Housing: Section 21 Evictions
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I looked very carefully at what my right honourable friend said, and he said that we will have outlawed it by the next general election—we will have passed the Bill and put money into the courts to ensure that we can enforce it. We are already putting money into the courts—£1.2 million this year.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
Could the Minister answer the question that she was just asked by her noble friend Lord Young? She was asked whether it would be possible still before the general election, and indeed possibly after it, for tenants to be issued with a Section 21 eviction notice. I do not think that she answered that question.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the position since the White Paper and the introduction of the Bill has been that we will need to give six months’ notice on the implementation of Section 21 for new tenancies. We are committed to passing the Bill before the end of this Parliament and putting in place the resources we need to get everything in place during that six months’ notice period, so that we can implement the ban on Section 21 as soon as possible.
Building Repairs: VAT
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
Both the Department of Health and the Department for Education are taking forward very careful programmes to address the issue of RAAC. As part of that, I am sure they will consider the most cost-effective way of addressing those issues. My noble friend Lady Barran is working very closely on the schools issue, to ensure that all schools affected by RAAC have it removed or remediated as soon as possible.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister spare a thought for the small but significant number of people who live very modestly in listed buildings? I have to declare an interest, being one of those people. I live in a very small house which happens to be listed, in a conservation area. The business of repairing and maintaining it is extremely expensive and very difficult to achieve, partly because the planning system does not co-operate on very small interventions which could make a significant difference—for instance, insulation. What are the Government doing to help this situation?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I acknowledge the point that the noble Baroness has made. We are doing two things in this area. We have updated the National Planning Policy Framework so that, in determining planning applications, local planning authorities should give significant weight to the need to support energy efficiency and low-carbon heating improvements to existing buildings. Specifically on the practical planning barriers that households can face when they are in conservation areas or listed buildings, in our energy security strategy, published last year, we committed to reviewing the barriers that people in such buildings face. That review is under way and I believe that the outcome will be published shortly.
Homelessness: Vagrancy Act 1824
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I am not prepared to say what legislation might go. Part of this is not about what legislation goes but how much support we can give those individuals in trying to get them off the streets and into homes.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, in answering a number of questions, the noble Baroness has referred to stakeholders in the consultation. Who has a stake in retaining the Vagrancy Act?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Nobody has a stake in retaining it, but many organisations have a stake in what would replace it—the police, local authorities, the third sector, faith communities and all those people involved in not only changing the law but giving support to those very vulnerable people who may need our help.
Grenfell Tower: Demolition
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, despite the reporting, I can assure my noble friend that the school does not require any move or decant in the future. The tower is safe; there are no immediate safety issues. As I said, the programme of safety maintenance continues until the spring of next year.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, picking up on the points raised by the most reverend Primate, will the Minister tell the House what proportion, if any, of those who were displaced immediately following the fire and had to be found temporary accommodation are still in temporary accommodation? Of those, how many are still in the borough and how many have had to go elsewhere?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I know that the vast majority of people have found secure, settled and long-term accommodation. I will have to write to her about the absolute number of people still in temporary, but relatively stable, accommodation and the number of those who are outside the borough.
Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the group consisting of Amendment 8. Anyone wishing to press this to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 8
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I will read carefully the Minister’s reply—and go one more step towards being able to pass my GCSE in business rating. I accept his assurance that what he said will be the case. As on all these occasions, if it happens not to be the case, we will come back and harass him in the House. However, his reply was acceptable; I will read it carefully and attempt to understand it.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall)
Do I take it that the noble Lord wishes to withdraw his amendment?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 11. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 11
Leaseholders: Properties with Cladding
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I really do feel for the leaseholders. It is not 4.5 million leaseholders, because that would be every leaseholder in the country, but it is a significant number. It is a smaller number in high-rises. We have announced an interim measures package that includes a £30 million fund that will fund some 600 fire alarm systems, which is far cheaper than waking watch, where frankly the costs sometimes defy belief. We have looked into supporting them directly so that they can move to that alarm system, which is the most cost-effective way to provide interim protection.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I am afraid that the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.
