Rented Housing: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to help support landlords to ensure their properties comply with the Decent Homes Standard.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook
It is imperative that homes are decent, safe and warm. The current Decent Homes Standard (DHS) plays a key role in setting a minimum quality standard that all social homes should meet.
The primary source of funding to support landlords in meeting the DHS and to manage the repair and maintenance of existing social homes is rental income. This amounted to £24.5bn in 2023/24.
From April 2026, social housing rents will be permitted to increase by CPI+1% annually as part of a new 10-year rent settlement announced at the Spending Review. In addition, we completed a focused consultation on how we will implement social rent convergence, ahead of a final decision to be announced at Autumn Budget.
Social housing landlords are required to deliver the outcomes of the regulatory consumer standards, which includes the DHS, set by the independent Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The RSH proactively seeks assurances that registered providers are meeting the outcomes of the consumer standards through routine inspections of large landlords (those with more than 1,000 homes).
The government is extending the DHS to apply to the private rented sector for the first time through the Renters’ Rights Bill. Alongside its introduction to the private rented sector, the government recently consulted on a modernised DHS for private and social rent homes. The consultation closed on 12 September 2025. My Department is now considering the responses to that consultation, and we will set out our response in due course focused on ensuring that the new DHS is proportionate and deliverable.
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