Exempt Accommodation

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

Select Committee statement

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now come to the Select Committee statement. Clive Betts will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Mr Betts to respond to them in turn. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair, not the relevant Government Minister. Interventions, including from Front Benchers, should be questions and should be brief. I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, Clive Betts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman is spot on with that. When we went to Birmingham, we heard not from individuals living in exempt accommodation, but from those living in communities where dozens of properties in the same small area were being converted. They explained to us the amount of criminality and drug dealing going on, that the police were turning up every night and that there were people lying in the road and people begging. They often tried to help where people were vulnerable and in need, but they said that there was no control over how many properties could be turned into exempt accommodation in the same area. They were people with family homes and kids, who had often lived in that stable community all their lives, but who were seeing that community being destroyed around them. That is not acceptable or appropriate. We owe it to both the individuals needing supported accommodation and the individuals in communities where lots of accommodation is being created to change the system and help everyone.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for his statement and for answering that thorough questioning.