Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 21 December 2016 (HL Deb, col 1656), what is their assessment of the impact of housing benefit cuts on homelessness; and what steps they are taking to ensure that low income people, in and out of work, have sufficient income to pay their rent.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
There are many reasons for homelessness but there is no robust evidence which establishes any direct connection with welfare reform. Our welfare reforms are a central part of the Government's long-term economic plan to create jobs and make work pay.
Alongside welfare reform, we are ensuring working families earn more in the first place - through the National Living Wage - and keep more of what they earn - by cutting their taxes at the same time. The Government is committed to protecting the vulnerable, and following the £560 million in Discretionary Housing Payment funding provided in the last Parliament, we are providing a further £870 million funding in this Parliament.
We've also invested £500 million to tackle homelessness - including our £50 million Homelessness Prevention Programme - and we are supporting Bob Blackman's Homelessness Reduction Bill, to improve the support available for those facing a homelessness crisis and to ensure that people get help earlier to prevent a homelessness crisis in the first place.
Our efforts to tackle homelessness are supported by our investment in housing supply. We have already seen nearly 900,000 new homes delivered in England since 2010. We aim to deliver an additional one million new homes by 2020, and we will set out our proposals in our Housing White Paper.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of older people who are (1) homeless, and (2) at risk of becoming homeless, but who are not included in official statutory homelessness statistics.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
We do not hold this information. However, we will be overhauling data on homelessness so that we have a clearer picture of those affected.
We have embarked on a project to redesign our homelessness data collection system. The new system will capture information on all households receiving homelessness assessments from local authorities, as well as recording the assistance received and the outcome. This will provide a much clearer understanding of the causes of homelessness and the effectiveness of responses.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what guidance they provide to debt collection agencies on working with vulnerable older people who are risk of homelessness.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
We work with and provide funding to Shelter to run the National Homelessness Advice Service (NHAS) in partnership with Citizens Advice who provide support and advice for vulnerable people facing difficulties. NHAS also provides specialist support and training to homelessness advisers across the country, and are reviewing what more they do in this area.
Moreover, the Financial Conduct Authority does regulate debt collection agencies to ensure that they are operating responsibly.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether homelessness services are accessible to, and adequate for, older people.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
England has a strong homelessness safety net, providing protection to the most vulnerable in our society so they always have a roof over their heads.
This Government is investing over £500 million in the next four years to prevent and tackle all forms of homelessness. This includes protecting £315 million for local authority prevention funding, and £149 million central government funding.
We recognise that homelessness amongst older people has its particular challenges, and we know how important it is that when people are faced with a homelessness situation, they have somewhere to go and experts to talk to. Frontline staff need to be equipped to provide this service and getting the right training is one part of this. That is why we have provided £2 million for the Gold Standard Scheme, delivered by the National Practitioner Support Service, to help local authorities deliver more effective homelessness prevention.
We have also funded the National Homelessness Advice Service, delivered by Shelter and Citizens Advice, to ensure that frontline housing advisers have access to the best quality professional advice to help vulnerable people.
Of course, we are always keeping policies under review to ensure they are working for everyone.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they propose to lay regulations concerning the right to security of tenure for victims of domestic violence under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and whether they will first consult organisations working with victims of domestic violence.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
We have introduced fixed term tenancies for all new council tenancies to ensure we get the best use out of our social housing stock and focus this valuable resource on those who need it the most for as long as they need it. This is essential with 1.24 million households on council waiting lists. The changes will apply to new tenants, but will not apply to existing lifetime tenants who remain in their own home.
We are preparing the regulations which will set out the circumstances in which local authorities may exercise discretion to offer tenants seeking transfer further lifetime tenancies in limited circumstances. These will include where tenants downsize into a smaller home, move for work or to escape harm, including domestic violence. We will ensure that relevant organisations including those working with victims of domestic abuse will be able to feed in their views into the draft regulations.
We aim to lay the regulations in the Winter.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many responses they have received to their consultation on local welfare provision; and how they propose to ensure that all those responses are considered at the formative stage of decision-making in the light of the time period between the end of the consultation period and the Local Government Finance Settlement.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government received more than 5,000 responses to the consultation which are being considered, alongside the review by the Department for Work and Pensions into existing provision. The Government will make a decision based on this analysis in time for the provisional local government finance settlement in December 2014.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to publish the review of the use of local welfare provision funding, mentioned at paragraph 1.10 of Local Welfare Provision in 2015–16; and whether they plan to make a written statement when it is published and place a copy of the review in the library of the House.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the noble Lady to my answer to the noble, Lady Baroness King of Bow, of 5 November 2014 (Official Report, Column WA 255).