Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion by the Local Government Association in its report Spending Review 2020: On-the-Day Briefing, published on 25 November, that “no proposals for putting local welfare funding on a more sustainable footing to ensure a consistent approach to locally-led support to address financial hardship and economic vulnerability” are included in their Spending Review; and what plans they have to implement any such proposals after March 2021.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Spending Review 2020 confirmed that local government’s Core Spending Power is forecast to rise by 4.5% in cash terms- a real terms increase. This package means local authorities will be able to access an estimated additional £2.2 billion to support Adult and Children’s Social Care and to maintain universal services.
We have taken unprecedented measures during the pandemic to protect the most vulnerable, and put in place a strong package of financial support to support families and children, including our new £170 million Covid Winter Grant Scheme for local authorities, which is helping tens of thousands of vulnerable children across the country stay warm and well-fed this winter.
Our long-term ambition is to level up opportunity across the UK by helping people back into work as quickly as possible based on clear and consistent evidence around the important role that work can play in tackling poverty. Our £30 billion plans for jobs is the first step on the ladder to achieving this and will support economic recovery through new schemes including Kickstart and Job Entry Targeted Support.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide long-term sustainable funding to local government for councils (1) to undertake preventative work to address the causes of hardship and disadvantage, and (2) provide support to those households who need it.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Spending Review 2020 confirmed that Core Spending Power is forecast to rise by 4.5 per cent in cash terms- a real terms increase. This package means local authorities will be able to access an estimated additional £2.2 billion to support Adult and Children’s Social Care and to maintain universal services.
Within their Core Spending Power, councils will have access to an additional £1billion for social care next year, made up of a £300 million increase to the social care grant and 3 per cent Adult Social Care precept. The additional £1 billion of grant funding announced at SR19 for Adult and Children’s Social Care will be continuing, along with all other existing social care funding including the improved Better Care Fund. The Settlement is unringfenced to ensure local areas can prioritise based on their own understanding of the needs of their local communities.
We also recently announced that the Troubled Families Programme, which provides early, effective and joined up support for families with complex needs, will continue into a new phase in 2021-21. Up to an additional £165 million has been available for the programme, which will continue to drive system change, both locally and nationally, to serve vulnerable families with the intensive, integrated support they need to overcome their problems before they escalate
The Troubled Families Programme’s evaluation shows that it has been successful in improving outcomes for vulnerable families and driving progress towards intensive, integrated support services. As of September 2020, the programme had funded areas to work with 439,956 families?in most need of help.?However, we know that local authorities are working in a whole family way with at least 865,000 families. As of September 2020, 382,626 families have made sustained improvements with the problems that led to them joining the programme. In 31,798 of these families one or more adults has moved off benefits and into sustained employment
At the Spending Review we announced an unprecedented package of support for local authorities to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, including measures worth an estimated circa £3 billion of additional support for Covid-19 pressures next year, along with extending the current Sales, Fees and Charges scheme (which refunds 75 per cent of eligible income loss beyond a 5 per cent threshold) into the first three months of 2021-22.
This is on top of the support committed this financial year, including over £7.2 billion for local authorities, even before the extension of the Contain Outbreak Management Fund for those authorities under the highest level of restriction – potentially worth over £200 million a month – announced as part of the Covid-19 Winter Plan. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of Covid-19 to over £10 billion.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to provide funding to councils for the provision of payment holidays and forbearance for households unable to pay council tax due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Council tax plays a vital role in funding the delivery of essential frontline services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each council has its own local council tax support scheme which provides reductions in council tax for low income residents. The Government has also provided a £500m hardship fund to enable councils to provide further council tax relief. Councils have powers to implement alternative payment arrangements locally and many have used these to help individuals who are struggling to pay.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of migrants sleeping rough; and what guidance they have issued to local authorities about the provision of emergency accommodation for such migrants.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
My Department’s latest official annual Rough Sleeping Snapshot Statistics published on 27 February 2020 provide information about the estimated number of people sleeping rough across all local authorities on a single night between 1 October and 31 November 2019. These statistics provide a way of estimating the number of people sleeping rough across England on a single night and of assessing change over time.
The majority of people sleeping rough on a single night in England in 2019 were from the UK. In 2019, there were 2,735 people from the UK (64 % of the total) estimated to be sleeping rough on single night, 937 people (22 % of the total) who were EU (Non-UK) nationals and 151 people (4 % of the total) who were from outside the EU and the UK. The nationality of 443 people (10 % of the total) was ‘not known’.