Fire Safety Bill
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall ExcerptsThursday 29th October 2020
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for their amendment on the consultation required when introducing any changes to premises to which the fire safety order applies. I agree that it is important that we get the implementation right when introducing any changes to the types of premises falling within the scope of the order. It is sensible that we make sure that there is capacity to assess any new premises type, and that the cost of any changes is identified before using the provision to introduce this.
The importance of costs was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. Of the additional £30 million funding for fire and rescue services to implement the findings of the Grenfell inquiry, £20 million goes towards fire protection. We will look very carefully at the recommendations of the competence steering group on the level of competence required by fire safety officers to carry out fire risk assessments. However, I will also write to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on this matter, before Report. There will be an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of these matters as part of the passage of the secondary legislation that would be required to effect any changes to premises types within the scope of the order.
I agree with the principle of consulting relevant persons before enacting any changes or clarifications to the order in respect of the premises that it applies to. Clause 2 of the Fire Safety Bill provides a broad requirement to consult with appropriate persons. I agree about the importance of consulting with many of the organisations that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, has pointed out. It is important that we consult broadly with local authorities and trade unions, the National Housing Federation, representing social landlords, the NRLA, and the ORPM, which represents managing agents. The noble Lord raises an interesting point, and I accept that he is seeking reassurance on that wide-ranging consultation. We will take it on board as we move to Report.
As it stands, the wording of Clause 2(5) contains a broad consultation requirement. This will include the stakeholders that both I and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, mentioned, and others that are deemed appropriate. The specified list in the amendment identifies certain groups whose identities, or the way in which they are formally referred to, could change over time. This would risk rendering the legislation out of date, creating a need for future primary legislative changes. The current approach in the Bill is future-proof and will ensure that relevant groups are not omitted. If the need arises to use this clause, we will consider who is appropriate and whether a full public consultation would be the most suitable approach to make sure all interested and potentially affected groups have the opportunity to comment. We just need to find the right legislative way to ensure the objectives of noble Lords. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Stunell.
Lord Stunell (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank all those who have participated in the debate for their support for the general idea that we ought to know what we are doing before we do it. I do not think that that is a particularly extreme requirement and I was extremely pleased to hear the Minister indicate that he very much wants to follow that course. I think we have highlighted some of the big-picture issues and some of those we shall come to in the next group of amendments, so I will not rehearse them at this point.
I am pleased that the right atmosphere has been created for us to look really seriously at how this scheme is going to work. It is essential that we do not launch a dud: it has to work, and that means a lot of deliberate thinking has to be done rapidly and we have to deliver a massive skills, development, training and recruitment effort in order to make it happen. That is, perhaps, only one out of three things that are missing at the moment and that need to be done. So, I thank noble Lords, particularly my colleague and noble friend Lady Pinnock for her strong support, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for some very useful cross-fire. I appreciate that and I look forward to working right across the House to see the Bill developed better—and quickly. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 5. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this, or anything else in the group, to a Division should make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 5
Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]
My Lords, I wish to speak against Amendment 17. The purpose of this clause is to prevent freeholders passing on remediation costs to leaseholders and tenants through demands for one-off payments or increasing service or other charges. This issue is of understandable concern to leaseholders, who are not to blame for the situation. The problems arise from the behaviour of product suppliers, the building industry and the failure of the regulatory system over many years.
The Building Safety Bill, which has already been referred to this afternoon, makes provision for a building safety charge. That Bill will need to make provision for leaseholders to be protected from unaffordable costs, as the Minister recognised in his evidence to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill.
Amendment 17 does not make provision for freeholders to recoup the cost of work, so it will not help leaseholders who collectively own the freehold of their block—nor will it help councils, housing associations or other freeholders who, equally, are not to blame for the failings of the construction industry and successive Governments of all political colours. I cannot support this amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
We can see the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, but unfortunately we cannot hear him. I am going to call one more time, then move on. Lord Bhatia? No. Clearly there are difficulties there. I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.
Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]
My Lords, I look forward to the Minister’s response to these amendments, which all seek to add detail carefully so that the positive purpose of this Bill is not marred by the inadequacy of its implementation.
