Oral Answers to Questions

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady is making her own point in her own way. Obviously, local government is devolved in Scotland, and she also makes her own point in relation to no deal. Preparations have been put in place and funding has been provided to a number of local councils in England, and we are ensuring that the money designed for EU preparations actually gets to where it needs to go, whereas that has not always been the case with the Scottish Government.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of changes in the level of Government funding for local authorities on the adequacy of the services that they provide.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

21. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of changes in the level of Government funding for local authorities on the adequacy of the services that they provide.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

Our recent settlement confirmed an increase of £1.3 billion in resources for local government this year. This real-terms increase recognises the critical services that local government delivers. Core funding is nearly all un-ring-fenced, giving local government control over its local income and the freedom and flexibility to spend according to local needs.

[Faisal Rashid]

We know only too well by now that central Government underfunding of local authorities has devastated many of our constituents through cuts to many essential services. Perhaps the most dismal funding failure of all from this Government has been on housing, with the building of social housing at its lowest level since world war two. When will the Government wake up and realise that our housing is in crisis and at breaking point?

[James Brokenshire]

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that he has not recognised one of our biggest reforms in social housing, which has been to lift the housing revenue account borrowing cap. This will enable councils to borrow in order to build a new generation of council homes, and I want to see councils utilising and harnessing that so that we can build homes for people and ensure that councils play their part in that.

Local Government and Social Care Funding

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

As we have heard in the accounts given by many of my hon. Friends today, for many communities in this country local government funding is a matter of life and death—a matter of keeping vital services open and making sure that the most vulnerable people in our society are given the protection and support they need to survive. That is the scale of the crisis afflicting our local authorities—a crisis that we know hits the poorest the hardest.

Nine of the 10 most deprived councils in England face cuts that are higher than the national average. All nine are Labour controlled. Seven of the 10 areas facing the smallest cuts to spending power per household are Conservative controlled. Is it not telling that after nine years of savage cuts to local government, fraying the very fabric of our society, the Tory party is campaigning in the upcoming local elections on its record on road maintenance? The Conservatives boast proudly of “A few less bumps in the road”. Consider that for a moment. Local authorities are housing 79,000 homeless families in temporary accommodation, including more than 120,000 children; last year saw the biggest annual increase in children in care since 2010, and councils start 500 child protection investigations every day—but the Tories want to talk about fixing potholes.

We have now seen almost a decade of deprivation engineered by Tories in Westminster. The Conservative party proudly talks of its record on fixing bumps in the road while our communities are starved of spending and our services are cut to the bone. What an insult to the dementia patient who cannot access adequate social care, to the family who cannot find themselves a home or to the schoolchildren sent home early for a lack of funding. Does that not sum up the warped priorities of this failing Government?

I commend the Labour councils across the country, which are doing their best to stand up for our communities in the teeth of savage Tory cuts. Voters face a blunt choice in the upcoming local elections between those who want to destroy our communities and those who want to rebuild them for the many.

Oral Answers to Questions

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend’s message. I am sure that others outside this place will have heard it, too, as we look towards local council elections, with Conservative councils delivering more for their residents and better value for money.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of new homes for social rent since 2010.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

Since 2010 we have delivered more than 407,000 new affordable homes. That includes more than 293,000 affordable homes for rent, of which 135,000 are for social rent. There is always more to do and I look forward to hearing from the hon. Gentleman what that might be.

[Faisal Rashid]

Between 2016 and 2017 a total of 138 two- bedroom properties were let in my Warrington South constituency through the social rent scheme, and about 1,100 families bid for them. What is the Minister doing to meet those unsustainable levels of demand in my constituency?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise the fact that demand in all parts of the housing market outstrips supply—social, affordable and, indeed, all ownership models that we put out there. We are putting significant resources behind all parts of the country to build the homes that the next generation needs. We have managed to get net output up from 124,000 after the crash, to 222,000. Indicators for next year are looking pretty good, too, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, significant resources are being applied to this problem and we will do our best to try to address it.

Local Government Funding

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) on her speech and on securing the debate.

Many of the services that are closest to the people we represent and that many people value and appreciate are delivered by local councils. Many of them, such as collecting refuse, recycling, street cleansing, operating street lighting and keeping street drains clear, are easily identifiable council services but, as we know and as my hon. Friend highlighted, councils do much more. They provide education, social and youth services, libraries, community centres, leisure centres, allotments, play areas, car parks, local tourism and business support. They also facilitate a huge amount of partnership working by acting as the conduit for joint working between police, health, the third sector and others. Many local authorities also still provide housing services and even those that no longer have housing stock still provide limited private sector housing support and are responsible for taking the lead on tackling homelessness.

