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Social Housing Green Paper expected in next six weeks
The government’s Social Housing Green Paper will be published within the next six weeks, housing secretary James Brokenshire has said.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Brokenshire said the paper, promised by his predecessor Sajid Javid at last year’s National Housing Federation conference, would be published 24 July.
Mr Brokenshire said: “It is essential that people living in buildings like Grenfell Tower are not only safe but they feel the state understands their lives and works for them. There is no question that their faith in this has been shaken.
“Which is why – as well as strengthening building and fire safety – we’ll be publishing a Social Housing Green Paper by recess.”
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In the statement, Mr Brokenshire also announced that the government would publish its consultation into banning combustible materials in cladding systems on high-rise buildings next week.
He announced that consultation in Parliament last month, on the same day that Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations had not recommended a ban and she said: “I don’t think a ban will work.”
The government is also still consulting on banning so-called desktop studies, a way that the industry has in the past cleared combustible materials for use in cladding on high rises without testing them.
Mr Javid promised the green paper – intended as a response to the Grenfell Tower fire – in September, the same month in which Jeremy Corbyn promised a parallel review of social housing policy.
Labour published its review in April, proposing the scrapping of the ‘affordable rent’ tenure, as well as a ‘Decent Homes 2’ target for social landlords to improve fire safety in the wake of the fire.
Since the initial announcement, the government has changed its housing minister, its housing secretary and the name of its department that deals with housing.
Some have criticised the multiple changes as causing delays to the process of producing the green paper.
The government was previously committed to publishing the paper by spring, a promise it restated after Dominic Raab replaced Alok Sharma as housing minister in January.
