Lord Avebury
Main Page: Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
I shall intervene very briefly. The Minister may remember that I had responsibility for homelessness, way back, from 1997 to 2001. It seems a long time ago. I had responsibility for reducing the number of rough sleepers, and we managed to reduce it by more than two-thirds in less than two years. We were only able to do that with the co-operation of local authorities. I know that this Government came to power with an intention to develop and extend the commitment to keeping people off the streets. The problem is that, because of all sorts of circumstances, that has not happened.
For example, in Newcastle, I chair a major homeless organisation, which has worked very well with the council that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, led until fairly recently and that my noble friend Lord Beecham led some time before that. In the winter of 2009-10, we successfully, together, made sure that there were no rough sleepers in Newcastle. That was a remarkable achievement. I am very sorry to tell the House that every night last winter there were between 12 and 18 rough sleepers. That was because there was no alternative accommodation. There was no room in hostels, and no room in other accommodation to which people could be moved from hostels, so this is, once again, becoming a crisis. The House will recognise, I suspect, that the availability of social housing in the north-east is still better than it is in many other parts of the country, certainly better than in central London, but if we are suffering those problems in the north-east, there are going to be even greater pressures in the rest of the country. What I very quickly learnt, and it has stayed with me ever since, is that a good local authority, working effectively with the voluntary agencies involved, can help prevent homelessness. As the Government have recognised in a range of areas, early intervention and prevention are far more cost effective to the public purse and, in relation to the people we are talking about, far more effective in their lives. If there are children, early intervention certainly becomes even more critical in their lives and prospects.
These amendments are around the responsibility of the local authority to work with other partners in their locality to do whatever they can to prevent homelessness. I do not pretend that this is easy. I know from my daily contact with the Cyrenians in the north-east and with other homeless organisations nationally that this is not easy, but unless that begins to be seen as a priority within the local authority, it will not happen in different localities. Whatever we say in this House, the Government need to find a way of reinforcing that to those local authorities that are identified in the ombudsman’s report as not fulfilling that responsibility. I do not believe that you sort things through legislation: you sort them through good practice and commitment, but legislation should help.
I know that the Government will not have the opportunity to come back to this legislatively for some time because the pressures on the legislative timetable will be too great. I therefore ask the Minister to recognise what is happening in our society in terms of the increasing problem of homelessness and will find ways in this Bill to re-emphasise to local authorities their responsibilities to intervene quickly so that homelessness is prevented. It is possible. There are good examples in the country where that has happened. It is unusual for me to welcome anything from Newcastle quite honestly, and people from the north-east will understand why I say that, but there has been good co-operation in Newcastle. However, even there, street homelessness is rising. We know why and we know how to solve the problem but we cannot do that without support from the Government.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am prompted to intervene by listening to what my noble friend Lord Shipley said about the Local Government Ombudsman's report and the reinforcement that we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. I am ashamed to say that I have not read the report myself, but I note with concern what it says about councils doing everything that they can to prevent homelessness, which is what the noble Baroness said, and what my noble friend said about the councils that failed to do enough to prevent homelessness. That can be so important at the critical moment when a person becomes homeless and may suffer the effects of the rest of their lives.
I particularly wanted to say something on the subject in light of the fact that we are about to witness a case in which a council is deliberately making people homeless. I am talking about the case that your Lordships will be aware of where the local authority in Basildon is evicting 150 people from the Dale Farm Travellers’ site. That will take place at some point in the week beginning 19 September, so these people will find themselves dumped on the road imminently. Their homes will be placed in storage and it will have a vast effect on the lives of the people who are presently resident there, particularly the vulnerable people such as pregnant women, the elderly and the disabled. One woman is on dialysis. Although the local authority has made quite considerable efforts to find out who are the vulnerable people on the site, we have no idea how they will be dealt with when they finally become homeless. Therefore, my noble friend's amendment on the prevention of homelessness is germane to this episode.
I would like to know what the local authority in Basildon will do when these people find themselves without a home, because their homes will be taken away and put in storage. They will be left on the roadside. How will we deal with a situation of that kind? Why can we not take national action to prevent this crisis? All it requires is for local authorities to discuss with the neighbours in the county of Essex how land can be provided for the small number of people who live on the 51 pitches that will be subject to eviction instead of scattering them all around the landscape. Culturally appropriate alternative accommodation has been identified, but it is far away in the distance. One site is in Suffolk where there may be 10 pitches and another is in Lancashire where there may be six.