I spent the 20 years before I was elected to this place in 2015 as a councillor and cabinet member. I was first elected in 1995. My first experience as a councillor was marred by the huge financial pressures that local authorities were under. I was full of hope at first that I would play a part in making a positive difference to the community that had just elected me. Is not that why we are all elected? However, the council I was elected to was subjected to massive cuts in my first two years as a councillor. Our annual budget was cut by £30 million over two years. That happened from 1995 to 1997, in the dying days of the Thatcher-Major Tory Government.

From 1997, things changed dramatically and for the 13 years under a Labour Government the council’s funding increased year on year. There were modest increases in the early years but more significant increases followed—in one year reaching almost 10%. Those were years when local authorities thrived. I recall one year when I was the youth champion for the authority and was able to argue for and obtain an additional £150,000 for youth services in the following year. There are many other examples when funding was available to support local services.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

Local councils provide vital services to our constituents, whether on fly-tipping, homelessness, adult social care or children’s services. Any funding cut is a direct attack on our constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Gerald Jones]

I certainly agree, because cuts dilute local authorities’ ability to act on behalf of the people they represent.

Local authorities have been at the forefront of strategic partnership working in relation to developing and prioritising projects to secure and utilise European funding and co-ordinating the securing of match funding so that residents get maximum benefit for the investment. That, sadly, will be hugely diminished as we leave the European Union. Despite a promise from the Government they have yet to confirm the mechanics of how the shared prosperity fund will work, which leaves communities to wonder whether the commitment from Conservatives on the leave side who promised that our country would be no worse off was no more than a sop to gain support.

Financial support for local councils started to change in 2010. Since then our local councils and public services have been starved of investment. In Wales, local government is devolved to the Welsh Government and the block grant for the Welsh Government is now some £4 billion less than it was in 2010. In the early years of austerity, the Welsh Government protected councils in Wales from the harsh policies of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. I remember speaking to local government colleagues in England at the time and hearing the horror stories about how council services were starved of investment. As the years have passed and austerity has continued to bite hard, the ability of Welsh Government to protect local councils has been diminished. Although in Wales the responsibility for local councils lies with the Welsh Government, I am in absolutely no doubt that the cause of the pain being felt by councils and public services in Wales lies with the harsh austerity policies of this Tory Government.

In the most recent budget round, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and Caerphilly County Borough Council, which cover my constituency, were again forced to cut millions of pounds from their annual budget and they have also been forced, along with many authorities across the UK, to increase the council tax by more than 5%, which has been the maximum upper limit in recent years. Some councils are even starting to use reserves to plug the revenue gap, which is a dangerous precedent. Reserves are often earmarked for specific commitments while the much lower free reserves are there for emergencies and one-off expenditure. As we know, once they are used to plug the gap in revenue funding, greater problems are created for future years.

We have heard in recent debates in the House that cuts to policing have had a big impact in many communities where crime and antisocial behaviour have increased. However, that is exacerbated by the fact that, owing to cuts to council services, there are fewer youth workers, education welfare officers and social workers, and generally less funding for work with the police and partners to manage antisocial behaviour and reduce crime. Local councils play a huge part in crime reduction and in reducing low-level nuisance and antisocial behaviour. We should not underestimate the importance of their role.

In conclusion, in the early years of austerity some local councils and public bodies were able to find efficiencies to make their budgets stretch. People were expected to do more with less money and fewer people, which put remaining staff under increasing pressure. However, after nine years of painful austerity there are no more efficiencies to find. The low-hanging fruit has all been picked long ago. As I said in questions on the spring statement a few weeks ago, all that is left to cut is jobs and frontline services.

I make a plea to the Minister today to recognise the pain that austerity has caused and the fact that local councils are not able to withstand any more cuts. The Government need to show compassion. The services that we are discussing are those closest to the people. We know from press reports that Tory-led councils are also experiencing financial pressures. People are feeling the pain across the country, so please will the Minister give us some hope that austerity really has ended?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

We are all aware of the fact that post-industrial towns and cities in the north of England such as Bolton have been hit hardest by the deep cuts to local government spending. The idea that the Government sometimes project—that austerity hits everyone equally—is nonsense. The cuts are nothing less than politically motivated. The heaviest have been in the most deprived regions that are often thought of as economically left behind. That is compounded by the fact that those areas have the highest levels of poverty and a lower capacity to mitigate cuts through local taxation or asset sales.

My local council, Bolton, has lost about £l billion in spending power since austerity began in 2010. That has impacted on social care, with adult and child services taking the biggest hit, despite being the areas with the highest demand. As many hon. Members have said, we have an ageing population and therefore the impact on the social care budget is getting bigger. More and more children are being taken into care, meaning that the amount of money required is increasing.

