Baroness Gardner of Parkes
Main Page: Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I am, of course, an immigrant, although I immigrated a long time ago. I remember being quite unsurprised to learn when I arrived in this country that there was no way in which an immigrant could get social housing. As the years have gone by, that position has changed dramatically. My major concern is the people who have waited on a housing list for 10, 15, 20 or 25 years without a hope in the world of ever getting anything. They see others—very often asylum seekers or others who have newly arrived in this country and are in need—jumping the queue. I cannot understand why if you arrive in this country needing housing—and are very grateful to be here, because this has always been a very hospitable country—you would be unprepared to go to an area of the country where there is vacant housing that is not being used. Many of these immigrants are quite capable of doing up properties themselves. I cannot understand why that is not a process. I am told by a local authority that I spoke to recently about this type of case that it has no flexibility in the matter. As I understand it, under the Homelessness Act it cannot say that people are entitled to be considered for housing because they have waited 25 years. It is not allowed to take any such matters into consideration. This is where the Bill will improve people’s rights and make the process for getting social housing fairer.
The other thing that is desperately important is for councils to empty out social housing that is occupied not by those to whom it was given but by the sub-tenants to whom those tenants let it illegally. A huge amount of housing could be made available if that was looked into more thoroughly.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall contribute briefly to this debate, although I, too, had not intended to do so. From my perspective, immigrants are welcome and underpin our economy. I say that because our wealth as a country has been dependent over many generations on those who come to live here.
Perhaps I may take us back to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. In Committee I said that I had some sympathy with calls for a housing strategy. However, I am less certain that the timescale which the amendment describes—a 10-year rolling housing strategy—is sufficient because, as my noble friend Lord Newton pointed out, things change quickly. We are well aware that we have a growing rented sector; that in some parts of the country rents are rising well above the rate of inflation; that mortgage repossessions are rising, and that household formation is running at twice the rate of our new house-building programme. As we all acknowledge, the Government’s plans for 170,000 homes at affordable rents will not be sufficient to bridge that gap, which is why the growth in owner occupation matters so much. However, people have to be able to get a mortgage. At present, with signs of rising unemployment and rising homelessness, there is a very real danger that more people will go into the private rented sector and that there will be a reduction in the quality of that housing stock.
There is a case for local councils here. Surely good local councils will have some awareness of what is lacking in their area, what the market needs, what private house builders will want to build and what the social housing needs of their area are going to be. They are going to have to be aware of that, otherwise I do not think that another part of the Localism Bill—the part relating to neighbourhood planning—will work. Neighbourhood planning requires some kind of evidence base to enable decisions to be made by neighbourhoods and, more broadly within the authority as a whole, about what the plans for that area should be. Housing and the use of land are central to that.
I hope that there is a way forward and that my noble friend will be able to reassure us. You do not actually need a 10-year housing strategy. You do need an acute, local awareness of housing demand and trends and an ability to be much more fleet of foot in meeting those trends than we have seen over the past two decades.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, when I stood up last time I was remiss in not welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to his full-time position on the Front Bench. He is very welcome indeed and I hope that he is going to enjoy it. He may not enjoy the start of it, though; I fully understand what he is saying on this amendment but I also think that a bit of flexibility within the provisions is required.
We do not think that it is necessary to legislate to prevent local authorities from ever disqualifying transferring tenants. There may be exceptional circumstances where, for example, tenants have not paid their rent or there is some problem associated with the transfer, but by and large, under practically all circumstances, we would expect transferring tenants to be transferred without trouble. The noble Lord mentioned downsizing to a smaller flat, moving from a bigger flat to a smaller one or moving because of work from one place to another. We would expect all those to go without any difficulty at all and without the local authority having to make any exceptions.
