Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham

Ayoub Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I declare my interest as a landlord.

It is fair to say that most people up and down the country will not know much, if anything, about supported exempt accommodation, but in Birmingham it is something that almost everyone has become all too familiar with. In just eight years, the number of people housed in supported exempt accommodation in our city has tripled to more than 32,000 across 11,200 properties. My Birmingham Perry Barr constituency alone hosts 20% of the city’s total units. That means thousands of vulnerable individuals placed in a small number of neighbourhoods. This is not a marginal issue for us; it is shaping daily life.

With the city containing more supported exempt accommodation than anywhere else, Brummies face a completely different reality on the ground from every other community in the country. Of most immediate concern to my constituents is the antisocial behaviour, criminal activity and fly-tipping that come with a high number of these properties in such close proximity.

Let me be absolutely clear from the outset that this debate must not be about stigmatising vulnerable people. Many of those housed in supported accommodation are there because they have experienced trauma, addiction, serious mental health issues, abuse, time in care or even time in custody. They deserve compassion, dignity and meaningful support.

But compassion must be matched with realism. Some of the individuals placed in ordinary residential streets have needs so acute that they require intensive, structured and often 24-hour care. When someone is in such crisis that they are unable to manage basic personal safety, hygiene, or addiction issues in public spaces, that person is not being supported adequately. They are not “bad neighbours”. They are people who require structured, possibly clinical support environments—not standard terraced housing or residential streets. The same applies to certain ex-offenders, particularly those leaving custody with complex behavioural, psychological or substance misuse issues. Reintegration is vital, but it is a delicate process that needs close management and the right resources.

The issues that are being caused in my constituency are a matter not of law and order, but of care. I have had reports of individuals experiencing severe mental health breakdowns defecating in public spaces. Residents have described open drug use on streets where parents are walking their children to school. There are cases of individuals injecting themselves in broad daylight, in full view of families. For many of my constituents, everywhere they look they see visible manifestations of profound vulnerability and unmet need.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

With the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ayoub Khan]

Of course.

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[Jim Shannon]

I spoke to the hon. Gentleman beforehand, and he knows where I am coming from. I congratulate him on bringing forward this critical issue for vulnerable people. He will know that every constituency, wherever it may be in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has immense housing pressures, and it is often the most vulnerable—the very people he is referring to—who fall through the cracks. Does he agree that every local authority and housing authority—in Birmingham or, as it may be, in Northern Ireland—must have greater access to supported living for those who could thrive with a little help? We have a duty of care, as do the Government, to ensure that everything possible can be done to change the way things currently are.

[Ayoub Khan]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. Often this comes down to adequate resourcing. As I described, we have a situation in which individuals who need intensive support are not being provided that support. They are being placed in neighbourhoods, which in itself is very challenging; someone might have an addiction to alcohol and be placed in a community where there is very little infrastructural support. It is vital not only that there is suitable accommodation but, more fundamentally, that we have the right level of support in and around particular areas. When we have large saturation without the support, the problems faced by many of my constituents and people in Birmingham more broadly are inevitable.

That brings me nicely to the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, which was passed to resolve some of the issues that we are facing in Birmingham. It promised to introduce compulsory national minimum standards for exempt accommodation, including on referrals, care and support, and quality of housing. It promised to grant local councils the powers and resources needed to enforce such standards, and greater control over the licensing and planning permission given to providers. Since the Act received Royal Assent, however, it has been stuck in the consultation stage, with disagreements over how to implement it on the ground. While the Act shows no sign of taking effect, the expansion of exempt accommodation in Birmingham continues unabated.

The Government seem intent on painting the situation in Birmingham as simply a local matter that is nothing of their making, and the council’s call for powers to regulate the concentration of these properties as some kind of nimbyism, and yet the city’s importing vulnerable individuals from other local authorities against the council’s will is what caused the explosion in the first place.

