Private Rented Sector
Debate between Clive Betts and Eddie Hughes(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Mr Betts
In the previous report, we did not look specifically at mechanisms for increasing housing supply. In this report, we recommended that 90,000 social homes are built a year and said that that could cost up to £10 billion a year, which is about £70 billion more than has been provided through social housing grant. The Government must give that serious consideration, because the housing crisis will not go away unless something significant is done. The worry is, and this is something the Committee is looking at, that housing associations and councils will start to build fewer homes because of the pressures from disrepair, particularly around mould and damp, and because they are fixing safety defects post-Grenfell, all of which are adding further demands on their limited capital resources.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
It was an absolute privilege to be the previous Minister who was responsible for the White Paper. As an accidental landlord myself, I feel like I have a bit of a vested interest, but I am still evangelical in my support for the idea of a landlord portal because it will do two things: connect landlords to excellent advice available from the Government; and allow the Government to communicate directly with those 2.5 million landlords on environmental benefit schemes, reducing carbon emissions and so on. Does the Chair of the Select Committee feel my enthusiastic support for the portal and the difference it might make to local councils in driving up standards in the private rented sector under their control?
Mr Betts
This is probably not the first occasion that I agree with the hon. Member. The portal is an extremely important step forward, and it will bring that information together. We talked about the importance of how it is delivered, which will involve a lot of discussions with landlords and councils to get it right, digitalising some of the information so that it is accurate and proper. It also ought to help with the problems that many councils have in finding out who owns a property, as bad landlords often move it from one family member to another and the council has the challenge of chasing it round. I hope the information held in the portal will enable councils to enforce more appropriately in future.
Exempt Accommodation
Debate between Clive Betts and Eddie Hughes
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee today published its report on exempt accommodation. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for this statement, and our excellent Committee staff and specialist advisers for helping to compile the report.
Members of the Committee are experienced public representatives, but individually and collectively we were appalled by what we heard in this inquiry, which revealed a complete and utter mess of shocking accommodation and inadequate support all funded at enormous expense by the taxpayer. Here is how the system is supposed to work: exempt accommodation, which is supported housing, should offer suitable accommodation and care to its residents. The people who live in exempt accommodation are often the most vulnerable in society, such as survivors of domestic abuse, care leavers and people who struggle with their mental health or with addiction. Because this type of accommodation can be more costly to run than general needs tenancies, it is exempt from locally set caps on housing benefit, hence the name “exempt accommodation”. To qualify for those uncapped rates, the provider must be not for profit, and provide care, support or supervision to residents.
Where the system works well, responsible providers offer a safe and supportive setting for people who may have fallen on hard times, and equip residents to move on and lead independent, fulfilling lives, but our inquiry found that where it works badly, vulnerable people are being exploited when they should be given support. Those with an eye for quick and large returns, sometimes with malicious and criminal intent, see the system as an opportunity to make large and potentially illegal profits, all at the expense of the taxpayer. I thank everybody who provided evidence to the Committee’s inquiry. In particular, I thank Birmingham City Council for helping to arrange the Committee’s visit in June this year, and all those who took part in it and gave evidence. Their stories brought to light just how appalling the situation can be, both for residents and for neighbours who have to live with the impacts on their communities.
We heard from people living in squalid conditions—tiny rooms with walls smeared with faeces—with no gas, electricity or internet. For some people, the support on offer was just a support worker shouting from the bottom of the stairs, “Are you all right, then?” or a loaf of bread and jam left on the table. Others are given no support whatsoever, or worse still are exploited by staff. We heard stories of individual residents being forced to undertake work on the property, or asked for sex in return for better accommodation. We heard of vermin, organised crime, prostitution and harassment. Unbelievably, residents are often asked to pay additional charges for the support that they may or may not receive. There is no requirement to assess people’s support needs before offering them accommodation. Survivors of domestic abuse are being housed alongside people with a history of sexual abuse. Recovering addicts are being housed with drug dealers. Residents we spoke to found their accommodation on sites such as Gumtree and Facebook, and for many there is no way out. Without their housing benefit, they cannot pay their rent, so they are afraid to enter employment and risk losing the roof over their head. Women’s Aid told us about survivors of domestic abuse actually going back to their perpetrators because they felt safer returning to an abusive relationship than remaining in these settings. This simply must change.
