Supported Housing

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Mr Sharma, and to engage with the new Minister for the first time, too. She and I share a couple of things in common. We share a background in local government, but we also come to this place from the east midlands. In the east midlands, we are very practical and pragmatic people, and it is that practical and pragmatic side of the Minister that I intend to appeal to today.

I congratulate the Work and Pensions Committee and the Communities and Local Government Committee on their excellent joint report. When I read it, I find it impossible not to note the date it was published: 25 April 2017, when I was just a twinkle in the eye of the Nottingham North electorate. I say that not for the journey down memory lane, but because when I was preparing to speak I looked around the Chamber and noted colleagues in their places, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin)—who is no longer in his place—for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Ipswich (Sandy Martin). All of us are new and we all come from local government. It is no surprise that any of us would make supported housing a priority in our early months, because it is incredibly important, and it does not take much time in local government to grasp its impact on 700,000 of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Whatever we do in the changes we make, we ought to be careful. I welcome the Government’s intention to find a long-term sustainable funding mechanism, but we need to understand the impact that even tiny alterations make and we must be wary of unintended consequences.

I rise to talk about merely 1% of the changes—the Minister will be pleased to hear that she will get only a hundredth of the speech of which I am capable—which is the 1% that relates to domestic violence. I am concerned about possible unintended consequences. It may be only 1% of the funding, but it is an extraordinarily high-impact element of public funding, and the stroke of a Minister’s pen can unwittingly close a refuge, when failure to get into a refuge could be life-or-death on that night for an individual.

Mr Sharma, I am sure that you, the Minister and all Members the Chamber follow my contributions avidly, so you may be aware that I raised this topic in a debate on refuges on 12 December. I also raised it in my first question to the Prime Minister, on 13 December. I make no apologies for a little repetition of that material, because we are reaching a crunch moment.

As the consultation comes to a close on Tuesday, I will be at No. 10 with Women’s Aid and others to present a petition with 130,000 signatures. Now, however, is a moment for Ministers and all hon. Members to be clear about our direction and what change we ought to make. I hope to encourage the Government to make an exceptionally timely change now, and there is a real opportunity for that by removing this tiny fraction from their proposals.

Why do I suggest that? It has been mentioned by others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) in his excellent opening speech, that the strength of domestic violence refuge provision lies in having a national network of refuges. It does not take a great leap of the imagination to understand that, when a survivor needs to flee her abusers—it is mainly women—she may need to flee a great distance from where they live. Women’s Aid research shows that is the case in more than two thirds of instances.

It is not that there might be a need for a national network; there absolutely is a need for a national network, because the vast majority of the time an individual in one location will need to go to another. An individual in Nottingham actually has a greater interest in what decision makers are doing in Birmingham at the moment than in what is happening in Nottingham. Locally devolving funding knocks into tiny pieces a complex ecosystem of resources and threatens the good operation of services.

There is a compelling case for the service to be national, not local. That is not just my conclusion or that of Women’s Aid, but the substance of the report, both in paragraph 105 and conclusion 20. The report states the “unique challenges” that the sector faces, but there is more to it.

I am a big fan of local devolution. It is probably a common trait of those who have spent time in local government that we feel we could do more if given the opportunity. I am also, for my sins—I do not talk about this often because there is no credit in it, only blame—a wily veteran of local authority commissioning. I led on commissioning in Nottingham for three years, and if I were still in that role I know how I would handle a devolved pot: I would seek to reduce my unit costs by creating an economy of scale. There is no great science to that. However, with regard to refuges, I would handle that in one of two ways. I would either try to granulate the funding to work out which bit is for refuges and commission individually, in which case I have lost all the value of the economy of scale, or—I fear there is a growing trend towards this; there was when I finished last June—I might put my refuge provision into the general pot and explore dispersed tenancies rather than refuges as a way to house these people who really need help. There is energy in that direction not just in Nottingham but up and down the country, but it is very early days for that research, and I would not want to see a change here that makes that a fashion before we truly understand what it might mean. I certainly would not encourage that direction.

[Sir Graham Brady in the Chair]

We know what Women’s Aid says about the potential impact of the funding change: perhaps up to half of the refuges that responded to its survey may have to close or downsize as a result. We are talking about a high impact. There is a compelling case to extract the money nationally and for Ministers to commission a national network. That would get the economies of scale and give us joined-up provision. The excellent report, at conclusion 20, says that the Government should work with the sector to devise a new national model, and I wholeheartedly agree.

This pragmatic new Minister has a great opportunity. It is the perfect moment, because late this year we will be availed of two wonderful opportunities. The Government have already announced that by November refuge funding is to be reviewed, and by the end of the year we will see new domestic violence legislation, which Members across the House await enthusiastically. This is a great moment for the Government to grasp this issue, pull it out of the changes and wait for that moment at the end of the year, work with the sector as suggested and come out with a funded, planned and effective national network of refuges. I believe that is the moment we have arrived at. Two Select Committees, Women’s Aid and the domestic violence sector, more than 130,000 people via an online petition and so many others are urging Ministers to take that new course. If they do, I think we will get something truly valuable out of it. I commend the report and that change of action, and I hope the Minister will too.