While supported exempt accommodation plays an important role in housing vulnerable people, the concentration and volume of provision in Birmingham far exceeds local need. This is not something that the Government have not known about; in written evidence it submitted to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in 2022, Birmingham city council confirmed that only 42% of properties were needed to meet local need, with much of the remaining 58% being used to house people referred through local authorities or national bodies outside the Birmingham area. In all too many cases, people are being put in exempt accommodation in Birmingham simply because it is available, with no afterthought for the relative level of support that tenants can be provided or for the impact on the local area. Worst of all, Birmingham city council knows that is happening, but the Government still have not given it the licensing powers to stop it.

Inaction on the Government’s part has been glaring, but I am pleased that the same cannot be said of activists in my constituency. During my time as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr, I have been encouraged by the tireless efforts of local groups to raise the issue, including the HMO Action Group, the Handsworth Triangle Action Group, the Soho Road business improvement district and Handsworth Helping Hands. I must also thank Birmingham city council and West Midlands police for mobilising in the way they have to try to tackle the crisis.

A particular bright spot has been the council’s in-house SEA pilot, which we can safely say has punched well above its weight and made Birmingham better for it. With minimal Government funding, the pilot has recovered £8.8 million in overpaid housing benefit, while also completing 2,600 antisocial behaviour investigations. That is with only 21 people covering the entire Birmingham city area. We must think of what more can be done to reduce fraud and waste in Government spending by giving the council the means to expand that operation.

The SEA pilot and groups of committed activists have done an incredible job to improve care standards for vulnerable people in supported exempt accommodation, where such action is needed, but they simply cannot fill the gap that the Government have allowed to grow. To make matters worse, rather than supporting them, the Government are refusing to fund the SEA pilot—its funding runs out next month. As a result, the bankrupt Birmingham city council has been left in an impossible position. It must either scrounge the money together to fund the initiative itself, or lose what little grip it had left on the situation.

That point is worth repeating. After depriving the council of the powers to regulate the market for three years, the Government are now refusing to give it the means to provide even a band-aid solution to a problem that they are compounding. While assurances were given that the Government would respond to the consultation as soon as possible, we have been hearing that for a long time.

This is not just about some additional antisocial behaviour taking place on the streets; it is about the vulnerable individuals who are being let down by the system, and it is about the residents who have paid the price for Government inaction and seen the character of their streets tainted. Residents feel that their neighbourhoods have been lost and, worst of all, they feel as though no one in Whitehall cares enough to solve the problem.

This is not to say that there is no place for supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham, because it plays a pivotal role. When it works well, it changes lives. I have been to neighbourhood forums in my constituency and spoken to people who have turned their lives around because of the support they receive from their registered providers—people rebuilding their lives after serving prison sentences, suffering domestic abuse, leaving care, or combating debilitating addictions or mental health conditions. But without the efficient, effective and meaningful licensing scheme for supported housing that the council was promised three years ago, Birmingham is simply unable to cope. We are asking neighbourhoods to absorb extremely high numbers of people with complex needs, but we are not providing the council with the tools required to support those individuals or reassure residents, and inevitably it is only the vulnerable individuals and the residents around them who stand to lose.

The problem of over-concentration is exacerbated by the inefficient support infrastructure that comes with it. The SEA pilot shows that when Birmingham is given tools, it delivers, but the city has more supported exempt accommodation than anywhere else in the country, and yet it does not have the corresponding level of funding, enforcement capacity, clinical provision or community-safety staffing required to manage the consequences.

If someone requires 24-hour wraparound care, addiction services, psychiatric input and structured supervision, they need a properly funded care facility, not a standard residential property with light-touch oversight. We must distinguish individuals who are stabilised and ready for supported community living from those in acute crisis who require secure, high-support environments before they can safely transition into neighbourhoods.

