Supported Housing

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing the debate. This is a timely opportunity to re-examine the issues around the 2015 proposal to cap—in effect, cut—housing benefit for tenants in supported housing, given the Government’s temporary postponement of the plans, their further announcement in September that they were stepping back from the brink of implementation, and the publication of the report arising from their evidence review just over a week ago, which we are still digesting.

We have had insightful contributions from Members from both sides of the Chamber. One of the common themes is that supported housing is a crucial part of the social rented sector. It meets a variety of specialised needs in our communities—needs that would not easily be met in other ways. We heard that supported accommodation include homes for elderly people, for people fleeing domestic violence and for people overcoming addictions. For the majority, we are talking about homes for people with learning difficulties, substantial physical difficulties, serious mental health problems or other complex needs. In other words, they are people who would otherwise be unable to live independently—people who are frequently disadvantaged—some of whom are also very vulnerable.

We have heard stories from every part of the UK about the huge value of supported accommodation in our constituencies, the huge difference that it makes to the lives of those who need it and benefit from it, and the challenge and uncertainty that the Government’s proposals have caused not just to the people living in those homes but to those who provide those homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) highlighted the impact of the arbitrary age restrictions on disabled young people—those under 35 in that regard. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) expressed a range of concerns about the financial implications of the proposed changes for local authorities and supported housing providers. He also called for a pilot scheme for any changes that come in, which seems to be a sensible suggestion that I hope the Minister will take on board.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) got right to the heart of the matter when he challenged the Government’s approach to social housing in the wider context of austerity. He also made crucial points about women’s refuges and the role they play in helping people leaving violent home situations. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) focused his remarks on the impact on vulnerable tenants in Northern Ireland, and the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) who, regrettably, was unable to make her own speech in the debate, emphasised the need for investment in the supply of supported accommodation to meet identified demands.

We should remind ourselves that, if we turned the clock back 40 years or so, many people with similar types of disabilities to those who live in supported housing today often did not live in the community. If they could not live with family or, as outlined by the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), their family could no longer look after them, they were moved into large residential hospitals, often out in the countryside away from everyone. There was one in my constituency, and while I do not doubt that the residents had a high standard of professional nursing and medical care, most were not ill and did not need to be in hospital. Most of them were people with learning disabilities. It was an institutional model that cut patients off from wider society and robbed them of their independence. It also cost a fortune, even by the standards of the time. By contrast, there are now real homes in the area for disabled and learning-disabled people, and that is immeasurably better for everyone.

Supported accommodation has developed in the subsequent decades in a far more humane, appropriate and altogether better model of living for adults who would struggle to live independently without some degree of external support. However, the proposals we have seen from the Government in the past year to 18 months or so have put real question marks over the viability of that. The hon. Member for St Ives said that there is growing demand for supported accommodation, and I suspect that that is driven by changing demographics, with many members of the baby-boomer generation who were looking after adult disabled children at home no longer able to do so. Many young disabled adults, as we have heard, want to go to college and university, just like their peers. That has to be a good thing in the longer term, but it means that there is still a demand for supported accommodation. It has been a success, so let us not undermine that success with unnecessary cuts.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations represents dozens of housing associations in Scotland that provide supported accommodation of one sort or another. It estimates, based on projected turnover of tenancies, that nearly 6,000 new tenants could be affected by the proposed cap if it is introduced—obviously it is impossible to know exact numbers because the cap will affect future, not current, tenants.

The financial shortfall for those people—the gap between their housing benefit and their rent—is likely to add up to between £4.3 million and £5.6 million a year. That may sound like a small sum relative to the debates we were having in this place on the autumn statement last week, but for a tenant in supported housing in receipt of housing benefit the gap between their rent and housing benefit will on average be about £615 a year. That is nearly £12 a week, which would represent a substantial portion of income for, say, an adult over 25 on the new rate of employment support allowance. That would leave them with only about £60 a week to feed, clothe and keep themselves warm. A young person under 25 who has been assessed as fit for work would be left with only about £46 a week for their essential needs.

It is important to understand that many of the people we are talking about in supported accommodation may be on ESA for a lengthy period. Some may be in work or on jobseeker’s allowance, but for many the special needs that make them eligible for supported accommodation also make it difficult to find sustained full-time work. We should accept that some folk in supported accommodation will always need quite extensive support to have a decent quality of life.

We need to ask ourselves what happens when tenants in supported housing cannot pay their rent. The answer is simple. Whether people are in private sector, local authority or housing association-owned property, when rent arrears get out of hand or build up over time their tenancies are put in jeopardy. A rise in evictions and homelessness is not an outcome that anyone wants to see. It is also hugely costly to deal with the consequence of failed tenancies.

There is a real risk to social landlords’ willingness to invest in supported accommodation. If it becomes economically unviable to build and operate supported living, housing associations will not do it. That would be a disastrous outcome for individuals who could live independently in supported accommodation, and it would also leave local authorities with an almighty challenge of finding ways to meet the basic welfare and housing needs of some very vulnerable people.

In many of the case studies provided by the SFHA of current tenants with similar types of support needs to prospective future tenants, the only alternative safe forms of accommodation would be care homes or long-term hospitalisation. That would make us feel like we were turning the clock back. In my local area, finding care home places is extremely difficult, and I know that that is the case in many parts of the UK. Our hospitals cannot cope as it is with the problems of delayed discharges: having people in hospital who do not need to be there. That would become a hugely problematic issue if we lost the ability to place people in supported living.

The critical point is that either option—care homes or hospitals—is significantly more costly than a measly £12 a week for vulnerable people, which could make the difference between retaining and losing a tenancy. Money spent to keep people living in their community is money well spent and it is a false economy, and quite mean-spirited, to squeeze the already low incomes of economically deprived people, as the Government’s original policy proposed.

Before I conclude, what discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government about this issue? I welcome the plans to devolve funding in the area, but I hope she will confirm that it will continue at the current level. I am keen to know what engagement she has had with stakeholders in Scotland, most notably supported housing providers such as housing associations and local authorities but also the organisations that support tenants in those homes to live independently.

It is just wrong to target cuts on some of the poorest, most disadvantaged and, in some cases, very vulnerable people in our communities. It is also extremely short-sighted, economically counterproductive and socially retrograde. I appreciate that the Government are rethinking their approach. Sometimes the best thing is to accept that a previous ministerial team got it wrong and to recognise that the easiest, least bureaucratic and most cost-effective and compassionate way out is to back away from the cuts and exempt supported housing from the cap altogether.