The Joint Committee on Human Rights has recommended that the Oftenant regime and the Housing and Regeneration bill extend the scope of the Human Rights Act to Registered Social Landlords. In response to the Housing Federation complaining that this would limit their ability to raise private finance by making them public bodies, the committee said:
there was ‘no basis’ to the belief that giving associations a duty to act in accordance with ECHR rights would change their status from private to public ‘for any purpose other than the applicability of the Human Rights Act’.
So there. But while this is not a bad idea at all, at least as far as it might help with the most egregious forms of RSL behaviour, it is unlikely to make it into the Housing bill at this stage (even though it is being frantically amended).