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The government must use next week’s Queen’s Speech to promote a “fundamental shift” in the treatment of social housing tenants, Grenfell United has said.
In an open letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, the group, which represents the bereaved and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, said the journey to justice has been “torturously slow” and called on ministers to progress the Social Housing White Paper through parliament.
The long-awaited white paper was published in November last year, almost two-and-a-half years after a green paper was published in August 2018.
Proposed changes in the white paper include strengthening the Regulator of Social Housing and the Housing Ombudsman and making sure landlords are more accountable to their tenants through a proactive consumer regulation system.
The paper, entitled The Charter for Social Housing Residents, also set out a seven-point plan to improve protections for social housing tenants.
Grenfell United noted that the ongoing inquiry into the fire has slowly shed light on how tenants at Grenfell Tower were failed by their landlord and said it is determined that the 72 people who died in the fire are remembered for the changes that come as a result of the tragedy.
The letter said: “Grenfell United have now been waiting almost four years for this commitment to be fulfilled and we are not prepared to be kept waiting any longer.
“The Queen’s Speech on 11 May will provider your government with the ideal opportunity to progress the Social Housing White Paper on its journey through parliament and we are expecting nothing less.”
The group said that any further delay to progressing the white paper would be considered an act of bad faith.
The 2018 green paper proposed a strengthened regulator as well as proposals for league tables for social housing providers, though these plans were eventually dropped. Instead, the white paper included a raft of tenant satisfaction measures against which landlords will be assessed.
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