Houses in Multiple Occupation (Asylum-Seeker Accommodation) (England) Regulations 2023

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction. I start by saying that my comments will mainly be directed at the Home Office. I am sure that the Minister, with her experience in local government, will be quite sympathetic to some of the things that I will say, even if she cannot say so here. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for their comments, much of which I totally agree with.

Coming as they do on the back of the complete disregard the Home Office afforded local government and other local stakeholders in the procurement of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers, the provisions in this statutory instrument represent another potential catastrophe as the Home Office once again rides roughshod over the asylum seekers directly affected— I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, about the dehumanising effect of successive actions that have been taken in this regard—the neighbours and communities of the housing this impacts and the local councils and other agencies that will once again be left to pick up the pieces. Why should our communities be subject to this turbulence because the Home Office has abysmally failed to tackle the weaknesses in its asylum processing capacity and capability? The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, gave the figures, so I will not repeat them.

The impact of government procurement of hotel space at such short notice and with little, if any, liaison with local authorities continues. Local tourism and events have been left short of hotel space. Some events have had to be cancelled or postponed. Weddings and other family celebrations have been cancelled. Staffing has been disrupted because of the need for different service levels. Unsuitable locations have been chosen, leaving asylum seekers stranded with no access to vital services. Local public services have found themselves, without warning, faced with the pressure of tackling complex needs and demands with no chance to prepare or assess the resources they need to deal with them.

Removing the protections in the HMO licensing requirements, which ensure the safety and quality of accommodation, by exempting for up to two years HMOs taking asylum seekers is potentially dangerous and divisive. It risks stacking up long-term problems for asylum seekers in terms of their mental and physical health, their safety in the properties and their recourse where conditions do not meet acceptable standards. The protections the licensing requirements afford around occupancy rates, compliance with safety requirements, sound management practices and the fit and proper test for landlords are essential protections. Councils take them very seriously as they carry out their inspection and enforcement duties.

We could potentially be creating a two-tier system here, where asylum seekers, many of whom are already suffering from trauma and other stress-related conditions, will be relegated to substandard accommodation. We note that the Government say that every property will be inspected by a Home Office contract inspector. What checks will be done to ensure that these contracts are carried out consistently by experienced and qualified inspectors? Will those inspectors be independent of the Home Office and, given current Home Office pressures and capacity, will there be enough resource in the department to manage this process as it rolls out across the UK?

What assessment will be carried out of the capacity of local areas that may already have high numbers of asylum seekers located there to cope with the additional numbers, and how will the potential for community tensions be assessed? Who will do that? The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, referred to dispersal. How is this being monitored and managed? Can the Minister tell us what the minimum standards will be for this HMO accommodation in terms of, for example, space standards to avoid overcrowding, access to kitchen and bathroom facilities and the location of properties to enable access to other services that asylum seekers may need, such as health facilities?

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, went through some of the other provisions, which I will not repeat, but a detailed statement of what is included in the Home Office inspections would be extremely helpful. Is it the intention that these HMO facilities will be used only for single adults or are they to be used for families as well? If the latter, can the Minister tell us what minimum level of provision the Government would expect to see for children living in HMOs? How are the Government liaising with local authorities about the potential impact on their existing supply of affordable housing and homelessness provision that may be exacerbated by government procurement of HMO capacity?

London Councils has data from 25 London boroughs showing that they procured 26% fewer private rented sector properties for homeless households in February 2023 than in the same month in 2022, and the total number of temporary accommodation properties requested back by landlords was 150% higher over the same period. As a result of this, the number of households in unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation in London was 167% higher in February 2023 compared to February 2022. Data provided by 23 councils show the number of families in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than six weeks was up 823%. Those figures were for London. Have the Government done any assessment of how these figures are increasing outside London and what impact the policy in this SI may have on the availability of homeless accommodation? I am pleased to hear about the additional funding for local government, but it does not help with the availability of housing provision that it will be losing.

Can the Minister tell us what local liaison will be in place for asylum seekers placed in HMO accommodation when they need to raise issues of poor standards or health and safety? I hear what the Minister said about Migrant Help, but I remain to be convinced about the consistency of provision of that on a 24-hour basis, when there may be problems with properties. What engagement structures have been put in place with local government and other public services to ensure that they are able to do all that they can to make this work properly? If councils are not involved, will the Home Office take direct responsibility for safeguarding, health and safety and well-being?

