Houses in Multiple Occupation (Asylum-Seeker Accommodation) (England) Regulations 2023

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Grand Committee

There is a lot in these licensing requirements. The Minister developed the reason why they are being put on temporary hold in this statutory instrument—the contract for those providing asylum seekers with accommodation has exactly the same provisions. I look forward to her confirming, line by line, whether everything I have said is in the contract. If not, it is clear that the chapter of the Home Office and government departments dehumanising some of the most vulnerable people is continuing.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her introduction. I was not aware that my noble friend was going to speak. Fortunately, what I have made a note of is not inconsistent with what he said. I will try to edit as I go so that I do not repeat too much. I recognise the issue that the Government seek to address, though I am unconvinced that this is the solution, but I made my views on their asylum policy quite clear to the House last week. My noble friend has also given the context quite clearly.

HMOs under the current system are hardly luxury accommodation but the licensing requirements in force since 2004, I think, ensure certain standards. As my noble friend has said, these are not just about physical standards but the standards of conduct, and so on, of those involved in the provision—licence holders and managers must be fit and proper persons. I am making a foray away from Home Office debates into DLUHC ones, but in Home Office discussions I have expressed my concern several times that the people who run the hotels are not fit and proper. I have raised the question of disbarring orders and so on; we are all aware of the history of children going missing. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children may not be placed in this accommodation, though perhaps we ought to get a confirmation from the Minister that they will not be placed in it by themselves. However, children will be; I gather that it is intended for families.

I have also gained a very clear impression that the providers of hotels have been quite distanced from what is happening on a day-to-day basis. I assume their contracts contain some requirement regarding the people who run the hotels, but it does not seem to be well enforced. The current assessment for a licence relates to compliance with housing, landlord and tenant law and codes of practice. Will we have codes of practice relating to this accommodation? My noble friend has mentioned the issue of discrimination on a number of grounds. When one thinks about asylum seekers, it is obvious how relevant that is.

The Minister has mentioned dispersal. There are different ways of looking at this. I understand the point she has made about the strain on different local authorities, but there is also an important advantage to placing people with similar backgrounds within what they might well regard as their community. It helps towards settlement, though I recognise that the Home Office is not particularly concerned about settling asylum seekers—probably the contrary. The people who live in HMOs are often vulnerable and not likely to complain. I would guess that this is even more the case with asylum seekers, who will not naturally have much trust in authority figures.

My noble friend talked about physical safety standards and the obvious concern about fire risks and so on. The Home Office may be doubling its personnel, but there are the questions of numbers and training. What inspection and monitoring arrangements will be in force? I do not have a picture of how often it will be. Will they carry out their work only at the start of a contract, or before? The scheme looks too much like a blank cheque for less scrupulous landlords and providers of asylum accommodation. We know that hotel accommodation is now being charged at rates unrelated to its standards.

Reading about how the temporary exemptions from licensing will operate, I wondered whether the administration will be cumbersome because of the varied start dates involved. Inevitably, I wondered what consultation there had been with local authorities. We are told about future work between central government and local authorities, but this sort of scheme, which is a significant change, should—perhaps I am too idealistic—have been one whereby local authorities were satisfied that they had had good involvement with the work of DLUHC.

I received briefings, as other noble Lords will have done, from the LGA, London Councils and Shelter, for which I am grateful. They did not give me the impression that the Government had met their concerns or of how they could do so in future. There is understandable concern that, even if a property is not brought into the scheme until it has been inspected by the Home Office, the conditions will deteriorate and we will end up with a two-tier system. Landlords will surely be incentivised to switch properties away from their existing use to Home Office contracts because they are potentially rather more profitable.

What consideration has been given to continuing the current licensing arrangements but with lower standards? I am referring not to matters such as fire safety but the numbers of people who share bathrooms and kitchens—not that the standards are that high now. If a property is designated as asylum accommodation, what is to stop the landlord letting it to non-asylum seekers? I mentioned tenants being unaware of their rights and frightened to complain. That will be so much more the case than it is now.

Finally, there is the issue of the resourcing of local authorities, whose work in this area is part funded, I understand, by licence fees. Once an HMO is exempt, the local authority will not know where the potentially dangerous HMOs are. Would money not be better spent on inspections and enforcement than on going hunting for HMOs? As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee rightly suggests, will the Home Office make publicly and regularly available the numbers of asylum seekers placed in unlicensed accommodation? It defies logic to suggest that nothing significant will change in terms of standards—if that were the case, why have this statutory instrument?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I cannot let it go that we are not making it clear why we are doing this. I want to make it very clear that we are doing it to speed up the movement of these people from what the House has clearly said many times is unsuitable hotel accommodation, which is not right over a long period of time, into better accommodation. That is why we are doing it. We want to do it as quickly as possible, and we fell that, in the short term of two years, the licensing regime was slowing that movement down.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I will tell the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, a tale about mixed-up names when we finish this Committee.

We have focused very much on safety standards. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, the standards of bathroom and kitchen facilities, and possibly the amount of space per person, will be different. I think that is covered by what the Minister has said she will find out about, but I do not want to lose that.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, absolutely not: I have written down everything that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, asked to be checked against the Home Office conditions, and we will make sure we check Hansard. I know that things such as bathrooms, kitchens and room sizes were in that list because I have written them down. If there are no further questions, I assure noble Lords that these regulations are an important part of the Government’s asylum dispersal plans—although I do not like that word. I thank noble Lords for the challenge and scrutiny they have given to them, and I will make sure that I get answers to them as soon as possible.