 3.6 tonnes per year from an existing property. Whitehead added there will need to be a different approach to different housing tenures to bridge this gap, but highlighted the private rented sector as a particular challenge, with current MEES regulation (requiring landlords to have a minimum of EPC E) “grossly insufficient”. 

Labour’s plan on retrofit, Alan Whitehead explained, would be to upgrade 19 million homes across tenures over a ten-year period through a combination of loans, grants and direct local authority schemes. The focus would be on area-based schemes where local authorities can concentrate resources where they are needed the most. 

In response to the debate, Greg Hands MP (Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth) said the Government has an “unwavering commitment” to decarbonising buildings, saying: 

“Improving the wellbeing and living conditions of northern communities is a key part of the levelling up of all our towns, cities and regions as we build a green Britain that works for every part of the country”. 

The Minister outlined the work undertaken since the Heat and Buildings Strategy was published last year, saying the North has received £226m through the most recent phases of the Local Authority Delivery scheme and Home Upgrade Grants.  

He noted the “striking sums” reported by North Star Housing to retrofit homes and acknowledged there is still a lot of work to do to upgrade homes in the region. 

On renewable energy, Greg Hands said the energy generated from renewable sources in the energy mix has been increased from 7% in 2010 to 56%. It is important that this continues to rise as we transition to electrified heating in homes to ensure homes are powered by clean, cheap energy. 

On fuel poverty, the Minister claimed the level “is actually falling”, saying “we need to keep bearing down on fuel poverty but that situation is improving”. We think the data he may be looking at has not been updated to reflect the spiralling costs of gas pulling more and more households into fuel poverty this year. This is expected to rise in October and again in January in line with price cap rises. 

Government’s response to the MEES consultation to raise energy efficiency standards in the PRS will be published in “due course”, the Minister confirms. And on social housing, he references Wave 2 of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, with Wave 1 already supporting the upgrading of around 8,000 homes in the North. 

Scaling up the supply chain and building a skilled workforce is a long-term challenge, Hands said, but the North is in a “key position at the centre of net zero innovation, growth and opportunities for green jobs”. 

The Minister ended by saying the Government has a duty to protect those who are most vulnerable and support consumers and businesses as we decarbonise homes so the benefits of improved health, lower emissions and lower bills can be realised. 

You can read the Hansard entry for the full debate here. 

The NHC will continue to work with BEIS and DLUHC on behalf of our members as the political environment shifts this year to ensure the new Prime Minister and their Cabinet prioritise improving the energy efficiency of homes in the North. We would also be happy to support our members to engage with local MPs on this topic to help create sustainable homes and communities in the region. 

Please do not hesitate to follow up on any of this with the NHC by contacting Anna Seddon (Policy and Public Affairs Manager) at anna.seddon@northern-consortium.org.uk.  

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill has been introduced to Parliament, with the bill including a raft of changes to the planning system, including around developer contributions, environmental assessment and enforcement.

The bill received its second reading in the House of Commons on 8 June. During the six-hour debate, MPs discussed its major changes to planning laws. The planning measures in the bill “have been informed by more than 40,000 responses to the government’s 2020 White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’, and the subsequent inquiry into planning reform by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee.  The new system will be based on the principles of beauty, infrastructure, democracy, environment and neighbourhood engagement.

Michael Gove has announced that the government would publish an NPPF prospectus in July for consultation, setting out its “further thinking” .

Following the publication of the Bill the government is proposing to change compulsory purchase laws to allow local authorities to cap land values at their existing use where the public interest can be demonstrated as part of a shake-up of the way compensation for landowners is assessed.

A consultation document, outlined a series of changes to CPOs and pledges to bring forward a “faster, more efficient compulsory purchase system that acquiring authorities are confident in using and that produces the right outcomes to bring forward much needed development including for housing, regeneration and infrastructure”.

Under the current system, landowners can apply to the local authority, at the latter’s cost, for a certificate of appropriate alternative development (CAAD). The certificate allows the land owner to claim what is known as “hope value” – the value attributed to prospective planning permission – which can significantly increase the value of the land above and beyond its existing use value and impact the viability of development.

According to the consultation document, this can lead to “perverse outcomes” as the valuation is required to assume 100 per cent certainty of achieving planning permission even when that likelihood may actually be much lower. This “artificially inflates compensation because a transaction in normal market conditions would reflect the actual risk associated with the likelihood of planning permission being granted”, the document states.