To add insult to injury, this mess is all being paid for by the taxpayer through housing benefit, which local authorities have inadequate powers to control. Not only that, but we heard numerous stories of providers exploiting loopholes to pocket that housing benefit as profit. West Devon Borough Council told us about a portfolio of properties that were bought for £6 million and sold on the same day for £18 million to an offshore investment company, in anticipation of the returns to be made from converting those properties into exempt accommodation. Local councils also end up footing much of the bill for accommodation that is not registered.
While taxpayers are footing the bill of this goldrush, the Government have no idea how much they are spending on exempt accommodation, how many people are living in exempt accommodation or how many providers there are. The Government tried to convince us that the bad experiences we heard about were the minority, but no matter how many times we asked for data to back that up, they could not provide any. The Government cannot know whether the system is providing value for money, but given how much money is being siphoned off as profit at the expense of vulnerable residents, we think it is quite possible that the Government may not need to spend more to improve exempt accommodation. They simply need to put in place systems so that the money spent is spent on good accommodation and appropriate levels of support.
We are therefore calling for national standards for exempt accommodation, covering the referral process, the care and support provided, the quality of the housing and the information given to the residents. It is, quite frankly, shocking that national standards do not exist. These standards should be in place within 12 months, and local authorities should be given the powers and the resources to enforce those standards, to improve the overall quality of exempt accommodation and establish greater consistency. Councils can then collect data, which the Government can collate, to give an accurate national picture of the exact scale and cost of exempt accommodation.
The oversight of exempt accommodation is a complete mess. There are lots of different regulators overseeing different bits of the system. There is the regulator of social housing, the Care Quality Commission and the Charity Commission, but no single regulator has overall responsibility for overseeing all the different components, and no single regulator has complete coverage of the sector. That is why we are calling for a national oversight committee to pull together all the different strands and fill the holes in the current patchwork of regulation.
We are also calling for compulsory registration with the regulator of social housing. If providers and properties are registered, local authorities will have the basic information to enable them to enforce standards. We look forward to the Second Reading of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, sponsored by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is a long-term and valued member of the Select Committee. The Select Committee will be doing pre-legislative scrutiny of that private Member’s Bill.
Finally, there need to be greater controls on the development of exempt accommodation. Provision should be driven by local need, not by the greed of unscrupulous, profit-driven crooks. Instead, the planning system currently offers a free-for-all. It gives councils very little power to halt developments that strip out much needed family housing and create concentrated pockets of exempt accommodation that, when run badly, attract crime, antisocial behaviour and vermin to local communities. The Government should immediately end all exemptions to the licensing of houses in multiple occupation and article 4 directives, as well as ending other planning loopholes.
The Government need to sort out the many issues with exempt accommodation that our inquiry identified, but in reality, they cannot sort out exempt accommodation without solving the wider housing crisis. The Government’s five pilot schemes to look at these issues found that, often, residents of exempt accommodation do not even require care or support; they simply have nowhere else to go because there is a lack of affordable housing in this country, so we have reiterated our call on the Government, made in a previous report, to build 90,000 social rented homes a year.
The British public are living through many difficult challenges. They do not want to see money from their taxes being handed over during a cost of living crisis to corrupt people who make the lives of vulnerable people worse and create a living hell for neighbours and communities. The Government should implement our recommendations immediately and in full. I commend this report to the House.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
It was a pleasure to contribute to the evidence session for this report, as the relevant Minister at the time. While I do not agree with all the recommendations in the report, which is perhaps no surprise, I commend the Committee for its excellent work and for shining a light on this important topic. Does the Select Committee Chairman agree that it is important that any changes in legislation do not negatively impact the many excellent providers of exempt supported accommodation out there, including YMCA Birmingham, of which I was previously the deputy chief executive?
Mr Betts
I thank the hon. Member genuinely for the way he engaged with the Committee as a Minister. Some Ministers engage better than others with Select Committees, and although he did not always agree with us, he engaged with us entirely properly, so I thank him for that.
In terms of the hon. Member’s question, he is absolutely right, and we reflected that, but what we are asking of even the best providers is simply that they register, so that we can be aware of who they are and what they are doing. They have nothing to fear from a basic registration fee—that is all. I completely agree with him: it is not just about closing down the bad; it is about how we can expand the good, particularly on domestic abuse. There is a shortage of such accommodation for people fleeing domestic abuse in this country, so there need to be more funds. Perhaps some of the funds that are being siphoned off inappropriately could be channelled into providing good accommodation, provided by organisations such as Women’s Aid, which came to give evidence to us.
Social Housing and Building Safety
Debate between Clive Betts and Eddie Hughes(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Eddie Hughes
The best commitment I can make is that the regulator will be properly funded to discharge its duties. We can discuss what mechanism will be used to arrive at that position, but we are determined to make sure it has the staff and resources to deal with the problems it faces.
There has been considerable discussion of the voluntary right to buy. I insert the word “voluntary” because I understand that is how it would have to operate given that the Government do not own or control the housing associations. I fully appreciate some of the points that have been raised, but the pilot was in the west midlands and I have spoken to a number of my constituents who took the opportunity to buy their property. Home ownership is a significant aspiration for people across the country, and we should not shy away from the idea of considering any and all mechanisms to make it work.
Eddie Hughes
I see that the Chair of the Select Committee is desperate to discuss this further.
Homes for Ukraine Scheme
Debate between Clive Betts and Eddie Hughes(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I think the Minister is going to get asked these questions over and over again until we get some adequate answers from him.
First, it cannot be justified that councils are, quite rightly, getting £10,500 per year per refugee when refugees come over on the sponsor scheme—councils have to provide wraparound services; it is all there, it is all understood—but when refugees come under the family scheme, for the most part, apart from the housing checks, the council has to do everything to support them. Why is there no money under that scheme and yet £10,500 under the other scheme? Will the Minister explain the difference in terms of the offers that councils have to make to those refugees?
Secondly, the Local Government Association told the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee yesterday that 144 Ukrainian refugees have presented as homeless so far. They have come under a variety of schemes, with some under the sponsorship scheme, some through Ireland and other routes and some through the family scheme—that is because family members do not have to provide accommodation. The whole reason for the sponsorship scheme is that councils do not have enough affordable, readily available homes to house people. The choice is therefore to put these refugees into temporary accommodation—hotels—or to match them up with the generous offers that sponsors want to make in those communities. Yesterday, the Prime Minister accepted that councils should have access to the database of sponsors so that they can be responsible for matching up refugees or homeless people with sponsors who want to house them. Can the Government just get on with it?
Eddie Hughes
We are getting on with it. When the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) took the earlier urgent question, he explained how we are ramping up the process and ensuring that it is working as efficiently as possible. On the difference between the two schemes, people are completely at liberty to apply through the Homes for Ukraine scheme instead. I think we understand that people in the UK who are having a family member coming to live with them will provide services such as help with learning English, so some support that might otherwise be provided by a council will be given by a family. I think that is the natural way. However, as I said, it is not an either/or option; people can choose to apply through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. I fully accept that there is a challenge with regard to housing, and that is why it is tremendous that 200,000 people have decided to open up their homes.
Levelling Up
Debate between Clive Betts and Eddie Hughes(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Eddie Hughes
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I am very much a fan of the “can I have some more?” approach, so I think it is completely appropriate that he should ask for more funding, even though, as he says, he has already secured nearly £24 million. I will convey his invite to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, and I have no doubt that both or either of them will soon be up to visit.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]
May I say to the Minister that it is one thing to announce lots of policies and lots of money, but another to make sure the policies and the spending are successful in delivering the achievements that he obviously want so make? What indicators are going to be used to demonstrate the success of levelling up? Are the Government going to set targets so that we can all decide at the end of this Parliament whether those indicators have been achieved? If he cannot set them out for us today, I would be more than happy if he wanted to put that list in the House of Commons Library so that we can judge them in due course.
Eddie Hughes
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. With regard to the Government providing funding and the impact or success of it, I understand that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has allocated more than £40 million to the Sheffield city region through the brownfield fund, so it will be up to local people there to determine whether that money has been spent wisely. I hope he will contribute to ensuring that it is. The criteria for allocations of the funding, or applying for the funding, include
“need for economic recovery and growth, need for improved transport connectivity and need for regeneration.”
I know that this is not quite what he asked, but I suggest to him that if we are going to determine the success of these projects, the British electorate will probably do that at the next general election. I look forward to seeing how that turns out.