No-fault Evictions
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I am not really sure how the Government can solve the issue of rent arrears. We have just discovered the £360 million in rent arrears calculated by Citizens Advice. The most important thing is, where a landlord faces a tenant not paying their rent and where there is a level of egregious rent arrears caused not just by the pandemic, they are able to evict the tenant.
Lord Bird (CB)
Is there not a very simple way of accepting the fact that, if we pay the rent of people in this period, we can look at the knock-on effect at a particular time? For anybody who slips into homelessness, the cost will double, and sometimes treble. We know the evil cost of homelessness, and it would be much more sensible if we said, “Okay, all we are going to do is pay your rent, pay your arrears and spend to save”.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I would argue that the furlough scheme and the support we have given in billions in welfare, in addition to the commitment towards homelessness, which is increasing from £700 million this year to £750 million, is precisely the sort of leadership the Government are providing to support people to remain settled in accommodation and take rough sleepers off our streets.
Covid-19: “Everybody In” Scheme
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I would point to the Statement I made on local government finance, where we saw core spending power increasing by 4.5%. The derogation to London around no recourse to public funds has been widened to the rest of the country, so that local authorities can show the local leadership required to safeguard communities, including rough sleepers with no recourse to public funds.
Lord Bird (CB) [V]
I commend the Government on their last efforts, which I was involved in. It was a wonderful opportunity to be told about the policy and the work that was going on. Unfortunately, in spite of what the Minister has said, there is no sense of policy, in the sense of all things being joined up and co-ordinated. I have received no information in the same way that I was kept up to speed on the last occasion. There is a sense that “We did it last time but we’re not doing it again this time.” The Government really need to be selling this and pushing it forward, so that we can understand when it is working and when it is not.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is no greater salesman than the noble Lord, Lord Bird, but I would point out that we are backing up a commitment to end rough sleeping and to tackle homelessness with more cash. The total amount set in the current financial year is a little over £700 million; next year, we have committed £750 million towards wider homelessness duties and to end rough sleeping. That commitment is an increasing amount of money for this endeavour.
Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, that was a succession of questions. There is no doubt that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is a phenomenal force of nature. I watched how she took the troubled families programme and developed a fantastic resolve at all levels of government, and in the social and charitable sectors, to ensure that everyone worked together to tackle the malaise of the families who require a huge amount of support from the state—and then with the integration programme. We have really benefited from her work. However, we do see leadership from Ministers, including the Secretary of State, and a resolve to do something at all levels of government. We will build on that. As for the removal of Section 21, that is a manifesto commitment, and we will introduce legislation to deliver a better deal for renters, including repealing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, as a priority, once the urgency of responding to this dreadful pandemic has passed. I will write to the noble Baroness on the other matters.
Lord Bird (CB)
I do not know whether the Minister has read the Lancet report showing that the work done in the first lockdown led to a saving of 266 lives, that more than 1,000 people were prevented from ending up in hospital, and about 350 from ending up in intensive care. This is prevention. I have been working for the last 30 years to try to get successive Governments working on prevention—on stopping homelessness happening—because when people slip into homelessness, they die. I thank the Government for their efforts in the previous period, but I am also asking loads of questions. Where are the answers for this next period? More than anything, I want to know what we are going to do about stopping circa 200,000 people slipping into the treacle of homelessness because of their inability to pay their rent or mortgage.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point about focusing on prevention. In all areas of public policy, we want to prevent things happening in the first place. In healthcare, for example, rather than just letting the disease get worse and then responding, we want to prevent it happening in the first place. That is why the money going towards ending rough sleeping—the £700 million that has been committed and continues to be spent—is a part of the wider package for tackling homelessness. There is an absolute resolve to deal with the issues that the noble Lord raises. We will continue to focus on prevention and also on the response to those who are on the streets.
Housing: Rent, Evictions and Covid-19
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we are seeking to get this balance right. I thank my noble friend for raising the importance of protecting the interests of landlords in the relationship between landlord and tenant.
Lord Bird (CB) [V]
My Lords, if we take the bigger issue behind the discussion about evictions, Britain is the only one of the G7 countries that is removing support during the period of Covid-19, ending it at the end of this year. Can we not take a leaf out of the IMF’s recommendation that we spend, spend, spend and keep the receipts? Will the Minister ask Mr Boris Johnson to save our children and our children’s children from homelessness and degradation? This Government have a responsibility if only to follow what other G7 countries are doing. Those countries are carrying on their support way beyond the period at which this Government are stopping.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, this Government are spending to a considerable and unprecedented degree. We must remember that, at the end of this pandemic, it will be our children and our children’s children who will pay back the debt.
Housing: Rent and Covid-19
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is no obvious indication of discrimination against people who require housing support, housing benefit or universal credit. As noble Lords know, the increase in the housing benefit bill is substantial, but I will write to the noble Baroness on the matter.