The families on the Dale Farm site are interrelated and very cohesive, and will be deprived of the social support arising from the fact that they have all lived together on the same site for 10 years and are mutually supportive. They have a network of local support: for example, from the churches and from some councillors, particularly Councillor Candy Sheridan, who has made enormous efforts to identify alternative land in the neighbourhood, and who was on the point of being successful when this Government came into office. I am very sorry to say that I think it was a direct result of Mr Pickles tearing up the regionalism agenda, which of course may be very good in general but does not happen to suit this particular case.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am sorry to continue on this theme, but I wonder whether the noble Baroness realises that we are facing an absolute crisis because the Government have torn up the previous mechanisms which were designed to ensure that all local authorities made a contribution towards the accommodation of Gypsies and Travellers and have left them free to decide, of their own volition and without any guidance whatever, whether they will provide accommodation and, if so, at what level. The result is that most authorities have scrapped the plans set out in the previous Government’s regionalism system and said that they are not going to provide any sites. That is the case in Essex, for example, where the neighbouring authorities to Basildon are not going to lift a finger to rescue the 150 people who are to be thrown on to the roadside.
Baroness Hanham
A lot lies behind the matter raised by the noble Lord. A lot has been said by the leader of the council and I think that there are expectations in Essex that this is a matter for Essex to resolve. However, it will be resolved against the background that they have been and should be asked to identify somewhere where the Travellers can be placed.
I am going to move on and say that placing a duty on local authorities to secure accommodation for a period for households that are intentionally homeless or not in priority need does make great demands on their limited resources, and this could have unintended consequences. Local authorities have a clear duty to provide advice and assistance to help those found to be intentionally homeless and, as under Amendments 13 and 14 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, all those who are unintentionally homeless and not in priority need will be assisted in any attempt to seek accommodation for themselves. The only difference between ourselves and the noble Lord is that his requirement is for all this to be put in writing and for there to be quite a lot of formula around how it is to be done. Local authorities already have discretionary powers to provide emergency accommodation to applicants who are not in priority need and not intentionally homeless, and they have a requirement to give assistance and advice. As I have already said, they are under a duty to provide advice and information to all people who approach them. People can make a homelessness application, and if they are homeless through no fault of their own and are eligible for priority need, local authorities must secure accommodation for them. The requirements are there and do not particularly need to be put into a more statutory framework.
Of course, anyone who is not satisfied and feels that they are not being properly helped has the right to go to the Local Government Ombudsman. The ombudsman’s report has said that homelessness legislation is clear, so it is a question of how it is implemented.
Finally, it only remains for me to say that the Government are committed to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. The Minister in the other place is well known for his efforts to deal with homelessness. Indeed, he said today that that was why he came into politics. The Government have maintained their homeless person’s grant funding of £400 million over the next four years. There is a ministerial working group looking into tackling the complex causes of rough sleeping, which we have already spoken about. A rough sleeping count is now taking place so that we can know the full figures rather than just the estimated number.
I will resist these amendments and I hope that, with what I have said about local authorities having a duty to ensure that people are helped and assisted if they are in danger of becoming homeless, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
This is a question of whether people have a 100 per cent right to decide what is suitable. I think we have all read about the case of a family who were very unhappy in Kilburn as they considered that the shops were not smart enough and who were moved to Kensington and Chelsea, which involved a huge amount of housing benefit being paid. I consider that those people did not have the right to say that they did not like Kilburn as it was not smart enough. That was unreasonable. However, as regards Amendment 20, is it not a fact that if a local council wished to do so it could use these criteria as part of its own flexible criteria and would not need to have that enshrined in the law? I very much support the flexibility in the Bill. It is unreasonable to tie councils in this regard. However, if you do not like what your council is doing, you can vote it out in the hope of getting a new council with a different attitude.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I know that the Minister does not want to discuss the Dale Farm evictions, which are to take place in the week beginning 19 September. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, we are talking about a general instance of homelessness. She pointed out that every single Gypsy or Traveller who is encamped on an unauthorised site is ipso facto statutorily homeless and therefore the local authority has a duty to provide that person with alternative accommodation. However, in no case of which I am aware has any offer of alternative accommodation been made to a person living on an unauthorised site that would enable that person to bring themselves within the law concerning their accommodation.
As regards the definition of suitability which my noble friend has suggested in Amendment 20, people in this position are often deprived of the rights which he proposes to confer on the homeless. For example, there is a reference to,
“disruption to the education of children or young persons in the household”,
and more than 100 young children on the Dale Farm site attend the local primary school and will be dispersed across the countryside with no provision made for their education to continue. Bearing in mind that Gypsies and Travellers are the most deprived of all ethnic minorities, in terms of achievement and attendance in education, it is something of a triumph that so many of the children on this site have been persuaded to attend primary school. That is all going to be scrapped because, when they are on the roadside, it will be physically impossible and impractical for them to attend local schools—assuming that there would be a place for them to be admitted.