Fighting for Social Housing Standards

Since I was elected as MP for Woking constituency in July 2024, housing has consistently been the top issue in my post bag – my team and I have helped with thousands of individual cases!

We clearly do not have enough housing locally, and the social housing that we do have is not of high enough quality. Every Woking resident deserves a safe, warm and dry place to call home. Unfortunately, damp and mould issues are two of the common problems raised with me.

This is in no small part due to the previous Conservative administration on Woking Borough Council unlawfully removing more than £4 million from the housing revenue account - ring-fenced, local authority accounts specifically for managing and maintaining council-owned housing -   which has resulted in a huge backlog of issues.

In Parliament this week, I asked the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook, what steps this government is taking to ensure that that does not happen again to add further woes to our social housing stock.

With local authorities under such severe financial pressure, it’s clear that they need support from central government. The Minister did confirm that the Government is taking steps to assist local authorities whose housing revenue accounts are under pressure.

However, more needs to be done. I will keep pushing the Government to provide local authorities with further support to improve their housing supply, so that everyone in Woking can have a safe place to live.

Watch my exchange with the Minister