As I say, though, there might just be exceptions. The only one that I will give the noble Lord at the moment is that there might be rent arrears that need to be paid off before the tenants move. Flexibility for the local authority in those circumstances would be removed by this amendment. We are producing secondary legislation that will outline when local authorities can and cannot prevent people transferring. If there were any evidence that local authorities were disqualifying transferring tenants inappropriately, that would be covered by that secondary legislation, which will not be on hand immediately but is coming.
I believe that the provisions as currently drafted are correct and that the proposed provisions are unnecessary. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that he can withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thought we could do that on Report for a question. I asked the Clerk earlier. Perhaps that could be clarified.
If the local authority were adopting a flexible policy and happened to adopt the policy as set out in the amendment, could it do that in any case without it being in the Bill?
Baroness Hanham
The local authority has flexibility at present so it would be able to prevent the transfer. The wording will mean that it is fully understood that the transferring tenants will perhaps not be able to transfer under those circumstances.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, in moving Amendment 4 I shall speak also to Amendments 7, 17 and 18. I first thank my noble friend the Minister for the helpful letter that she sent to me during the Recess in response to several of the amendments that I had tabled in Committee. Several of the issues that arise from that will be considered further on Report. In this group of amendments, I should like to press a little further on some of the key issues.
The effect of Amendment 4 is to extend the period during which the homelessness duties will recur if a local authority discharges its duties by means of a private rented sector offer. I am keen to extend it from two to five years. Secondly, it would provide for a household that has been accepted as homeless to receive reasonable preference on the authority’s allocation scheme during that period of five years because of its need for stable accommodation to break the cycle of insecure accommodation. Two years is simply too short and will increase the insecurity of those who have been accepted as homeless.
The Bill currently sets out that the homelessness duty can recur only once following the loss of accommodation during the recurrence period. Therefore, if the applicant was subsequently evicted from the accommodation provided on the reapplication, the duty would not recur for a second time. The applicant would have to make a fresh homelessness application. I find this restriction difficult to justify and see no good reason why the homelessness duty should not recur on each reapplication. Crucially, it would provide a key incentive for local authorities to ensure that their original allocation was as suitable as possible.
The main homelessness duty is owed to people who are considered to have a priority need. These include households made up of a pregnant woman; dependent children; applicants aged 16 or 17; applicants aged between 18 and 20 who have been in care; applicants who are vulnerable as a result of having been in care, old age, mental illness, handicap or physical disability; and those who have perhaps been a member of the Armed Forces, served a custodial sentence or fled violence or threats of violence. These are examples of groups who are most in need of secure, affordable homes and whose welfare would be most at risk from a series of short-term lettings and repeat homelessness. That is why two years is simply not sufficient and five years would be much better.
People who leave an institutional setting such as care, hospital, the Armed Forces or prison often struggle to live independently and deal with all the practicalities involved in establishing a home, particularly if they lack support. Knowing that they may be forced to move again quite soon can be particularly unsettling and may throw up practical and financial problems. Combined with the recent and forthcoming restrictions to the local housing allowance, this part of the Bill will mean that households that are dependent on full or partial housing benefit will be pushed into the cheapest third of the private rented sector, without any reasonable preference by virtue of their homelessness for a permanent and affordable home provided by an accountable and regulated social landlord, who can then refer them to support and advice services.
There is a link between homelessness and reasonable preference for social housing. The Housing Act 1996 limited the duty to accommodate homeless applicants to two years. Part 6 of that Act established that permanent accommodation can be obtained only through the allocation scheme, not through the homelessness duty, although homeless people should have reasonable preference in allocation. The Homelessness Act 2002 restored the duty to accommodate indefinitely, if necessary via the provision of temporary accommodation, until a settled home is secured. However, the 2002 Act also introduced the qualifying offer, whereby the homelessness duty can be discharged into the private rented sector with the applicant’s consent.
