Homeless People and Rough Sleeping
Debate between Baroness Grender and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
We are absolutely not complacent, as I said in my initial Answer. In fact, between October and December, when the snapshot was taken, our management accounts show that homelessness reduced by 27%—although I acknowledge that that is partly as a result of seasonal variations, which happen every year. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 was the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades. Since it came into force in 2018, over half a million households have been prevented from becoming homeless or have been supported into settled accommodation. As a demonstration of our determination not to be complacent, we have put £2 billion into the fund to help reduce homelessness. The noble Baroness is entirely wrong to use 2010 as a comparator, because that is when the statistics were started on this basis. She might like to know that we are almost up to the level of highest number of households in temporary accommodation, which was in 2004.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the one silver lining of the awful tragedy of the Covid pandemic was the Everyone In project, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey? But the chance to keep every homeless person in was then, frankly, squandered. Will the Minister agree to look into that wasted opportunity—the extraordinary waste of the chance at that particular moment? Will she come back to the House and explain why the Government have wasted that one critical moment when everyone was in, which could have been used to hit that specific target in the Conservative manifesto? That is clearly not going to be reached, as evidenced by the statistics yesterday.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I think we can all agree that the statistics yesterday were deeply disappointing. That is certainly a reflection of the cost of living, with a number of people being evicted from rental accommodation having fallen behind in arrears. However, there is much that we are doing to help: we have the rough sleeping initiative, Housing First, the Night Shelter Transformation fund, supported housing, and we are funding local authorities to provide assisted housing. We are doing a number of different things, which are all wrapped up in a £2 billion package, and, having spoken to the banks, I can assure the noble Baroness that we are all fighting the same war and that we still stick to our manifesto pledge to get rid of homelessness.
Housing: Unfair Leasehold Agreements
Debate between Baroness Grender and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The noble Lord is correct. These unfair practices in the leasehold market have absolutely no place in a modern housing market, and neither do excessive ground rents that exploit consumers who get nothing in return. That is why we are reforming the system so that it is fairer for leaseholders. In December 2019, we announced that we would move forward with legislation on leaseholder reform, reaffirming our commitment to making the system fairer for leaseholders. This will include measures to ban the sale of new leasehold houses, restrict ground rents to peppercorn for future leases, give freehold home owners equivalent rights to challenge unfair charges, and close loopholes to prevent unfair evictions. Regarding his question on what action we can take, the CMA has already announced enforcement action and said that this report is an interim report and that its research is ongoing.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister regret that the MHCLG ignored warnings about this crisis from the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership back in 2015? Does she accept that those victims of what the CMA now describes as “significant harm” cannot wait any longer for change? Can she explain to them what happened to Sajid Javid’s promise to change the law before summer 2018? Does she accept that leaseholders’ rights continue to be sold to speculators, with little government protection from everything from doubling of ground rents to extortionate fees for correcting issues such as dangerous cladding?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
I agree that the legislation has taken a long time in its gestation, but we have done a number of things since Javid’s report in the other place. For example, we have asked the Law Commission to undertake a series of reports, which it will start producing this spring, about standardising the enfranchisement process, so that buying and extending a lease is easier, cheaper and quicker. It is also going to make it easier for leaseholders jointly to obtain the right to manage and review how commonhold works, so that it may become a viable alternative for existing and new homes. Together with the leaseholders’ pledge that we put in place over a year ago in consultation with housebuilders, that has gone some way—but not nearly far enough—towards mitigating the effects of the actions of those housebuilders.
Housing: New Homes
Debate between Baroness Grender and Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
I am afraid that I cannot speak for my colleagues in the other place about what is intended in the Budget. What I can say is that there are a number of reviews of the planning process and of the sections dealing with accessibility. All these will help us to deliver our target. While there is still work to do, levels of housebuilding have recovered from the financial crisis of 2008-09, and this country has now delivered over 241,000 additional homes, the highest number in over 30 years. We are driving forward an ambitious agenda with everyone involved in housebuilding, including housing associations, small and large private developers and councils. We are all working hard to deliver this target.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the promised homes, hospitals, schools, prisons, HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and more require a growth in the construction sector of 35%, but the sector is projected at the moment to shrink in workforce by 9% post Brexit? Does she agree that those sums simply do not add up? What urgent action will the Government take to grow this sector, or will the desperately needed housebuilding pipeline simply be a pipe dream?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Government are taking many measures to tackle the skills crisis in this sector. For example, the Department for Education’s £24 million construction skills fund is supporting 26 on- site hubs focusing on housing. The EU exit does create opportunities to grow our own workforce, but the industry is best placed to step up and train the workforce that it knows it will need. The Government are doing their part by improving skills provision, supporting modernisation to increase productivity and creating a fair migration system.