Tony Lloyd – 2022 Speech on the Death of Awaab Ishak and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

The speech made by Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP for Rochdale, in the House of Commons on 24 November 2022.

I rise to speak in what is probably one of the saddest debates that I have had to take part in. It concerns the death of Awaab Ishak, a young boy whose tragic death was made more tragic by the fact that it should never have happened.

In a way, it is easy on these occasions to look round for where for where responsibility lies, and I will do that in a few minutes, but I want first to record the dignity of Awaab’s family, who have made it very clear that all they seek is to ensure that this can never happen to another family or another child. I pay enormous respect to the family for precisely that level of dignity, and I stand with them even now, two years on from the death of their child, because of course a child is irreplaceable.

We now need to ask what went wrong. On many occasions I have risen from these Benches and criticised the Government for funding lapses, but this case is simply not about funding. It is about a housing association that did not do its job. We know that some of the factors that led to the death were things that simply should never have happened.

Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate and for his tireless efforts. Awaab’s death was an avoidable tragedy, and I am sure that Members from across the House have casework where tenants in both the social and private rental sectors are too often left in terrible conditions similar to those that caused this incident. Will he join me, in thanking the Manchester Evening News for its important campaign with Shelter to bring back regulation on consumer standards for social housing? Does he also agree that we must strengthen the rights of all tenants, regardless of whether they are living in the social or private sector? Finally, does he agree—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

Order. I cannot hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying because he is facing away from the Chair. If he spoke to the Chair, we could all hear him.

Afzal Khan

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Finally, does my hon. Friend agree that, in view of this systemic failure, the whole board is in an untenable position and must go?

Tony Lloyd

I will deal with my hon. Friend’s initial points a little later, but on the question of the board, I do think that we now have to question the way it has operated. To allow the chief executive to cling on to his job until public pressure made that impossible is an indictment of those who sought to give him that cover.

Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while it is welcome that Rochdale Boroughwide Housing has apologised, that is not good enough in these circumstances? It has admitted to making assumptions about lifestyles and therefore not dealing with the issue, which has cost such a young life and shows an inherent lack of leadership. The law has to be changed to make sure that landlords, both social and private, cannot ignore the health risks of damp and mould.

Tony Lloyd

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that blaming lifestyles in a case like this is ridiculous; we know that the things that went wrong go way beyond individual decisions and lifestyles.

As I was about to say before my hon. Friend intervened, it is ludicrous to say to people that painting over mould is the answer. In my dim and distant youth, I lived in accommodation with mould, and when you walk into a building like that, you can feel it on your lungs. We know that children have much more sensitive lungs, so that combination cannot be blamed on lifestyle. The ventilation in the flat in this case was inadequate, but things could and should have been done about that. We know that the response of the housing association, RBH, was slow—as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) knows, RBH’s responses are customarily slow.

Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this very important debate, and I agree that it is probably one of the more distressing debates that any of us has had to participate in. He has made an extremely important point: tenants repeatedly have to report issues to RBH, and sometimes those issues simply are not logged. In fact, I have an example from just today. Yesterday, I asked two members of my team to visit people who had made complaints about RBH. We wrote to RBH about those specific complaints, and today it acknowledged the complaints—which had been lodged four times by the tenant—and said that it had now opened a case. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is absolutely ludicrous that tenants are not being listened to by their housing association, and have to come to their Member of Parliament to get basic, decent housing standards?

Tony Lloyd

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Sadly, that kind of response—among other things—is what led to the death of Awaab; that failure to do the basics right is at the heart of what went wrong. I also had a response from RBH this week regarding a constituent, telling me that it had dealt with the mould problem in her property. One would think that at the moment, mould would be so high on Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s agenda that it would be its No. 1 priority, yet the tenant has come back saying that far from the work having been done, the mould is still there. She has sent photographs to confirm that point.

When the Ishak family went to a solicitor because they could not get justice directly through the housing association, RBH used a legal block, which automatically put a block on repairs. Most of us would regard a policy like that as ludicrous, but in this case it was more than ludicrous: it was dangerous. We know that many, many things went wrong, but the thing that probably got me most was that a letter from a health visitor was lost through bad IT. The health visitor recommended that the family be rehoused, yet that recommendation was never acted on. That is—well, people can choose their own words as to what it is, but it is pretty devastating.

We know that many things have gone wrong. I say to the Minister that there needs to be an inquiry into RBH, even though we are two years on, because both the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and I are of the view that RBH is simply not up to the job that we expect of it. That is not a criticism of many of the staff there: it is a criticism of the most senior managers, and indeed of the board. We need an investigation; even in recent days, whistleblowers—former employees—have talked about a culture of cost cutting at every turn, of bullying, and of failure to prioritise repairs. There is also the question of whether racism was involved, either institutional or more deliberate. Things like that have to be investigated.

This is not just a local issue. Mould does not exist just in homes and houses in the Rochdale borough; it is a nationwide problem, and we need nationwide solutions. The Secretary of State told us the other day that he believes that

“there are at least 2.3 million homes that fail the decent homes standard”—[Official Report, 16 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 714.]

We have to do something about that. There are 800,000 homes with damp, of which 400,000 are in the social rented sector and 400,000 are in the private rented sector. It is a problem with social landlords and private landlords, and we have to deal with them both.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) says, we need to look at having an Awaab’s law to say that certain things must be done, including automatically treating mould as a potential health hazard. When mould or damp is reported, that should lead to an immediate response from the landlord. Anything else would be ridiculous. When the duty to repair comes in, there has to be a recognisable timescale. It is basic good housekeeping and we should put it on the statute book, because we know it is not happening. I can tell the House that it will be very popular, because 120,000 people have signed the petition that the Manchester Evening News has launched. I applaud those people and the MEN for taking up the case, and I applaud the fact that now the case has been raised, we are beginning to address the issues that the family want addressed.