The danger here is that the Government may undermine the homelessness legislation by removing the need for consent to discharge the duty into an insecure private letting. I fully understand the need for local councils to use private sector accommodation but that private setting needs to be secure as opposed to insecure. Children and vulnerable adults in particular need the security of a permanent home in order successfully to address issues around family relationships, education, schools, employment, mental and physical health, reoffending and drug and alcohol dependency. The only sustainable way to meet housing need in expensive market areas is by increasing the supply of secure and genuinely affordable rented housing. Allowing housing authorities simply to discharge their homeless duty into the private rented sector regardless of local pressures could simply encourage a race to the bottom whereby homeless people are routinely discharged into the private sector, even in areas where social housing is in plentiful supply.
Amendments 7 and 17 relate broadly to the same point. However, Amendment 18 would prevent the duty recurring just once. The Bill allows households who have been placed in the private rented sector and who have become homeless again within two years still to be owed the main homelessness duty regardless of their priority need status. However, it allows this to happen only once. Amendment 18 would remove this provision. A single recurrence of duty does not offer sufficient protection. A homeless person’s first accommodation may be unsuitable and lead to repeated homelessness. If people become homeless again because a tenancy breaks down, they should continue to be owed a duty of accommodation as often as it is needed. Reassessing the household each time to determine their priority needs status could be stressful for the household and, indeed, burdensome for the council.
I hope that my noble friend the Minister will look again at the aim of Amendments 4, 7, 17 and 18. I do not think it is too much to ask that those who have been owed such a duty at any time within the previous five years, as opposed to two years, should be assisted in this way. It would help families and individuals who are living in difficult circumstances or have difficult problems to become stabilised in a neighbourhood where they get to know people and people get to know them. I hope very much that my noble friend will increase the two-year period to five years.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, might wish to speak. I would rather hear from him first. However, I listened with interest to the noble Lord who moved the amendment. I noticed that one of the categories to which he referred comprised those who had fled violence, which comes back to the asylum seekers we discussed earlier. People who have waited years and years for housing feel great resentment in that regard. Their local authority may have placed them in private sector housing. That was certainly the situation in a case of which I know. The people in that case have found the situation in the private sector impossible as the landlady is not prepared to reduce the rent to the housing benefit rate and has already had an eviction order confirmed by the court. The tenants have been told that they must stay in the accommodation and be made homeless as otherwise the council will have no obligation to them at all, and that if they leave the accommodation they will be regarded as being voluntarily homeless. They have gone everywhere to try to find alternative accommodation. I am talking about central London, which has particular problems in this regard. For some reason we all automatically come to central London because it has a great charm. Whether that is because someone else from your country came here previously and you would like to be in a little group with everyone else, I do not know. I was never in “Kangaroo Valley” in Earls Court, but that was a well known fact even there.
However, it concerns me that people who have for years been deserving cases are not getting any opportunity or help. The people who I am talking about are now being offered an opportunity, after 16 years in other accommodation—they are well over 50—of a possible place in a hostel, although they have not been promised that. They are elderly people—well, they are in their 50s, but the husband is not well and has a heart condition.
Why should that happen to people who see accommodation offered to an asylum seeker, who is in a category of being very grateful to this country? It was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, when he moved the amendment, that there are areas where social housing is in plentiful supply. When, years ago, I was on Westminster Council and had responsibility for housing, we decided to offer people the right to live in Liverpool where a lot of accommodation was available. They could be offered that rather than bed and breakfast in London, which was all that we could offer here. They were all offered buses and were supposedly taken off to Liverpool. Only 50 per cent of them ever arrived. The other 50 per cent were never seen again, never made any further application to the council, and I have no idea what happened to them. But why was what proved to be an attractive offer for 50 per cent totally unattractive to the other 50 per cent?
