Helen Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The housing crisis is the single biggest issue facing my constituents. Every single year since I was first elected as a local councillor on the same day that the coalition Government came into power in 2010, I have watched the housing crisis deepen and become more entrenched in my constituency. Our local council had vital grant funding for new social homes withdrawn; subsequent Conservative Governments froze and cut council rents, leaving gaping holes in the housing revenue account and hamstringing our councils on repairs and investment; and right-to-buy changes have haemorrhaged council homes out of the system and into the private sector, sometimes only for them to be let back to our councils as temporary accommodation at extortionate rents. After 14 years of harmful policies, the impacts are clear: tens of thousands of families living in temporary accommodation and in unsafe, damp, mouldy conditions that harm health and undermine the essential stability and security that every one of us needs to thrive. This is not only a housing crisis, but a public health crisis, a cost of living crisis and a basic human decency crisis. I rise to speak in particular to the campaign that I have been running since 2022: a reform to social housing regulations called Georgia’s law. Georgia is a former constituent who had been a social housing tenant for five years when her eldest son, having done nothing wrong, was threatened by gang members. The police told Georgia that his life was at risk and that she needed to move. The move into temporary accommodation was catastrophic for Georgia and her family, ultimately resulting in the murder of her second son—a horrific act that would never have happened had that family’s life not been destabilised in that way. What we discovered was that Georgia had no security of tenure as a social housing tenant in those circumstances; her family had to move through no fault of their own, because they were the victims of a threat of serious violence. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister’s commitment and engagement on this issue, and I particularly thank the noble Lord Best for picking up this issue in the Lords and for the debate and discussion that happened there. I look forward to engaging further with the Minister on the amendments that might be tabled to secure in law the protection for social housing tenants who have to move because of a threat of violence, where police deem that move necessary, so that they do not suffer the compounding trauma of the destabilisation of their lives in temporary accommodation. I will table an amendment on Report if necessary, but I look forward to further engagement with the Minister on the issue in the meantime.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Tenant Management Organisations and the Right to Manage · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of the Loughborough Estate in my constituency, I wish to say that the conditions in which the residents there are currently forced to live are shocking. The lack of a straightforward remedy to those conditions is completely unacceptable, and the need for change is urgent. The petition states: The petition of residents of the Loughborough Estate in Brixton, Declares that the right to manage for residents of social housing is important and that tenant management organisations often deliver high quality services, but the Loughborough Estate is under the long-term control of a tenant management organisation which has lost its democratic mandate, and fails to deliver the essential services in respect of which it receives over £3 million per year of funds from the London Borough of Lambeth; and further declares that the current right to manage legislation is not fit for purpose, lacks essential safeguards, and enables rogue entities to retain control of council housing without democratic mandate and oversight. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons considers this issue, and urges the Government to: (i) produce regulations amending the Housing (Right to Manage) (England) Regulations 2012, introducing essential changes to safeguard the democratic integrity of tenant management organisations; and (ii) publish updated guidance in relation to the application of any such regulations, including a new Modular Management Agreement. And the petitioners remain, etc. [P003218]