Supported Housing: Benefit

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

There is a clear need to get the cost of housing benefits under control, but it is also vital that the needs of the most vulnerable are met. These costs have continued to rise, even at times when the number of people receiving housing benefits has reduced. Unless the spiralling cost can be controlled, the system would soon become unviable, severely limiting our ability to support many of the people who need our help the most.

All parts of the housing market that receive public funding must bear a share of the need for greater efficiency, and supported housing is no different. However, we must also recognise that providing supported housing involves additional costs. Many of those additional costs might in the past have been covered through social services, rather than through housing benefits, but if changes to housing benefits are not implemented in the right way, many of the existing supported housing facilities would be seriously threatened.

I would like to thank the former Housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), for the positive and constructive way in which he responded to concerns raised by me and other Members. The Government’s review of supported housing is a welcome opportunity to review this crucial issue, and I welcome this opportunity to give voice again to some of the issues that I hope the review will consider.

I would like to talk about one of my constituents, a Black Country Housing Group tenant who has had her life transformed thanks to first-class supported housing. DW was diagnosed with a learning disability and schizophrenia at the age of seven. She is also partially sighted due to cataracts in both eyes. At the age of 14 her mother died, but DW continued to live at home until her father also died. DW became a hoarder and was suffering from self-neglect; she was very isolated, did not socialise and became very aggressive. In March 2013, DW became very ill and was taken to hospital, where she stayed for one month. After a stay in a re-enablement centre, DW moved into Chapel Street, Black Country Housing Group’s supported living service. Here, she was provided with excellent support, with personal care, social interaction and peer support from other residents, as well as from a team of skilled, experienced support workers.

Through a working knowledge of DW and of her anxieties and needs, the staff worked with health professionals to deliver a support plan and to ensure that she got appropriate ongoing treatment for her eyes. I am pleased to say that she is now much happier, her mental health has improved dramatically and she is able to get involved in her community. She maintains her home and her tenancy, she undertakes household duties in the home and she is no longer at risk of self-neglect or homelessness. As a result of supported housing, DW has become much more independent, aware and involved.

DW’s case is just one of any number that I could have picked, but it clearly illustrates all the work and additional costs that come with providing that level of care, and that must be recognised through the social care and welfare systems. It does not really matter whether the higher costs intrinsic to effective supported housing continue to be funded from the housing budget or whether they are funded through social services. What matters is that those costs are very real and very necessary and that they must be met. I wholeheartedly support the review of supported housing and the commitment to a permanent funding solution for supported housing. We must continue to do what we can to reduce the spiralling costs of housing benefit bills, but we must make sure that the vital services provided to vulnerable people such as DW in my constituency can continue, and that means finding a way to pay for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

First of all, the £870 million discretionary housing payments fund has been set aside for this Parliament. The one in four looking to downsize will be welcome news to the 241,000 families in overcrowded accommodation and the 1.7 million on the housing waiting list.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

What guidance is being made available to local authorities on the use of discretionary housing payments so that we can make sure that in exceptional cases, such as when homes have been adapted for disability, they can benefit from the additional money that has been made available?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, which goes to the very heart of it: it provides the flexibility to allow local authorities to work with organisations such as the police, social services and medical professionals. The Local Government Association recently said:

“Councils can bring local services together in a way central government will never be able to in order to ensure no-one falls through the cracks.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Actually, that has not happened. Taxpayers have not lost money. What we have done is to go on rolling out a system, and unlike what happened when tax credits were rolled out under the last Labour Government and hundreds of thousands of people lost money, nobody is losing money as universal credit rolls out.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

T2. Despite being diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica mid-way through her degree course, my constituent Amy Green successfully completed her course and now hopes to set up her own business. What support is available for people with disabilities who want to start their own business?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

As someone who ran my own business for 10 years, I wish my hon. Friend’s constituent the very best of luck. The Government have helped over 28,000 people through the new enterprise allowance, and through the Access to Work scheme specific training and specialist support can be provided to people with disabilities.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which I wanted to return to. The implication of what the Secretary of State said is that, for example, people with Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis should be in the support group, not in the work-related activity group. The Secretary of State needs to follow that through.

Because we support some measures in the Bill, oppose others and want to change yet others to make them workable, we ask the House to support the reasoned amendment in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

There seems to be an omission from the list of measures that the right hon. Gentleman supports. Will he clarify whether the Labour party will support the measures to limit child tax credits to two children, and whether that will still be the party’s position in October?

[Stephen Timms]

I look forward to coming to that part of my speech. The Bill, as I understand it, says that the limit does not apply in the case of tax credits for children born before 6 April 2017. The limit does apply in the case of universal credit for children born before 6 April. That seems to me a pretty clear unfairness and we will oppose that unfairness, and we will table amendments to deal with that and other unfairnesses in the Bill.

Child Poverty

Mike Wood Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As a London MP, I am only too well aware of the peculiar difficulties faced by London. Even after all the years of very high expenditure through tax credits, we still have the situation that the hon. Gentleman mentions. Certain particular facts about London make that a reality. I would simply say that my purpose in all this is to look at all measures to have a better way of making certain that the support goes to such individuals. I am very happy to discuss with him the matter he raises to see whether we can make any progress.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Wood, were you here at the start?

[Mike Wood]

I certainly was.

[Mr Speaker]

Good. Let us hear from Mr Wood.

[Mike Wood]

Despite the progress that has been made during the past five years, too many children of disabled parents remain in poverty. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the Government will continue to work to help more disabled people into work—and well-paid work—so that such children can look forward to better outcomes?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. The Government rightly spend significant sums of money on support for disabled people throughout the UK. In fact, I think the amount we spend on disabled people, as a proportion of GDP, is more than is spent by America, Germany and France together. I am proud of that. It is the right thing to do, and we should continue to do it. However, many people who have disabilities are desperate for work. We have now increased the proportion who are in work to record levels, but that is not good enough. I want to get it up to the same level as for the rest of society.