Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornhill and Lord Evans of Rainow

3rd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Best, and Bob Blackman, and particularly to mention Crisis, which has been heavily involved in this. Those of us in local government will have seen this with our own eyes, having turned up at places and been disgusted by what we saw. We acted and we tried to do things about it, but we lacked the necessary clout and oomph that the Bill will deliver.

Be under no illusions: the hard work starts now. The people on the advisory panel will have their work cut out, but I think the way is very clear. Vulnerable people were being massively exploited and this is a Bill whose time has come. It has great cross-party support, and it will make a difference. Good luck to the panel, which I assume the noble Lord, Lord Best, will be on. It has its work cut out, but please can it work quickly?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for taking the Bill through the House. I thank noble Lords from across the House for their valuable contributions through its passage. I thank and pay tribute to my honourable friend Bob Blackman MP for his tireless efforts in guiding this important Bill through the other place. The Government are pleased to support this crucial Bill, and I am personally very pleased to continue to support it today.

The measures in the Bill will drive out the rogue operators in the supported housing sector and ensure that the vulnerable people who rely on supported housing services to help them live as independently as possible can be confident that they are living in good-quality supported housing.

I want to be clear that, in taking the measures in the Bill forward, the Government will work with the sector, local authorities and others to make sure that good providers can continue to deliver excellent supported housing. The Bill contains a number of measures that will deliver the objective of driving out rogues. These include two very important measures that I will mention today.

The first is a power enabling the Secretary of State to set out national standards for supported housing. The standards will mean that both providers of supported housing and residents will know precisely what good-quality housing with care and support looks like. These standards will need to work across the complex and varied types of supported housing, and will need to be flexible enough to promote innovation and avoid stifling supply.

The second measure is the supported housing licensing regime. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to consult on the detail of the licensing schemes and enables him to make regulations to put them into action. Providers of supported housing schemes will need to meet conditions in order to be licensed; not least, they must comply with the national standards. The Government have already started on a comprehensive programme of stakeholder engagement so that the views of providers, residents and statutory consultees are taken into account. This work will include looking at the costs to local authorities, so that new burdens assessments can be completed.

In conclusion, I want to be very clear that the Government value supported housing; we know that it plays a vital role enabling vulnerable people to live independently. I once again thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his sponsorship of the Bill, and my honourable friend Bob Blackman in the other place for his hard work and dedication in putting the Bill forward.

Leasehold Properties: Building Insurance

Debate between Baroness Thornhill and Lord Evans of Rainow

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to the work he does on housing. The Government remain determined in their promise better to protect leaseholders and empower them to challenge unreasonable costs, and to make it easier and cheaper for them to extend their lease or buy their freehold. We wish to extend the benefits of freehold ownership to more homeowners, and in line with our manifesto commitments, we will continue leasehold reform within this Parliament. We are working closely with the Law Commission to bring forward game-changing reforms to the system and we thank the commission for all the work it has done in this area to date. However, the Government cannot pre-empt the King’s Speech, which we expect by the autumn, by confirming what will or will not be in future legislation.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, insurance costs and service charges are rocketing for the group known as non-qualifying leaseholders, who are not eligible for support from the Government to remediate their fire safety issues, which they played absolutely no part in creating. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing to support this group of people, who are facing not only massive bills but mental and physical health problems as a result of the prolonged stress that this is causing?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: premiums have increased, on average, threefold for buildings with identified fire safety issues. The FCA, which regulates brokers and insurers, reported in September 2022 that the insurance premiums increased by 187%—that is completely unacceptable. The Government will ban commissions and press insurance brokers to reduce and clarify charges as a matter of priority ahead of reforms coming into force. However, the Government cannot pre-empt the King’s Speech at this moment; later, I will report back to noble Lords.