We therefore have to be careful when considering anything regarding homelessness that we do not overlook the people who have become homeless after perhaps years of having somewhere to live, or the people who would qualify if we passed the Government’s proposals in the Bill, of which I am a strong supporter. They would make it possible for councils to attach value to various things that they think are important locally, such as the connection with an area over time. I am worried by this sort of amendment. I am not directly opposed to it because I have every sympathy with homeless people, but we have to look wider and think about the full implications.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, my experience of the housing of asylum seekers in the city of Newcastle certainly does not lead me to the view that they have been given wonderful accommodation for which there was a great deal of demand by those in housing need locally. On the contrary, NASS, the national body charged with responsibility for housing asylum seekers, seemed—if I may put it this way—rather less than careful in its choice of the landlords it engaged and the standards of accommodation that the asylum seekers were given. That reinforces the views of some of us that, while we join the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in recognising that there is a perfectly reasonable place for the private rented sector in helping to rehouse homeless people, it is imperative that the standards of that housing be adequately assessed and continually monitored.
I therefore strongly support the amendments—in particular the provision about the length of time for which the obligation to rehouse would remain. However, the reference of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, to Westminster’s generous offer to ship people up to Liverpool raises a question. It actually raises several questions, but the one for this afternoon’s purposes is whether it would be possible for an authority to discharge its duty under the Bill as it currently stands by offering accommodation outside the area of the authority in which the homeless person currently resides. I may be wrong, but I assume that that would be the case. One hears of authorities in London that are already faced with the possibility of tenants no longer being able to afford accommodation, given the impending changes, and are seeking to acquire or make arrangements for accommodation along the south coast and elsewhere—something that has happened in the past.
Can the Minister give an assurance that it would be at least the initial responsibility of the local authority to try to accommodate people within its boundaries unless the protected tenant or homeless person chooses otherwise? It would be unfortunate if the legislation were, no doubt unwittingly, to encourage the export of homeless people to other authorities, as that may well carry with it other local authority responsibilities—social care and the like—which will be a charge on those authorities, let alone the fact that the people involved may not want to move, at any rate, not for a considerable distance. As I read it—I am open to correction—although authorities are required to advise initially on what might be available locally within their area, if that does not work, they can allocate accommodation outside it. Presumably, if that is refused by the homeless person, the duty to find them accommodation would end. That seems an unsatisfactory conclusion, further compounding the difficulties which many people face.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor
My Lords, I declare an interest since I chair the National Housing Federation. The Government are embarking on some quite fundamental changes to the homelessness legislation, a piece of legislation that dates all the way back to my former colleague, Mr Ross. It has been of immense benefit to have that legislation in place, although it is not always popular. That said, as things stand there are some perverse consequences to the legislation and in how people may respond to its provisions. As a Member of Parliament for a Cornish constituency where homelessness and poverty have been high for many years, I saw some of that taking place. Concerns have been expressed about the use of the private sector, but I think that is wrong; the private sector can be right for individuals and homelessness should not be seen as a trump card in the process of housing allocation. So there are important potential benefits in the changes that the Government are making.
I have great sympathy with the argument that when profound changes are made we should ensure that there is a proper process of review of the consequences that come from those changes. Inevitably, there are unexpected consequences of these things; while it may not be that this particular amendment is the best form for that, I hope that I will hear from the Minister a very clear commitment for a process of review, in particular to look at whether the quality of accommodation provided by the private sector is adequate and, perhaps even more important, what the consequences have been in terms of individuals’ ability to pay rent given the changes to the benefit system. I hope that the consequences of these changes will be positive, but I am all too aware that they may not be, so I look to the Minister to give some reassurance on that front.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, I am slightly concerned about two different aspects. First, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made the point about places being unsafe. That concerns me greatly because I understood that the council had powers, if a property was unsafe, to demand that work be carried out. So that disturbs me.
The other point that worries me very much is the whole attitude of private landlords to housing benefit claimants. This is a serious problem that I had personal experience of this week when someone I know, who has been going to estate agents and finding properties that they could afford with their £250 a week, was told by estate agents and by landlords themselves, “Sorry, we won’t take anyone on housing benefit because if they don’t pay”—I know that there is talk of sending the payment directly to the landlord, which has both advantages and disadvantages—“or if there’s any doubt, we have to meet all the costs of the court and of getting possession of the property again”. If there were some way in which the council could help the private landlord by ensuring that if there were any need to reclaim the property they would not be faced with those extra costs, that might change attitudes. It is a serious concern if people with a property to let within the range of housing benefit are unwilling to take such tenants.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I understand that this is an important aspect for those who have moved the amendments.