We also need to look beyond the immediate legal framework for housing associations. We have to ensure that if they fail to do the job we ask of them, other mechanisms will come in. Public health authorities, the local authority, the Regulator of Social Housing and other agencies all need to be involved. We have to ensure —this is a matter for the Minister and the Government—that they are properly resourced to do the job of controlling that we ask of them. We must not give them a legal duty and legal capacity unless we also give them the resource to undertake their role.

One thing is bizarre. Supposedly, the Regulator of Social Housing is there to protect our interests by ensuring not only that housing associations are run with financial prudence, but that they conform to the standards that we expect. However, six months after Awaab died, the regulator did an in-depth assessment of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. It gave RBH’s governance a G1—the best grade it can give, which is a little surprising —and said:

“Based on the evidence gained from the IDA, the regulator has assurance that RBH’s governance arrangements enable it to adequately control the organisation and to continue meeting its objectives.”

My goodness—I am glad that it is not in control of anything that affects me directly this very day.

The regulator needs to up its own game. I say again to the Minister that we must give regulatory authorities the powers and the duties of the role that we need them to perform if housing associations and private landlords fail, but let us make sure that we give them the capacity as well. That means money, by the way, because without money we cannot employ qualified, competent staff.

I turn to the role of the Secretary of State, who is in Rochdale today. It will be nice for him to hear this from someone on the Opposition Benches: I applaud the fact that he has been proactive in the days since the coronial inquest report. He has done a number of things that we all agree to be progress in the right direction, but I am a little uncomfortable about one thing, if I may say so.

When the Secretary of State and I had an exchange in Parliament earlier this week, he spoke about the possibility of fines when housing associations go wrong. He was reported today as saying that he intends to take £1 million off RBH, from the affordable homes programme. It turns out that that may have been misreported, so perhaps it is important to set the record straight. I understand that what he proposes is simply that the money will be there for Rochdale but not for RBH; if so, I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that. Fining housing associations never seems to me to be the brightest way forward, because it penalises tenants. For residents in my constituency, it means repairs are not done and the homes they need are not available.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mike Wood.)

Tony Lloyd

It is rather nice to hear the chime of the Whips twice.

The important point I was making is that fines do not do the trick, so I hope the Secretary of State and the Minister will think again, because there are other ways around this. For example, it is right and proper that we look at the role of the controlling mind—the senior officers. Clearly, we can have different responses.

It is reasonable for the regulator, if properly structured, to be able to bring in disciplinary charges against senior managers. That is probably right because, as we know, the salary of the former chief executive went up to £170,000 a year at a time when the repair budget went down. It might have been sensible to consider cutting the salaries of senior officers on such occasions. When public money is involved, that is not an unreasonable proposition.

In the end, it may well be that in the most egregious cases the criminal law should be involved, but not for the charge of corporate manslaughter, which is directed only at the organisation, so not properly at the controlling mind. I have always thought that was a weakness in such a proposition, because we need those who are in control and make decisions to concentrate on what needs to be done. Certainly, the investigation into RBH needs to take place. We then need to think about right and proper controls on the controlling mind. In the end, the structure of RBH is simply not up to it. It cannot be in anybody’s interests to have a faceless executive board that has no reference to the wider public.

Let me share something with this packed Chamber. When I was about to complete my term as Mayor and police and crime commissioner of Greater Manchester, the chief executive of RBH approached me to see if I would think about taking on the role of chair of the board. Contemplate that: the chief executive instigating the appointment of the chair, who is responsible for discipline, pay and, ultimately, the hiring and firing of the chief executive. It is a very circular and dangerous little route, and I think we have to look at that structure, which is simply not fit and proper for the tenants we represent—the people of Rochdale. We must do better.

There is a good case now for saying that the executive board has had its time and ought to go. Those on the board did not do the job that we expected of them. They did not scrutinise, and after Awaab’s death they did not insist on the kind of change that I would have expected. I have asked them for a timeline and have seen what they did, and frankly, it does not give them any cause for credit. In that context, we need to look at the temporary way in which that important housing association, which serves our community, is structured. In the longer run, the local authority has offered to take back control. That is supported not just by Rochdale Council’s controlling Labour group, but by the Conservative opposition group, and it certainly has to be looked at. In the end, the advantage of a council is that it has elected people, not faceless bureaucrats, and we can challenge and get rid of elected people.

There has to be something about the tenants’ voice. There has to be something that allows tenants to have a voice that is amplified and heard, so that when things are going wrong, they can be dealt with and taken up.

Those are a few semi-lengthy remarks. I could go on at greater length, but I will not. I will finish on this point: in the end, a little boy died. That is a little boy who should have been out playing in the streets, the parks or wherever in Rochdale, or wherever the family next move to live. That little boy should never have died. That little boy died because of an inadequate care of detail, and detail in this case really did matter. We must make sure it never happens again. Whether we call the legislation Awaab’s law or not—I hope we might think about doing that—is an open question. What I do know is that the only way we can say to the family that we have really learned the lessons, and not just as the formulaic words “We have learned the lessons”, is to show that we intend to take the actions that will make a permanent change so that this can never happen again.