The government is therefore proposing a number of changes to the system that it says would ensure the “balance of compensation and costs in relation to hope value is right” and to simplify the process for obtaining a CAAD.

This includes ensuring compensation payments “reflect normal market conditions”, a proposal to establish a “single route” for determining hope value based on the likelihood of appropriate alternative development and removing the requirement for authorities to cover the cost of obtaining a CAAD.

These changes will rebalance costs and compensation between landowner and acquiring authority and will be brought forward as amendments in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, according to the document.

The document also seeks to evaluate the possibility of further changes to the CPO system, including a proposal that would allow local authorities to seek direction from the secretary of state to cap payments for specific schemes at, or just above, existing use value “where it can be shown that the public interest in doing so would be justified”.

This would provide authorities with “upfront certainty” about the viability of schemes and avoid “lengthy disputes” over the amount of hope value payable and uncertainty.

The consultation is open until 19 July.

Running concurrently with the publication of the Social Housing Regulation Bill, DLUHC is consulting on Electrical Safety Standards in Social Housing.

The consultation follows the commitment in the Social Housing White Paper to consult on proposals for mandatory checks on electrical installations in social housing at least every 5 years, and for mandatory testing of portable electrical appliances provided by the landlord, to achieve parity with the private rented sector. Following the recommendations of the DLUHC Working Group on Electrical Safety, the consultation paper also includes a call for evidence on the case for mandatory checks on electrical installations in owner-occupied leasehold properties within social housing blocks, to mitigate the risk of these properties compromising the safety of the block as a whole.   The consultation runs until 31 August.

On 9 June, the Government Equalities Office published a consultation paper ‘Improving disabled people’s access to let residential premises: reasonable adjustments to common parts, a new duty’. 

The consultation aims to require landlords to make reasonable adjustments to common parts of let properties (such as entrances and hallways) when asked to by a disabled person. This would require a new duty under section 36 of the Equalities Act 2010. Most of section 36 has already commenced and imposes (for example) a duty on landlords/commonhold associations to permit and facilitate reasonable adjustments, on request, from disabled tenants to their private dwellings.

This new right would apply in all non-freehold housing sectors – leasehold-owned, the private rented sector and housing provided by local authorities and housing associations, where the premises has common parts, subject to certain exceptions. It should be noted that only tenants/occupants meeting the Act’s definition of disability will benefit from the new protection.

Finally, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has published a consultation on the Higher-Risk Building (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations.

This consultation is the first in a series of consultations on regulations which sit under the Building Safety Act 2022. It covers regulations which will complete the definition of higher-risk building for the purpose of the new more stringent regime. It seeks views on:

• the overall definition of a building for the purposes of both the design and construction and occupation parts of the new more stringent building safety regime being brought forward by the Building Safety Act;
• which buildings are included and excluded in relation to the design and construction part of the new regime and the definitions of these buildings;
• which buildings are excluded in relation to the occupation part of the new regime and the definitions of these buildings; and
• the method for measuring height and number of storeys.

The responses to this consultation will be used help develop final regulations before they are laid in parliament.  The consultation will be open until the 21 July 2022.

You’ll have seen in our new corporate plan our commitment to building an unrivalled member experience. But what does that mean in practice? Kate Maughan, Director of Member Engagement, blogs about our approach to member experience through our engagement programme.

In 2018 we carried out some research on members’ perceptions of the NHC. This gave us some great feedback: members were positive about our services, and wanted us to shout louder about our influencing work. Over the last three years we’ve certainly upped our game on influencing and cemented our position firmly in the debates on net zero and levelling up. We re-ran the member perceptions research in 2021 and the feedback from that suggests you’ve seen, and welcomed, these changes.

In both pieces of research, members said they particularly valued our engagement programme – the networks, roundtables, seminars and conferences we’ve delivered for many years – and we’re keen to ensure that the programme stays relevant, accessible and useful to you in the months and years ahead.

Building strong and deep relationships is key to an unrivalled member experience, and our engagement programme seeks to do exactly that – we bring members together to share good practice and challenges, but we also bring expertise from outside the sector, and from government departments, to create new networks and contacts for members going forward. Our networks are a real example of the bonds we’re able to create between members and external expertise – meeting on themes such as regulation, the private rented sector, homelessness, and disrepair. And through the engagement programme as a whole, we’re able to build better bonds between the NHC and you, our members, to ensure we understand your priorities and challenges and can respond in the way that works best for you.