For more information please see the following (attached) link:
We are providing £3.2 million in targeted funding to help support individuals who are sleeping rough off the streets, and an additional £3.2 billion for local authorities as part of the wider Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is at the discretion of local authorities, using their exiting legal powers, to decide who they can accommodate during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether this is British citizens or foreign nationals.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide additional support to domestic violence refuges during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to any increase in domestic violence and abuse.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist - Opposition Whip (Lords)
The Government will do everything it can to support refuge service providers to keep these vital services open, up and running.
My Department has been engaging with domestic abuse service providers on a daily basis to understand the additional challenges they are facing and the support needed to ensure essential provision is kept open and available to victims and their children.
We have published guidance to assist domestic abuse service providers in service delivery during these unprecedented times. The guidance, in line with current Public Health England advice, sets out the advice for daily service operation within the context of domestic abuse safe accommodation provision
The guidance can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-domestic-abuse-safe-accommodation-provision/covid-19-guidance-on-isolation-for-domestic-abuse-safe-accommodation-settings
In addition, we have confirmed that front line domestic abuse workers are key workers for the purposes of their children accessing schools, colleges and other educational establishments.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2 May (HL Deb, col 1062), when they will send, and place a copy in the Library of the House, the letter referred to.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I would like to thank the Baroness for participating in the question on homelessness. She raised an important point in relation to the impact of changes to social security on levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, and I committed to write to her to provide further details. I did so on the 30th May and I trust she has now received it.
It has also been laid in the library of the House of Lords.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 14 May (HL Deb, col 1502) whether they will legislate for an exemption to the no recourse to public funds exclusion for survivors of domestic abuse in the final version of the Domestic Abuse Bill; and what steps they are taking to ensure that the new legal duty on local authorities to provide emergency refuge accommodation will apply equally to all survivors.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
On 15 May 2019, Victoria Atkins, together with the Minister for Immigration (Caroline Noakes), the Minister of State for Equalities (Baroness Williams of Trafford) and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar) co-hosted a Round Table on migrant women affected by domestic abuse. Representatives from the sector were invited to discuss the issues facing migrant women affected by domestic abuse and the opportunities to tackle these issues.
The Government recognises that there are victims of domestic abuse who need additional support independently from that of their spouse / partner. We will continue to engage with domestic abuse survivors and representatives from the sector as part of our further work on the Bill.
The Destitute Domestic Violence Concession (DDVC), enables eligible migrants the option of claiming welfare benefits. This is to provide immediate crisis support to eligible migrants who claim to be victims of domestic abuse and are destitute as a result. To be eligible, applicants must be the spouse, or partner of someone who is British or permanently settled in the United Kingdom.
We have also provided Southall Black Sisters with £250 000, via the Tampon Tax, to pilot a fund to assist those who have no recourse to public funds and are suffering abuse. The findings from that project will help guide future policy reviews.
As part of our consultation on the future delivery of domestic abuse support in accommodation based services, we propose introducing a statutory duty, underpinned by statutory guidance which will clearly outline the expectations Government has for local authorities in delivering the duty. This includes outlining specific consideration of the support needs of diverse groups of victims.
We will work with local authorities to understand whether the new duty will incur additional costs and to ensure that local authorities are adequately funded to discharge it. We estimate an early broad annual cost of around £90 million which the Secretary of State communicated to the House of Commons on the 13 May. However, the full costs will be informed by the consultation and taken into the Spending Review.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of the research by Women's Aid in its report Nowhere to Turn, published 4 July; and, in particular, of the number of victims of domestic abuse who were unable to access a refuge in 2017–18.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Domestic abuse is a life-shattering and abhorrent crime that nobody should have to suffer. The Government is absolutely committed to protecting victims of domestic abuse and my Department funds Women’s Aid to undertake this important research so that we can better understand what is happening and address issues.
In 2017/18 we provided an additional £326,955 for the ‘Routes to Support’ which used to support the No Women Turned Away project and ensure victims calling the National Domestic Violence Helpline looking for refuge get additional help in finding the support they need. We have also commissioned an audit of domestic abuse service delivery - being run by Ipsos MORI – to give us a picture of provision across England, enabling us to understand what impact services are having and to identify gaps in provision.
The Prime Minister announced a draft Domestic Abuse Bill in 2017 and we have consulted on how we can best tackle domestic abuse so that we could hear from a wide range of stakeholders, including survivors of domestic abuse and the organisations that support them. We want the Domestic Abuse Bill and a supporting package of non-legislative measures to be truly transformative and bring lasting change to the victims and families experiencing domestic abuse. The consultation on domestic abuse closed on 31 May and we are considering responses ahead of publishing a formal Government response before introducing any legislation.
We are grateful for the support of Women’s Aid and the wider domestic abuse sector for this important work and we will continue to seek their expertise and knowledge as we develop policy on how victims of domestic abuse receive the support they need.