Colleagues have mentioned the pressures on local authorities. For example, over the past three years, Bolton Council’s adult services department had to find more than £10 million of savings, including £8.8 million from children’s services. My local authority had to raise council tax, specifically to pay for social care. That led to its critics saying, “Oh, the council is raising taxes”, but nobody spoke about the fact that it had no choice. With funding cuts of 50%, what was it to do other than raise local taxation to fill that gap? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that between 2010 and 2020 local government will have had its direct funding cut by 79%. Let that sink in: 79%!

[Faisal Rashid]

While the Prime Minister was announcing the end of austerity last October, more than 5,000 councillors signed the “Breaking Point” petition to call on the Government to cancel their planned cuts for the new year and immediately to invest £2 billion in children and adult services. Does—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief. That was a mini-speech, and the hon. Gentleman has been here for only half the debate. I want to give the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) time to continue with her speech. I am sure she has the gist of what he had to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that pertinent point, which goes to the heart of the issue of local government—structural decay over decades. Once, we had great, autonomous and highly vigorous municipal authorities. Look at Glasgow, which used to run its own gas and electricity provision, tramways, railway system and subway system. The Glasgow Corporation was a huge enterprise, and it has been slowly but surely torn apart over the past 50 years by creeping centralisation. That has happened at a regional level, and it is now happening with the dismantling of Scottish regional councils and regional authorities and their centralisation into Holyrood.

An inadvertent and regrettable effect of devolution over the past 20 years has, in essence, been to displace the municipal power of Glasgow and the west of Scotland, and to suck it into the east and into Edinburgh. We should guard against that in the constitutional reform of city regions across the United Kingdom. We need to consider what effect such devolution might have on the margins and the periphery of that power base. I would like that to be corrected in Scotland as we look forward to the next two decades of devolution.

[Faisal Rashid]

I will be brief this time, Mrs Main. Because of funding cuts, councils across the country are being forced to sell their assets in order to fund the revenue budget. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not the way to fund services?

Local Government Funding

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on securing this important debate. Local government services are integral to building the vibrant, inclusive communities that our constituents deserve. They are also vital for safeguarding the most vulnerable in our communities and ensuring that no one is left behind. It is for precisely those reasons that I am sure many Members will share my frustration at seeing their communities’ potential sapped by wave after wave of Tory austerity. As a former councillor in my constituency, I know only too well the scandal of local government underfunding. Warrington Borough Council has faced budget cuts of £122 million since 2010, and by 2020 it will have to save at least another £38 million.

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

In Scotland the situation is exactly the same with Tory austerity cuts, and the Scottish National party simply follows the Tory line in Scotland. I hear exactly the same stories all over Britain. It is time to give the councils money and get poverty off the streets.

[Faisal Rashid]

I agree totally with my hon. Friend.

Warrington is one of the lowest funded of the 91 unitary and metropolitan authorities outside London, and it is the second lowest funded in the north-west. Cuts have been imposed on the local authority while pressure on services is growing. People are living longer and the borough’s population continues to rise. I commend Labour councillors from my constituency who, despite having to make difficult decisions in such challenging circumstances, have always tried to put fairness and the need to protect vulnerable people ahead of politics. Sadly, that is not enough to stem the tide of disastrous Tory cuts. Critical services such as adult social care and children’s services are coming under severe strain. Preventive measures that seek to reduce the long-term overall cost to the council have to be cut. The Government must surely recognise that that is not the way to provide services to an ageing population with increasingly long-term needs.

The Government have also tried to offload blame for their cuts on to local councils by shifting the burden on to the taxpayer. My constituents face council tax rises of 6% to mitigate the impact of the cuts. However, in order for services to run effectively, the council would still require an additional £30 million because of cuts in central Government funding. Warrington taxpayers are paying more and getting less because of the Government’s austerity agenda. In October last year the Prime Minister declared that austerity was over, but I cannot see that it is over. How does the Minister justify that statement to my constituents, who face yet another round of spending cuts and tax increases in the new year?

While the Prime Minister was announcing the end of austerity last October, more than 5,000 councillors signed the Breaking Point petition, calling on the Government to cancel their planned cuts for the new year and immediately invest £2 billion in children’s services and £2 billion in adult social care to stop those vital services collapsing. The Government must heed the advice of local representatives from all over the country by investing properly in our communities.

At the general election, Labour pledged £8 billion extra to fund social care, alongside an additional £500 million a year for Sure Start and early intervention services. If the Government are serious about ending austerity, that is the kind of investment that local government requires to rejuvenate our communities after eight years of crippling austerity.

Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of this important Bill, and I commend the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) for his hard work in championing it and enabling it to reach this stage. I also congratulate all the Members who have worked on it with him.

The Bill will, I hope, lead to long overdue change in the car parking industry. It is alarming to hear from Citizens Advice that parking companies are issuing 13 times more tickets than were issued a decade ago. This is a business model that is designed to exploit motorists rather than fulfilling its purpose. It is a case of several cowboy parking companies treating motorists in the most unfair terms, and it cannot be allowed to continue. Throughout our debates we have heard of a range of problems that motorists have faced, from poor signage and broken machines to appeal systems that lack transparency and fail to apply any common sense. Today we have the opportunity to ensure fairness for British motorists.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I support the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that some of these car parks are set up to trap motorists and lure them in? Their real aim is to get motorists not to pay the parking fee, but to pay the fine.