The biggest investment people make in their lives is in a home. All sorts of checks are currently required or advised prior to purchase and a mortgage offer. One of these is not readily available. It should, and will, be; the question is whether it will come via a legislative requirement or pressure from home buyers. As my noble friend Lord Stunell said, it is much better for the Government to demonstrate their commitment to fire safety by enabling a public register of the fire status of buildings for accuracy and ease of access.
When the Government’s own Minister in the Commons has decried the existence of unqualified fire risk assessors, why is there an apparent reluctance by the Government to address the issue face on? I do not understand why the issue that was acknowledged by the Government during the Commons debate has not been addressed. I hope that the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and myself will provide the Government with the way forward. I hope that the Minister will agree to a meeting prior to Report to discuss these important practical concerns about a Bill that has our wholehearted support.
The third of these amendments, regarding costs—I have signed it alongside my noble friend Lord Shipley—may not have been in the purview of the Bill when first constructed, but where, if not here, will the issue of who pays for fire risk remediation work be settled? Leaseholders in newly constructed blocks of high-rise flats in Leeds and across the country in despair. They currently pay significant sums of several hundred pounds each month toward the cost of a waking watch, while the costs of remediation—the removal of flammable cladding materials—will run into tens of thousands of pounds per householder. Meanwhile, their homes are worthless. They are not able to move and are in despair. This is through no fault of their own. Where the fault lies is for the Government and, no doubt, the courts to determine. However, the Government have some responsibility in seeking a fair and just remedy that will not bankrupt innocent leaseholders and will assess the responsibility of construction companies.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for raising the important issue of the treatment of short-term accommodation and holiday lettings under the fire safety order, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief but important debate. The noble Lord is absolutely right to draw attention to the constantly changing models and companies through which people might rent out their accommodation, particularly in this year of staycations when, I am sure, people have been staying in many more domestic properties in the UK.
As the noble Lord noted, domestic premises are expressly excluded from falling within the fire safety order. Article 2 of the order provides a definition of domestic premises which states that, to be considered as such, it must be occupied as a private dwelling. That is the key bit: the fire safety order applies at any time when the property is being leased or rented because it is not being occupied as a private dwelling. In effect, the property becomes a non-domestic premise when rented out and falls within the scope of the safety order. That is the Government’s view of the legal position. Under the fire safety order, owners of these types of premises have a duty as the responsible persons to undertake a fire risk assessment and put in place fire precautions that are adequate and appropriate to manage the risk of fire, and the fire and rescue services are the enforcing authorities for the order in such accommodation.
Anyone who provides accommodation for paying guests can also find helpful information on the GOV.UK website, which the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Mendelsohn, mentioned. The noble Lord mentioned by name the Do You Have Paying Guests? guidance, which is for people who are responsible for small and short-term accommodation. I can tell noble Lords that the guidance has recently been updated and that the new version will be called Making Your Sleeping Premises Safe from Fire, which will be a short guide for sleeping premises, small businesses and small blocks of flats. That is the part of the tranche 2 FSO guidance review, which will be published alongside the laying of secondary legislation. I hope that when the noble Lord sees that, it will assuage some of his concerns.
We do not agree with the legal position of Mr Matthews that the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, read out; if a property is rented out through Airbnb and so on then it falls within the scope of the fire safety order. I hope that reassures the noble Lord that the fire safety order already applies in the scenario that he outlines in his amendment, and that he will therefore be content to withdraw it. We will certainly be happy to continue discussing this point as we approach Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I have had no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in this short debate. The Minister has confirmed that the Government’s view is that the fire safety order applies when the property is used for a paying guest. The question that therefore arises is: does the person providing the property know the obligation that they have created for themselves? Do the sites that let these properties out for them understand that? Do they know their responsibilities? Have they made adequate provision to ensure that when the property is being let, it is safe? Are people aware of the ways in and out of the property, what the fire precautions are and so on?
There is another point here. How does a fire authority know that all these properties in its area are being let and used, and how can they do inspections? Just think how many properties must be let in London. How will the London fire brigade or the local authority ever know which properties they are? How can they ever do any inspections? How can anyone ever be responsible? If no one is responsible, either the order is wrong or we have not created the conditions for the order to be effective.