At present, that distinction is not being properly resourced and the result is unfair on everyone. It is unfair on residents who see behaviour that is deeply distressing and feel that their concerns are dismissed, it is unfair on vulnerable individuals who are placed in environments that do not meet the scale of their needs, and it is unfair on Birmingham city council, which is expected to manage the situation without adequate funding or authority.

The council’s supported exempt accommodation pilot has demonstrated what can be achieved when resources are provided, but pilots and short-term funding are not enough. What Birmingham needs is sustained funding for community safety, including more community safety officers and a greater neighbourhood policing presence in areas with a high concentration of supported housing. I would be incredibly appreciative if the Minister could make the necessary representations to his colleagues in the Home Office on that front.

The council needs the ability to manage concentration and set boundaries on the number of people from outside the city that it must house, because no neighbourhood should be asked to shoulder a disproportionate share of highly complex placements without the consultation, infrastructure and services to match it. When it comes to managing such complex matters, having an ineffective, watered-down licensing scheme is worse than having nothing altogether, because we end up with the same outcome at a higher cost to the taxpayer.

I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on what can be done to ensure that the 2023 Act is implemented in a way that reflects the impact that exempt accommodation can have on neighbourhoods and community harmony. I would also be grateful to hear what is being done to increase the speed with which the Act is implemented, and clarification on when the Government will respond in full to the most recent consultation.

Finally, the council needs the necessary powers to ensure that vulnerable individuals receive the best care possible. That means clarifying the extent of providers’ duty of care to their tenants, with tailored and specialist plans that not only provide personal support to the individual, but outline their obligations to ensure harmony with neighbours and the local community.

To conclude, I have a couple of final questions for the Minister. What financial support do the Government intend to provide to Birmingham city council in its efforts to contain the local crisis that the Government’s prolonged inactivity has exacerbated? The SEA pilot, in particular, is of great value to my constituents, and it would be a real shame if it disappeared. Will he agree to meet with me and local groups so that they can convey to him the true scale of the impact that the oversaturation of SEAs is having on their neighbourhoods and communities?

At the end of the day, this is about vulnerable people who need structured care, communities that need reassurance, and a local authority that cannot continue to carry a national burden without national support. Birmingham is not asking to step away from its responsibilities; it is asking for the means to fulfil them properly. It is my sincere hope that the Government will escalate their efforts to deliver exactly that.

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[Ayoub Khan]

I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for her efforts in this debate—not just her contribution today, but her work in Parliament previously. I also thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) for his interventions. The hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) is not here, but we have had lengthy conversations and it seems that she is equally concerned, as are the other parliamentarians who represent Birmingham, about the sheer saturation of exempt accommodation.

We all recognise the vulnerabilities of the individuals we all come across on a daily basis in our local shopping centres and hospitals, and the pressure on the West Midlands police when there are incidents. An enormous knock-on burden in Birmingham is being felt by local residents. Historically, many of the vulnerable individuals we now come across would not have been walking the streets. They would have been in care homes receiving the right level of care, but we do not see that now.

I thank the Lib Dem spokesman and the shadow Minister for their contributions. As the Minister said, we are all essentially singing off the same hymn sheet. We all understand the importance of supported accommodation for those who can live with minimal support, integrate into society and contribute to local neighbourhoods. But unfortunately we are not getting that. Licensing and enabling the council to regulate the sector is so important. I hear the Minister, but I am afraid the phrase “as soon as possible” will not be well received by local residents who have to deal with the challenges on a daily basis.

I accept that consultation with providers—especially those that do amazing work to provide support for vulnerable individuals who live in local neighbourhoods—is an important part of the process, but if there is going to be a delay because of the consultation, I would like the Minister to reconsider the SEA grant that is given to Birmingham city council. If licensing kicks in, let us say towards the end of the year, or even next year—whenever that may happen—the fact is that we do not have the capacity to deal with the problems that communities currently face. Will the Minister take that point away? I can see that I have gone over my allotted time, Ms Lewell.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham.