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John Prescott has a greater grasp of housing issues than any other minister responsible for the subject since – with all due modesty – I was a minister in charge of housing in the 1974 Labour government. He appreciates housing's cardinal importance, and has worked out policies to improve the housing sector – policies that are to be backed by real money. Chancellor Gordon Brown told last week's Labour conference: "Investment in housing is rising from £2bn in 1997 to £6bn a year by 2006."

I am delighted that there is to be a new Housing Bill and that in the New Year – not all that far away now – Prescott intends to bring before parliament something he calls "a radical programme" for housing. It is in a spirit of constructive support for Prescott's objectives that I offer the following suggestions – and reservations.

In the summer, when Prescott announced his plans for a single housing inspectorate for the whole of the public rented sector, I cheered. The Housing Corporation is one of those well-meaning organisations that has lacked a cutting edge.

Too many housing associations are riddled with complacency and too many are inefficient and unaccountable. That complacency was evident in some of the comments on the new inspectorate by representatives of housing associations published in last week's Housing Today.

In 1974, I was the minister who put through the legislation that provided the associations with their powers and their finance. Housing associations, then, were providers of ancillary public sector housing for the aged, the disabled, and other special groups. No one envisaged that the Tory government of 1979-97 would pretty well wipe out building of new council houses, and that housing associations would become almost the sole providers of new-build housing for the public rented sector. It was not their job, was not meant to be their job, and they are far from marvellous at carrying it out.

Some of their new housing is hideous to look at. Some of their relationships with tenants are poor. Their record in repairs is not necessarily one of the best and their responses to queries can be slapdash, when supplied at all. Even when they are involved actively and productively in laudable urban regeneration schemes, they can be insensitive and bossy. Once, I even heard allegations that an association was knowingly tolerating drug-dealing in its properties. Plus, housing associations are not statutorily accountable to their tenants. There's no structure for tenants' associations for housing association properties in the way that such a structure exists, however haphazardly, for council housing.

Housing associations were never meant to be the sole providers of new-build housing for the public rented sector, and they are far from marvellous at it

Some local authorities are lousy, too, in all the ways I have just described. But local authorities are democratically elected. Any councillor can walk into the director of housing's office and demand explanations. The only people with the right to do that with housing associations, at present, are Housing Corporation staff – but there's only 24 of them; not exactly a Sword of Damocles.

That's why I'm delighted that the Audit Commission is to take over the job of inspection, both for local authority housing and housing associations. I hope the Housing Corporation's continuing role as regulator will not result in crossed wires and that this legislation will be drafted with extreme care and on the clear assumptions that tenants' rights must come first and that public money must be spent effectively. Prescott's recent announcement that funding for housing associations is being increased by a third to £1.3bn makes that more important than ever. I shall be taking an active role in the legislation.

In his conference speech, Prescott reserved a special denunciation for "unscrupulous" private landlords: "They exploit loopholes in the housing benefit system to turn a profit, they rip off tenants and they rip off the public." I am very pleased that the prime minister gave his authority last week to the licensing of private landlords. When I discussed this possibility with constituents in Manchester recently, they cheered. I hope this licensing will be universal. It would have more teeth if the new inspectorate covered the entire rented sector, public and private. If the terms of the bill allow, I will press for this.

Before last year's general election I wrote that, compared with a generation ago, housing was no longer a prominent political issue. Last week, John Prescott told the Labour conference: "Housing is at the top of my agenda."