Our membership base is unique – our 147 Northern members are made up of housing associations, ALMOs, local authorities and combined authorities. This means when we say we bring the sector together, we really do just that: building connections and bringing forward a rounded view of the North’s challenges and what the sector needs. We’re committed to making sure our full membership base is represented in our engagement programme, both as speakers and delegates, to really put our members at the forefront.

Underpinning all of this is our approach to business intelligence. Our staff team talk to a wide range of members every day, and pick up new priorities and areas of interest through the engagement programme. We ensure that we use this information in an effective way, and in a way that delivers the services you need. Our business intelligence allows us to interrogate trends and feedback from members, meaning no information gets lost – so our engagement programme is both informed by member insight, and generates it, at the same time.

In the corporate plan we also committed to three cross-cutting themes – sustainability, wellbeing and equality, diversity and inclusion – which run through everything we do.

Sustainability: the engagement programme supports our members in delivering on their net zero ambitions, but it’s also about what we aim to do as an organisation. While we’re pleased to return to some in-person events in 2022, many will remain online; for both the NHC and our members, it’s more efficient and environmentally friendly to do so. When we do hold an in-person event, you’ll see some changes – all of our event programmes are now digital and we want to be as paper-free as possible.

Wellbeing: We want to be at the forefront of championing wellbeing at work.  Since 2020 we’ve had a strong commitment to promoting wellbeing through our engagement programme, and this will continue. Where we’re holding training for NHC staff, we’re opening this up to members too – and at no charge. We’ve held sessions on menopause, mental health and resilience, and you might have spotted our upcoming session on sleep. We’re committed to the wellbeing of our staff team, and our members’ teams and customers too.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: We want to project the importance of ED&I across the membership and the sector, sharing best practice and learning. We remain committed to ensuring that speakers and contributors to our events are from diverse backgrounds and we actively monitor this. In addition, we want to create a safe space for our staff and members to discuss ED&I so we can achieve genuinely positive outcomes. Look out for our upcoming series of events with Ward Hadaway’s Employment Team – you can see more about the first event, focusing on inclusive workplaces, here.

Of course, building an unrivalled member experience goes much further than our engagement programme – it’s about developing solutions too, whether that’s through our influencing work, our Business Improvement service, or through our member-led procurement solutions – and you’ll see more on these in the coming months.

Our members are at the heart of everything we say and do. We pride ourselves on having a unique membership which allows us to be the voice of housing in the North – whatever your role, through our engagement activity we strive to provide you with an unrivalled member experience.

As ever, if you have any thoughts or feedback on our engagement programme, please don’t hesitate to contact me: kate.maughan@northern-consortium.org.uk

The Social Housing White Paper confirmed the Government’s intention to review the Decent Homes Standard, and since then the NHC has been working with officials at DLUHC and other industry bodies as part of the Review Sounding Board.   This work has taken on greater significance since the announcement in February of a ‘levelling up mission’ on housing quality.

Last month, the NHC worked with the policy and research team at Thirteen to update residents on the progress of the review, and seek resident views on the issues emerging so far, including issues such as safety in the home, reducing energy bills, and home security.

The Decent Homes Standard, setting the minimum standard of housing, which every social housing provider must meet, was last updated in July 2006 and NHC members have been clear that they consider the standard to be outdated and in need of a refresh. Many providers – including Thirteen – have developed their own enhanced standard for homes.

Thirteen residents who attended the workshop session were keen to contribute their views on how the Standard should develop.  Residents were keen to see the new standard go ‘beyond the front door’ and consider green spaces and neighbourhood issues. Issues around neighbourhood safety, including CCTV, access points and alleys and walkways were all talking points, as was decarbonisation.

Thirteen’s policy and research lead Sarah Parrott said: “It’s important that our customers have their voice heard, so we welcomed the opportunity to work with the Northern Housing Consortium and gather feedback from our customers.

“We’d like to thank all of our customers who took the time to share their views, which could influence and shape the future of our customers’ homes.”

The NHC’s Brian Robson explained that “The comments that we make to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are informed by engagement with our members and their customers – so we’re very grateful to the Thirteen residents who took the time to set out their views. This really helps to shape our work.”

The NHC continues to contribute to the Decent Homes Review. NHC members can sign-up for updates on the progress of the Review by emailing Kristina.Dawson@northern-consortium.org.uk

We are always happy to meet with staff or residents to discuss the Review – if this would be of interest to your organisation, do let us know.