I point out at the start that the noble Lord, Lord Best, made a powerful intervention over the welfare Bill and as a result—or, perhaps, we fully intended this anyway—the Department for Work and Pensions will carry out extensive research into the impact of the changes to the local housing allowance that are being introduced in 2011. That will go a long way towards dealing with the matters that are raised in this amendment. The department intends to monitor the impact of the changes on claimants, landlords and local authorities over a two-year period and will be publishing an interim report in 2012, with a final report due in 2013.
We do not want to trudge along this path twice. Not only should the report being carried out by the DWP address the impact of its changes but it will pick up some of the points that the noble Lord has made in his intervention today. I am not much wedded to having yet another report on what is virtually the same subject, although we might ensure that the report being produced by the DWP picks up on some of the points that have been made. I am not making any promises on that right now but I promise to raise the issue and see if we are at a stage where that could be done.
We believe that requiring the homelessness clauses to expire three years after commencement, which is what the noble Lord’s amendment is about, would undermine the intention of our reforms. Allowing people under the main homelessness duty to turn down offers of suitable accommodation in the private rented sector and wait for an offer of social housing would be unfair. I do not think that that point was raised particularly but I want to lay it down at the moment. The changes that we are making are part of the reforms to social housing and we need to ensure that all this is fair, not only to the people who are homeless but to those who are on the waiting list and looking for good, affordable housing. We need to ensure that we get the best from our 4 million socially rented homes.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I wonder whether I can tempt the Minister—probably not—to answer the point I made on a previous amendment about the applicability of offers made outside the area of the local authority that is determining the issue of homelessness. It is a question of suitability in this context. Perhaps she could enlighten us on that aspect when she replies.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
This is a question of whether people have a 100 per cent right to decide what is suitable. I think we have all read about the case of a family who were very unhappy in Kilburn as they considered that the shops were not smart enough and who were moved to Kensington and Chelsea, which involved a huge amount of housing benefit being paid. I consider that those people did not have the right to say that they did not like Kilburn as it was not smart enough. That was unreasonable. However, as regards Amendment 20, is it not a fact that if a local council wished to do so it could use these criteria as part of its own flexible criteria and would not need to have that enshrined in the law? I very much support the flexibility in the Bill. It is unreasonable to tie councils in this regard. However, if you do not like what your council is doing, you can vote it out in the hope of getting a new council with a different attitude.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I know that the Minister does not want to discuss the Dale Farm evictions, which are to take place in the week beginning 19 September. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, we are talking about a general instance of homelessness. She pointed out that every single Gypsy or Traveller who is encamped on an unauthorised site is ipso facto statutorily homeless and therefore the local authority has a duty to provide that person with alternative accommodation. However, in no case of which I am aware has any offer of alternative accommodation been made to a person living on an unauthorised site that would enable that person to bring themselves within the law concerning their accommodation.
As regards the definition of suitability which my noble friend has suggested in Amendment 20, people in this position are often deprived of the rights which he proposes to confer on the homeless. For example, there is a reference to,
“disruption to the education of children or young persons in the household”,
and more than 100 young children on the Dale Farm site attend the local primary school and will be dispersed across the countryside with no provision made for their education to continue. Bearing in mind that Gypsies and Travellers are the most deprived of all ethnic minorities, in terms of achievement and attendance in education, it is something of a triumph that so many of the children on this site have been persuaded to attend primary school. That is all going to be scrapped because, when they are on the roadside, it will be physically impossible and impractical for them to attend local schools—assuming that there would be a place for them to be admitted.