Those are really serious issues, so I hope the Minister will look at them between now and Report. It is not just an anomaly; it is potentially a disaster waiting to happen, and we need to do much more than we are now. At this stage, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, but I will bring it back on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come the group beginning with Amendment 14. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this, or any other amendment in the group, to a Division should make that clear in the debate. This amendment was to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, but he is not able to join us today, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark.
Amendment 14
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister so I call the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I was very happy to move this amendment on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding. He is highly regarded in this House and in local government, where he led the LGA for many years with distinction and was respected by councillors of all parties and none.
There have been constant themes this afternoon: the effectiveness of this order; the need to make sure that it works properly; the competence of the people who will have responsibilities under the order and who they are; and the resources available to local authorities and others to ensure that they can deliver what they are responsible for. I am sure that we will come back to these issues on Report. However, I am pleased to hear that the Minister is prepared to talk to the noble Lord, Lord Porter, on the issues he raised in this amendment; I know that the noble Lord will take these matters up with him between now and Report.
At this stage, however, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Porter, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing for the Homeless
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, the Virtual Proceeding on the Question for Short Debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, will now commence. This debate is time-limited to one hour. I therefore remind noble Lords that the time limit for Back-Bench speakers is one minute.
Lord Bird (CB)
Good afternoon. I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a very pressing issue that bothers us all. Anybody who has been involved in homelessness or anyone who walks the streets of our cities will have seen over a considerable period thousands of people there who are completely beyond the legal remit. They are not a part of the social compact that we have as citizens and as voters. They are outside society and have remained outside of it for many decades, certainly since the early 1960s.
When I was a rough sleeper and a beggar in those times, if you so much as sat down in public and went to sleep or if you were begging, you would be pursued by the police. That was the old way of doing things. Obviously, we did not want to keep using those old draconian Vagrancy Act-style methods, so instead what we did was just ignore the homeless on the streets. We left everything to charities and organisations like Crisis, Shelter and St Mungo’s. They have done an incredibly rich and useful job for us all, but the time has come when we cannot allow the streets to return to what they were pre Covid-19. We cannot decant the homeless from the places that fortunately they have taken up—not all of them; some people are still out there. I meet and talk to them, and I am sure that many noble Lords have seen them on occasions when they have been out and about in city centres. There are not enough places for the homeless.
What happened when we began to respond to the Covid-19 crisis? Mr Jeremy Swain, who was working with the rough sleepers initiative and was the tsar, so to speak, and Dame Louise Casey were put in charge by the Government to lift people off the streets and put them into places of safety. They were taken away so that they could be socially isolated. I want us all to commend the hard work of Dame Louise Casey, Jeremy Swain and all those organisations which came together to do this wonderful thing. They broke away from the fact that for decade after decade we had been ignoring these people and had left them outside of democracy. We left them on the streets to die in an abuse of human rights of an untold kind.
We have brought people in and they are now as comfortable as can be, bearing in mind that it is very difficult for someone to come in from the streets where they were living a limited life and being put into a fine place like a Trusthouse Forte hotel—I cannot remember where they have all been put. Oh, I am sorry, my wife has just reminded me that they have been put into Travelodges and Holiday Inns. They would be wonderful places to be at any other time, but maybe not for people who are socially isolating when what they want to do is get out and have a cigarette, walk around the block and maybe talk to someone.
The Government have taken responsibility. This is the first Government since way back during Victorian times to have said that people living on the streets are their responsibility. They have lifted them up and put them into places of safety where they are living as well as can be expected.
Fortunately, Covid-19 will end and we now need a plan. What will we do? Will we decant these people back on to the streets? Will we pretend that things are as they were, or have we seen the promised land, in the sense of government responsibility and our own responsibility, and will we say, “No, let us not put them back on the streets, let us put them in a place of safety. Let us put them in therapeutic communities where they can deal with all the demons that have led them to end up on the street—all the social problems, all the cocktail of social failure, all the damage they have done to themselves and has been done to them when they were younger, all this”? These people have come out of local authority care, out of the prisons or out of our Armed Forces; through problems with mental health, they have dropped down and need our help. We cannot decant these people back on to the streets.
I am very pleased to say that Dame Louise Casey, who I have known for many years and have had many fish and chip suppers with—she is a lovely lady—and Jeremy Swain, who I know as well, and he is a lovely geezer, have come up with an idea. The task force has said it will find a way to provide for people once the Covid curfew is over. I want the Government to say, “We will not allow this situation to happen again. We will have to find a way to respond to it.”
Bear in mind also that there will be enormous pressure on budgets and on the streets because, post Covid-19, there will be people who will have problems, who have been left high and dry, who have been left beached by the crisis. There will be people with mental health problems, and people who have run away from blasted, broken relationships. Lockdown will have left them very vulnerable if they are in abusive relationships —we have seen enormous increases in women suffering domestic violence. What do we do about them? What do we do about the people who have been left high and dry without the means of sustaining themselves, because their business or their job has disappeared, or the place where they live has disappeared? We will have a bit of a rocky ride when we get to the end of this, and now is the time to begin the process of thinking this through.
I know it is a historical exaggeration to make a comparison with 1941, when Winston and Clem dug Beveridge out of retirement and had him work on a plan. Obviously, he published his findings in 1943 and they laid the basis of the welfare state, but we need a plan now. We need to do the work. What are the Government prepared to do? Will they talk to people like us, who have been going on resolutely for decades? Do not leave people out on the streets, because it is a human rights abuse. Because it is a human rights abuse, why are we ever entertaining people dying earlier, falling into mental ill-health and all these problems? Now is the time: we need to know what the plans are. The Government need to pull together a Beveridge-type response to the social crisis which will overwhelm them if they do not respond to it. Homelessness is obviously only the tip of the social iceberg—there are all sorts of other things—but we have to be strong here, and not in any way talk about returning to the old days.
The Big Issue has been removed from the streets. I was fortunate that when I talked to Jeremy Swain we worked out that we had to stop the Big Issue on the first day of lockdown and remove sellers because of their health and the problems that they might pass on to people who buy it. Unfortunately, that means that the Big Issue disappeared from the streets. We are putting it together and if anybody has a bundle of money and wants to help us, throw it our way. We would love it, especially from Her Majesty’s Government.
However, the point is that we are going to be there, trying to help people to get back. We will have to go back to the idea of a hand up, not a hand out. At the moment, we are helping people and supporting our vendors, but we are stuck. We are not expecting them to work because they cannot.
This is a great opportunity to break the morass that for almost the whole of my working life has enabled us to see homeless people on the street left outside society —no longer citizens, no longer performing persons. The social contract that we have with the Government, the state, our local authorities and all that did not extend to them. Let us extend it. We must put our arms around the homeless. Let us not decant them back on the street, because that would be a mockery of our democracy and of what we have been through when we have seen so many people pull together for the benefit for us all. Let us have one for all, and all for one.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
Some local authorities have excellent systems already for dealing with homelessness and not all homeless people are the same. Putting someone with a drug or alcohol addiction into a Travelodge away from town is not necessarily a recipe for success. Therefore, will the Minister ensure that there is a proper evaluation of the successes and problems of the scheme, with an honest assessment of problems that have occurred where addiction issues have not been addressed? Who will carry out that evaluation and will it be made available to us?
The Deputy Speaker
I call the noble Lord, Lord Desai. The noble Lord is not responding, so I am going to call the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, the swift action that has been taken is impressive and unprecedented. It provides an extraordinary opportunity, but it is vital that it starts early, and that from day one people are thinking about rehabilitation and providing that hand up, rather than a handout. Are assessments already being made of the multidimensional needs of the people living in this temporary accommodation and, if so, is there some summary of what those assessments look like, so that action can be properly targeted? Finally, while it is really important that we do this, it will be expensive—of course it will—but the costs will be cheaper in the long run by doing it. I well remember a remark of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, that many of the Big Issue sellers have had something approaching £1 million of public money spent on them in all settings. Getting this right is really very important.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, while the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is speaking I shall hand the chair over to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan.