Homelessness

Debate between Dan Poulter and Lord Barwell

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

If hon. Members are happy for me to do so, I will make a bit of progress before taking further interventions. I will come next to my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).

I have set out the first thing that the Government are doing. Secondly, as the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne acknowledged, we have protected homelessness prevention funding for local authorities—nearly £390 million in this Parliament. Thirdly, we have increased central Government programmes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £10 million in the autumn statement, bringing the total to £150 million over this Parliament. Fourthly, in relation to welfare reform, we have increased discretionary housing payments to £870 million over this Parliament; that is a 55% increase. I was surprised to see when I was briefed for this debate that 60% of local authorities are not currently spending their full allocation.

Fifthly, we are looking at the way in which Government fund local authorities in relation to temporary accommodation. We are looking at replacing the DWP temporary accommodation management fee with a grant from the Department, which will be more than an equivalent amount of funding but will introduce much greater flexibility. Some hon. Members may have received a briefing from the Mayor of London today welcoming that change.

Since the Secretary of State was appointed, we have taken a fresh approach to supported housing, ensuring that the local housing allowance cap will not apply and moving to a new model of funding that is based on current LHA levels but, crucially, topped up by a ring-fenced grant. I think we would all acknowledge the fundamental role that supported housing plays for some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies. It is absolutely crucial that we get the detail of the new funding regime right, and the ministerial team are determined to ensure that we do so. I encourage all hon. Members to take part in the consultation.

The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne talked about a pledge that he had made. To a degree, it developed an announcement made by the former Chancellor at Budget ’16 of a £100 million fund to create 2,000 places in low-cost rented accommodation for rough sleepers in hostels and, crucially, for domestic abuse victims in refuges, so that we can move people on from short-term accommodation into permanent solutions. At this point, I happily give way to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend has already intervened, so I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter).

[Dr Poulter]

I thought the Minister was ignoring me, but I am sure he was not doing so. I commend his positive and constructive approach to this debate; indeed, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman also took such an approach. The Minister has mentioned rough sleeping and the need to move from crisis to preventive measures. In that connection, will he reflect on the fragmentation of the alcohol and drug rehabilitation services commissioned by local authorities and on the fact that those services are completely disengaged from what is happening in mental health trusts and the NHS, with people falling between the cracks? That needs to be addressed.

[Gavin Barwell]

I am very glad that I took an intervention from my hon. Friend, because he speaks with real authority on mental health issues. He is absolutely right that we need to look at ways in which we can achieve better integration of services. Many of the people we are talking about have profound and multiple needs, and we must ensure that all the relevant agencies are working together.

If the House will bear with me—I know many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate—I just want to make some final remarks to address the question asked by the hon. Member for Lewisham East. The fundamental thing we need to do is to drive up supply, and we will set out in a White Paper in the new year exactly how we propose to do that. Let me say a word specifically about affordable housing, on which the hon. Lady was pushing me. The autumn statement included three key announcements, one of which was about the flexibility of tenure. We inherited an affordable housing programme focused solely on shared ownership, but we have switched it so that housing associations can bid for affordable rent, rent to buy, shared ownership or whatever is most appropriate in their areas. The Chancellor has added an extra £1.4 billion to the affordable housing programme. As I made clear in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, we have also announced the London allocation of £3.5 billion, which is 43% of the national budget. As I said, if hon. Members do not wish to take my word for it, let me quote the Labour Mayor of London:

“This is the largest sum of money ever secured by City Hall to deliver affordable housing.”

He made that statement before London has got its share of the extra £1.4 billion that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement.

Let me end by dealing with the issue of affordable housing supply. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne was right on one statistic at least: the 2015-16 figures on affordable housing were very low—unacceptably low. That was because we finished one programme the previous year and the new programme was late starting. That is a feeble excuse, and the Secretary of State and I are determined to ensure it does not happen again.

To set out the facts, in three of the five years of the coalition Government, we built more affordable homes than in any of the last nine years of the Labour Government. The record of the Government since 2010—I am very happy to give some credit to our coalition partners—is that we have delivered significantly more affordable housing than was delivered, on average, over the last nine years of the Labour Government. I do not have the figures for before 2001. We have just put extra money into the budget, so we should be able to drive up supply.

I will end by making this point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Poulter and Lord Barwell

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I recognise her concerns for her constituents. As has been outlined, there are seasonal variations, and I am sure that local commissioners will want to take such issues into account when they make decisions, and they must meet the reconfiguration tests set out by the previous Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley).

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

The Better Services Better Value review of NHS services in south-west London identified that Croydon university hospital does not have sufficient senior doctors in its A and E, and nor did it under the previous Government. The review has been put on hold because Surrey has asked to be included. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that there will be a rapid solution to ensure that we have the A and E care that we deserve?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight a long-standing problem—it has not happened just recently —of a lack of particularly middle-grade doctors in A and Es. Although the number of consultants has increased by about 50%, as A and Es move rightly towards becoming a 24/7 consultant-led service, attracting middle grades to the specialty has been a problem. We set up a task force to consider that, as well as making better use of a multidisciplinary work force and emergency nurse practitioners to meet some of the staff shortages.