Social Rented Housing (2) – Parliamentary Written Answer

Oliver Colvile: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps he is taking to reduce the incidence and severity of antisocial behaviour in social housing.
Andrew Stunell: Grant Shapps announced on 11 January proposals to strengthen the hand of social landlords and tenants in tackling antisocial behaviour. Those proposals include making it easier for landlords to take swift and decisive action against their most antisocial tenants by introducing a new additional mandatory ground for possession for serious housing-related antisocial behaviour; greater flexibility on the use of probationary tenancies; and new funding for an antisocial behaviour action team focused on tenant capacity building. More widely, the Government are currently consulting on proposals to streamline and improve the existing toolkit available to the police, social landlords and others to tackle antisocial behaviour. The proposals are intended to better protect victims and communities from the serious harm caused by criminal and antisocial behaviour by making the tools faster, more flexible, and more effective.