Lord Bird (CB) [V]
We should congratulate Shelter on outlining that 60% of people in the rented sector are only one paycheque away from falling into arrears. That is the kind of information we need to work on. I suggest that the Minister speak to the Government. If we are to have a Cockaigne, as suggested by Boris Johnson at the party conference recently, we need to support people who will fall into evictions because of Covid-19. The only way to do that is for the Government to pay now, rather than later, when these people slip into homelessness.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I just point out that as a Minister, I am part of the Government and I will always try to respond as such. We do not see an eviction epidemic. We are fully behind the noble Lord’s mission to end homelessness, as he knows, and we will invest in that endeavour.
End of Eviction Moratorium
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I completely agree with my noble friend. In fact, it was the Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, and Mr Justice Knowles who made it clear that they want to see access to justice and the courts for both landlords and tenants. We need to strike a fair balance so that landlords are able to access justice, alongside measures to protect the most vulnerable. I think we strike that balance with these measures.
Lord Bird (CB) [V]
Can the Government accept the fact that, if anybody slips into homelessness, the cost to society and to those individuals of keeping them in homelessness doubles? Can the Government allocate funds so that we keep people in their homes and do not allow them to fall into the miasma of homelessness, which is very bad for everybody concerned? At the same time, can we look at making sure that the judges in eviction cases will never throw anybody out because of Covid-related poverty and unemployment?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his passionate campaign on behalf of people at risk of being made homeless and rough sleepers. I want to be clear that the new court rules and arrangements require landlords to set out any information they are aware of in relation to how their tenant, or any dependant of their tenant, has been affected by coronavirus. They have to do that, because if they do not they risk being put to the back of the queue. As I pointed out on previous questions, there have been a number of support measures, both in the welfare system and in direct payments to local authorities, to avoid homelessness.
Homelessness
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
The Government have provided an unprecedented package of support to protect renters. We have provided income protection schemes and have boosted the welfare system by more than £6.5 billion to prevent people getting into financial hardship. These measures will ensure that those most in need will avoid the risk of homelessness once the stay on possession proceedings ends.
Lord Bird (CB) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that encouraging sign. Do the Government know of the Big Issue’s ride out recession alliance, which is bringing players together to help the Government and local authorities so that they can keep people in their homes? If they slip into poverty and homelessness, it is very difficult to get them out of it. I also draw attention to the work of Shelter, which is calling for a change in the law so that magistrates will not authorise eviction if it is caused by Covid-19 poverty.
Lord Greenhalgh
The noble Lord is helpful in raising those initiatives by the Big Issue and Shelter. He will be aware that there is ongoing work, through the Master of the Rolls, looking at the guidance on this.
Covid-19: Housing
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh
I note the noble Baroness’s comments on right-to-buy provisions and the specific points she raised. However, the Government have an enviable record in the delivery of homes, delivering 241,000 additional homes in the last year, the highest level for 30 years. Over the last 10 years, 450,000 affordable homes have been delivered, so we are seeing more homes built of all types and tenures. We need to recognise that achievement, but I note the points on right to buy.
Lord Bird (CB)
I commend the Government on their support of rough sleepers and their categorical promise that they will not put those people back on the streets. Has the Minister looked into the possibility that there may well be half a million people unable to pay their rent or mortgage after the Covid-19 pandemic? Will we make sure that we keep these people indoors? If they get evicted or become homeless, that is when the bills and the disruption really take off. I do not want to see another generation simply replace the current rough sleepers who have been removed from the streets.
Lord Greenhalgh
The noble Lord made a very powerful speech on rough sleeping last week and I learnt a lot about the generations of people who were not well served by successive Governments. I note his call for a bold plan to end rough sleeping, finally, and his concerns, which are quite right, about the people who have suffered great economic loss during the pandemic. That is why we need to reopen the economy as safely as we possibly can and in a way that does not cause a second peak. The department is reviewing the situation with regard to evictions, but no decision has been taken yet.
Housing for the Homeless
Lord Bird Excerpts(4 years, 10 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.
Housing: Rental Market
Lord Bird Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
No, I am not saying that there is no problem. We take the view that we welcome the voluntary approach. We are encouraging the Short Term Accommodation Association to drive up standards. Its self-regulatory measures to date include the Safe, Clean and Legal accreditation scheme in partnership with Quality in Tourism, its collaboration with Westminster City Council to develop and promote the considerate short-term lets charter and its members’ voluntary imposition of checks to help enforce the 90-day limit in London only.
Lord Bird (CB)
If thousands of houses are taken out of the housing market in London, does the Minister not agree that that would have an effect on the price of rents and on homelessness?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I said in my initial Answer that the increase in Airbnb lettings is not having an effect on houses to rent. But on the noble Lord’s point about prices paid by rental tenants in the UK, prices rose by only 1.3% in the 12 months to September 2019, a rate unchanged since May 2019.