Homeless People: Prevention of Deaths

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, I draw to the attention of the House my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the Minister for repeating the answer to the Urgent Question given in the other place earlier today.

We have seen a huge rise in rough sleeping. We can see it in in every town and city in this country. This simply was not the case 10 years ago. Just look at Westminster tube station—I come in via the tube station almost every day; I have been in this House nearly 10 years—and it just was not the case. Every day now there are more and more homeless people in the tube station. It is absolutely appalling and shameful in one of the richest countries in the world.

There is the widest possible agreement—from homeless charities to the National Audit Office to cross-party Select Committees—that government policy has not helped in this respect. Today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 726 homeless people died last year. That is up by half in the last five years.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, does he accept that the £10 million in respect of the cold weather fund will be insufficient and that further funds will have to be provided for this fund? Secondly, will he agree to meet me and a delegation of local government leaders and charities to discuss the inadequate levels of funding being provided for the Homelessness Reduction Act? It is a good bit of legislation, but we need funds to make it work.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the rest of the House that one death in this way is one too many. I am very sorry to report that there was one further death in Wiltshire last night, which noble Lords may have heard of.

I will answer the noble Lord’s two questions. First, on the £10 million, we believe that this is enough, but clearly this is such a serious matter that we will keep this very much under review, but this is a figure that has taken account of the statistics. Secondly, of course I would be very pleased to meet the noble Lord and anybody else he cared to bring along to discuss the level of funding for this important matter.

Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Viscount to his new role and look forward to our future debates on a variety of matters.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, on his excellent maiden speech. The noble Lord had a distinguished career in the House of Commons, and his contribution here will be very welcome on all sides of the House. He was the Government Deputy Chief Whip in the other place, and I am sure that his skills will be in much demand on the Government Benches. I agree with him that trust and compromise are welcome and much-needed qualities; they are often on display in this House, which is why this House works so well. I look forward to hearing him very many times in the future.

I refer the House to my relevant declaration of interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Opposition support the Bill as far as it goes. We welcome the proposal to bring forward the revaluation by one year to 2021 and to hold revaluations every three years thereafter. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is an expert on these matters, and I look forward to the response of the noble Viscount to the very many points the noble Earl made. The Bill was of course promised back in 2017, and I am pleased that it is finally here.

There is, though, a serious problem: these proposals will not address the damage being done to our high streets. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made reference to the broken model of high streets and online businesses, and I very much agree with her comments. I am very supportive of the Save Our Shops campaign run by the trade union USDAW, which has real expertise in understanding how important our high streets are. Our high streets are in real trouble in many parts of England. We need proper, co-ordinated action: a proper industrial strategy for retail that deals with taxation in general, commercial rents and business rates. This is desperately needed so that we can ensure a level playing field for different types of retailers and deliver the framework to support local communities and the wider and local economy. When shops close and businesses move out, it destroys communities.

CAMRA, which I have been a member of for many years, has a campaign focused on saving the great British pub, and I fully support its campaign. Pubs currently pay 2.8% of the entire business rates bill but account for only 0.5% of the total business turnover, which is an overpayment by the sector of around £500 million. CAMRA is calling on the Government to conduct a full review of how the system works, and it has my full support in that. This review needs to look at how to address the current system, in which pubs are unfairly burdened. In addition to being local businesses, pubs provide a community service and often a community hub that needs to be both supported and protected. As I said at the start of my remarks, we support the Bill as far as it goes, but much more needs to be done.

Another issue I want to raise in this short debate is that of unresolved valuation appeals, of which 65,000 were lodged in 2010 and are still not resolved. This has led to local authorities diverting £2.5 billion to allow for the possibility of a successful appeal. This cannot be allowed to continue, and the Government must address this. Perhaps the noble Viscount can respond to that point when he responds to the debate shortly.

In conclusion, I wish the Bill a speedy passage. Maybe the noble Viscount can tell us what is going to happen with this Bill in the next few days—obviously I want to see it on the statute book—but we have a really serious problem here and this Bill does not yet attempt to address that. At some point, we need to do that quickly.