Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on securing this important debate, and thank him for his clear and comprehensive account of the challenges of poorly managed, and in particular non-commissioned, exempt accommodation in his constituency.
I also thank other hon. Members who have participated in the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) and for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill). My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), have championed this issue for, in some cases, many years. I remember the debates about it in the previous Parliament.
Members will have noticed that I am not the Minister responsible for supported housing. The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), is currently in the main Chamber updating the House on changes to local government finance. I will obviously do my best to respond to the various points raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr and others, but I know that the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness will be happy to follow up with any Member in relation to specific issues of concern. I have no doubt that she will be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, his constituents, should that be appropriate, to discuss matters in more detail.
In general terms, let me reassure Members of two things. First, the Government take incredibly seriously the need to ensure that all individuals who benefit from supported housing live in safe and decent accommodation and get the support that they need to get back on their feet and improve their lives. As we have heard, in many cases these are very vulnerable individuals who need support if they are to get their lives back on track.
Secondly, we remain firmly committed to addressing exploitation and profiteering at the hands of rogue exempt accommodation operators. Understandably, that has been the focus of the debate. As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson—the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) —and others noted, there are lots of high-quality providers out there. There is also, as the shadow Minister—the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking)—rightly argued, huge unmet need in this area. That is why, as Members will know, at the spending review the Government announced £39 billion for a new 10-year social and affordable homes programme. We want to see new supply of supported housing in England come through that new programme in greater numbers. Although we did not set any numerical targets or ringfence budgets for that programme, it has been designed with the flexibility necessary to ensure that those types of accommodation that require higher grant rates can come through the new programme in the appropriate numbers.
We are also providing wider support for the supported housing sector. We announced £159 million, through the local government finance settlement for 2026 to 2029, for support services in supported housing. We are working with targeted local areas and officials are confirming allocations with those areas in the coming days and weeks.
I recognise not only that Birmingham has significantly more supported exempt accommodation than anywhere else in the country—the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr rightly said approximately 31,000 individuals are housed in around 11,000 units—but that it faces acute challenges in respect of unsafe and poor-quality supported housing. I think it was mentioned earlier, but the Local Government and Homelessness Minister recently met the leader of Birmingham council and Members representing a number of Birmingham constituencies to discuss the ongoing problems that Birmingham faces.
It is worth my saying a few general remarks about supported housing. It helps those who need extra support to live as independently as possible in the community, and that support can take many forms. Some individuals may need supported housing for a short time while they recover from a period of crisis; for others, supported housing is a home for life, helping them to live independently outside of institutional settings. The Government fully appreciate that there have been real issues in parts of the supported housing market. Over recent years, far too many residents have been placed in inappropriate accommodation or dangerous situations, with little to no support.
As we have heard today, the impact of unsafe, poor-quality supported housing on residents, their families and communities should not be understated. Increased antisocial behaviour resulting from poorly managed housing and knock-on impacts for wider services such as the NHS and the police are frequently brought to the Department’s attention. Communities in a number of areas across the country have been blighted by these problems, but we know, as I have said, that the issue is most prevalent in Birmingham. Let me be very clear: that state of affairs is intolerable. It cannot be allowed to continue, which is why the Government are taking action.
Action has been taken prior to and alongside the legislation that the previous Government supported and that we have been taking forward. The supported housing improvement programme has been in place in Birmingham since 2022, and before that the supported housing oversight pilots resulted in real improvements—I think the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr made that case in his speech. The multidisciplinary teams that have been established in the local authority, across housing enforcement, adult social care and housing benefit teams, have strengthened understanding and allowed targeted action to take place.
Although the programme will end in March, the lessons learned and the actions taken by Birmingham city council should now be firmly embedded. We are ending that funding as we work towards the implementation of the Act and, thereafter, local authorities will charge fees for the administration and enforcement of licensing in particular going forward. We have not cut off all funding with a view to having no replacement; there is work alongside our intentions to roll out the legislation.
Let me turn to that legislation, which has rightly been the focus of much of the debate. I remember it going through the House when I was the shadow Minister. We should commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on his private Member’s Bill, which the previous Government supported, and on all his work on the wider homelessness agenda. That legislation was a response to long-standing concerns about the quality of non-exempt supported accommodation, its oversight and the value-for-money questions we have heard about today.
Despite there being many excellent supported housing providers, regulation in this area is absolutely needed. The Government are working to introduce the necessary measures to improve quality and oversight as soon as possible. I am happy to tell Members that we intend to implement the Act in stages over the coming months, and I will provide some more detail on the different elements of the Act that we intend to take forward, and the timescales. It should be said that local authorities can and should still use their existing enforcement powers to take action against poor-quality accommodation as we do so.
I am pleased to say that, this week, we have allocated £39 million in new burdens funding to local authorities, including Birmingham, to start work on their local supported housing strategies. Those strategies ask local authorities to assess their current supply of supported housing, and to estimate their unmet need and future demand. They must then set out how they will meet them. The first strategies are due to be completed by 31 March 2027, and statutory guidance to support this work was published earlier this week.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman challenged me on the advisory panel. I can assure him that it has not been forgotten about. We are moving forward with its establishment. The chair will be officially appointed imminently and the panel will be officially convened. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the panel will then advise the Government on the implementation of the Act as a whole and consider what further support the supported housing sector needs going forward. We are taking that part of the Act forward.
As has been mentioned a number of times, the Government have also consulted on our proposals for supporting housing licensing and new support standards. We did that last year, and I know that a response has been anticipated for some time. It will be published as soon as possible. I well understand the urgency that Members from across the House have expressed. We will publish the new national supported housing standards along with guidance, so that residents, providers and local authorities know the standard of support we expect.
We will consult on licensing regulations later this year, giving stakeholders an opportunity to comment on the regulations before they are debated in Parliament. This is really important, and it goes to the point about high-quality providers that several Members made. We need to ensure that we introduce the licensing scheme in a way that is both proportionate and effective, so that the expense of bearing down on the rogue providers and operators does not penalise high-quality providers. Local authorities will receive new burdens funding to establish their licensing schemes, and we will monitor the licensing schemes to ensure that they are having the intended effect.
The Government are committed to implementing the measures in the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act and to giving local authorities the powers they need to tackle the problems evident in supported housing in Birmingham and across England. The progress that has already been made is worth noting, and we want that to continue. We want councils like Birmingham to make use of their existing powers. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston mentioned some of the progress made under SHIP in Birmingham. SHIP and the previous programme received a total of £6.5 million in funding, and that has rightly generated huge amounts of benefit: £8.8 million of housing benefit spend was prevented; the number of cases where support was deemed to be inadequate has dropped from 33%; and we are seeing the proportion of inspected properties that meet the decent homes standard rising from 44%. Progress has been made, but the regulatory framework that the Act introduces does need to be brought forward.
Matthew Pennycook
We issued guidance earlier this week in respect of some of the provisions that are in the Act, but I will ensure that the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness has heard my hon. Friend’s call for more support and guidance in that area, alongside the implementation of other elements of the Act.
The Government and my hon. Friend the Minister are committed to working with all Members, local authorities and supported housing providers to make sure the measures have the intended effect. Aside from the note of party political debate injected into our discussions by the shadow Minister in regard to the wider housing supply, I think there is cross-party consensus about what needs to happen on this particular issue, and the need for the regulatory framework to be introduced so that we can get supported housing that is good quality, appropriate for the needs of the individuals and helps them to live as independently as possible.