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The Housing Policy Statement

This page provides the background to the Housing Policy Statement and an outline of our aims and objectives when it was published in December 2000. Includes links to the Statement and Green Paper.

The Way Forward for Housing

The Government published Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All: The Way Forward for Housing (The Housing Policy Statement), on 13 December 2000. A summary of the Statement was published at the same time. The Statement set out a wide range of policies to modernise housing so that everyone has the opportunity of a decent home.

Many of our policies will not require new primary legislation to implement them. For those policies that will need an Act of Parliament, we will introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time is available. In particular, the Government is committed to introducing licensing of houses in multiple occupation and a new housing health and safety rating system to replace the current fitness standard. In the last Parliament the Government introduced the Homes Bill, to improve the process of buying and selling homes and to provide further help for the homeless and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill although these measures did not complete their passage before the General Election.

The Housing Green Paper

The Housing Policy Statement is the outcome of the consultation process on the Housing Green Paper, Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All: The Housing Green Paper which the Government published for consultation on 4 April 2000. The Green Paper was the most comprehensive Government review of housing policy for over twenty years. The Government then carried out an extensive analysis of the 1,099 responses to the Green Paper. On 24 July 2000 the Government also announced its Spending Review for Housing which delivered the resources to implement these proposals.

Aims and Objectives

The main objectives of our policy are:

for social housing, a wider range of landlords providing high quality services, charging fairer rents, and increasing choice for tenants
extra investment for local authorities to improve their housing stock with additional funding available to authorities which achieve excellent standards and establish arms-length arrangements for the management of their housing
support for continued transfer of council housing to non-profit-making registered social landlords, where tenants agree
an increase in Private Finance Initiative schemes for housing
reforming lettings policies to give tenants more choice over where they live
reforming social sector rents to make them fairer, more coherent and affordable
promoting best practice for landlords in the private rented sector, and considering options to tackle the minority of bad landlords
promoting more affordable housing, in particular through a starter home initiative
improving housing benefit to give better customer service, and tackle fraud and error

tackling housing-related social exclusion, for example rough sleeping

The proposals are part of broader agenda to tackle poverty and social exclusion, promoting work for those who can and support for those who cannot.