The LGA has requested in its excellent briefing— I agree with what noble Lords have said about how good it is—that there is a commitment from the Government about the timescale with which they expect this provision to be in place and that they have requested that local government be involved in the ongoing review. I am pleased to hear the Minister’s comments on this, but it is telling that the LGA had to write to us all on this issue to give its point of view. It should have been engaged from the very start of this process so that it worked with the Home Office on what the processes would be. Is that something that the Government will now put in place? I hope that that was the assurance from the Minister.

Both the LGA and London Councils—the latter also provided noble Lords with an excellent briefing—have questioned what evidence there is to suggest that this change in regulations will speed up procurement of accommodation. This is already a high-risk part of the housing sector, and the potential to undermine safety and standards seems very risky if there is not clear evidence to suggest that it will achieve the Home Office’s intended outcomes. Can the Minister clarify how this proposed transfer of responsibilities away from local teams will speed up the assessment of properties?

There are so many questions—too many questions to make me feel comfortable that this is going to work at all. One has to ask, just who is this policy for? It is not for asylum seekers, who it seems are to be relegated to some lower-tier housing division which removes any protections, safety and security they may have had while their applications are processed. It is not for local authorities, or other public services, which are left in the dark again and then expected to pick up the pieces of a policy which it seems no one except the Home Office thinks will work. It is certainly not for the communities, which are being asked to pay the price for years of the Home Office’s failure to act. You have to ask—just what is the Home Secretary thinking of?

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate today. Much of what has been discussed is obviously for the Home Office; in my responsibility as a Government Minister, I shall attempt to answer everything I can, but there will be things that I will have to come back to. I hope that I can persuade noble Lords to join me in supporting these regulations, which are a necessary step to accelerate moving asylum seekers from what is not suitable—we have had this debate many times in this House, and hotel accommodation is not suitable—into more suitable accommodation for them.

This is not dehumanising; this is actually giving them a better place to live, and trying to get people out of hotels as quickly as possible. Both the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, asked why we are doing this. We are doing it because the asylum accommodation service people are telling us that they have identified that the whole process of licensing requirements is really a challenge to swiftly bring on board the properties that we need in order to get people out of the hotel system.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think either the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, or the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I cannot remember which, asked whether any thought was given to improving the resources for local government to take this on, rather than setting up a whole new system. Is the Minister able to comment on that?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I will go through the support we are providing to local authorities, but I do not think the local authorities could have moved as fast as was necessary to do this: it takes training, et cetera. It is about getting people out of hotels and into better accommodation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, brought up the Home Office contracts. I have listed all the requirements under the licensing. I am sorry I have not got an answer to everything. Gas and safety requirements are there in the contracts for the Home Office, as well as compliance with wider private rented sector minimum standards, but I will go through each and every requirement in the licensing and we will send a letter explaining what is there and what is in the contract so that we are absolutely transparent about that.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I asked for an answer on that, but I do not think it has come forward. I am really sorry; I will get these answers to noble Lords as quickly as I possibly can. I am conscious of what they are asking me to do.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I know it is not the tradition of the Committee to not vote for SIs, or to vote against them, and I understand that—I will not do anything like that—but had this come before my council, with the lack of information that we have about why it is being done, not just what is being done, I could not have supported it. Whether local government could do this job equally well was never assessed. If the Home Office can recruit more inspectors, local government can do so too. If the Home Office are going to look at the same things that local government looks at, why is local government not looking at it? Can we have some clarity about what will be looked at? I am happy to have that in writing.

Before I sit down, I profusely apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, whom I called by the wrong name. I had written the wrong name on my papers, which is completely my fault, and I apologise profusely. I will not get it wrong next time.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I cannot let it go that we are not making it clear why we are doing this. I want to make it very clear that we are doing it to speed up the movement of these people from what the House has clearly said many times is unsuitable hotel accommodation, which is not right over a long period of time, into better accommodation. That is why we are doing it. We want to do it as quickly as possible, and we fell that, in the short term of two years, the licensing regime was slowing that movement down.