[Faisal Rashid]

I totally agree. It can be difficult for the general public to understand these machines; they are set up to be confusing and then people get trapped. We are passing a Bill that will oblige the Government to introduce a new statutory code of practice to spell out what behaviours can be reasonably expected from private car parking operators.

As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, who is in charge of this Bill, highlighted on Second Reading, there are almost 19 million journeys a day that end at a parking space. This is truly a Bill that will affect almost every person in this country in some way; it is an issue that hugely affects my constituents in Warrington South, as it affects the constituents of many other Members here. I have been contacted by a number of people who have told me of issues they have faced with parking companies. In most of these cases, my constituents are being penalised for breaking an obscure term of the car park, or they are being falsely accused of not purchasing a parking ticket.

One constituent told me that she had purchased a ticket but made a genuine mistake and failed to enter her vehicle registration number correctly. As a result, my constituent was sent a number of letters threatening court action if she did not pay a substantial fine. Despite the innocence of her mistake, the letters scared my constituent into offering up the money.

Such threatening and exploitative behaviour is totally unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue, and this is far from a one-off incident. I have been contacted by several constituents who made similar mistakes, often entering a single digit or character of their vehicle registration incorrectly, and have then been faced with fines and threatening letters.That is wholly unacceptable, especially as these mistakes are often made because of parking companies’ deliberately misleading signage and complicated machines.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) on introducing this timely Bill.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about parking companies that almost set motorists up to fail to be able to meet their terms, but it is not just the small operators who do this. It is alleged that NCP—National Car Parks—in the centre of Crawley has been charging motorists for illegal parking when it does not even have planning permission for the CCTV to monitor those cars. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the large companies must also comply with best practice?

[Faisal Rashid]

I totally agree: all operators, whether large, medium-sized or small, should be part of this code of practice.

Some of my constituents are being targeted with letters demanding money and threatening court action. Indeed, some people have contacted me to tell me that the situation has become so bad that motorists are being discouraged from visiting some of the town centres for fear of being targeted by rogue parking companies. This is a deeply sorry state of affairs; it is bad for my constituents and bad for our local economy, especially in the run-up to the festive season. High streets and town centres are already struggling. Rather than coming into town to spend money on the high street, people are choosing to stay at home and shop online.

The regulation of private parking companies that this Bill proposes is long overdue, and I am pleased that it has secured cross-party support. If this Bill is passed today, it will be welcomed not only across this House, but across the country. It is good to see that in a time of much division in this place there are still opportunities for colleagues to put aside their differences and work together to improve the lives of their constituents.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be here to support this vital Bill. I commend the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for her tireless work on this issue, without which we would not be considering the Bill today.

The Bill will make huge leaps in the strengthening of tenants’ rights by ensuring that they have the power to hold their landlords to account if appropriate standards are not being met. That is especially important in the age of generation rent, when the proportion of individuals and families living in the private-rental sector has doubled in the past decade and figures for individuals and families occupying properties in the social-rented sector continue to number in the millions.

Since I became an MP last year, I have been dismayed by the number of constituents who have contacted me with housing issues. Some of my constituents have been left without central heating for up to six months, and others have faced serious fly and rat infestations. By any reasonable account, these situations have made my constituents’ homes inhabitable, yet often they have been powerless to act. I am pleased that these issues are finally getting the attention they deserve, but it is utterly dreadful that it has taken a tragedy as serious as the Grenfell Tower fire to throw into sharp focus the issue of unsafe rented accommodation in this country. Grenfell serves as a harrowing reminder of the difficulties that tenants face in getting their voices heard, and it is right that we act to ensure that a tragedy like that never happens again.

It is simply wrong that in 2018 some 2.5 million to 3 million people are renting homes in which there is a

“serious and immediate risk to a person’s health and safety”,

as defined by the housing health and safety rating system. I am hopeful that with cross-party support the Bill will give a long overdue voice to those individuals and families.

For many years now, the Government have placed the duty of ensuring that a rented property is fit for habitation on local councils, while simultaneously slashing their budgets by unprecedented amounts and thereby preventing them from taking any meaningful action to fulfil their responsibilities in this policy area—and many others. This is simply not good enough on an issue as pivotal as the habitation of homes. I am hopeful that if the Bill is given its Third Reading today, tenants will be empowered, burdens will be lifted from over-stretched local authorities and the small number of rogue landlords who refuse to resolve issues that make their homes unfit for habitation will be forced to clean up their act.

Street Homelessness

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Mc Nally]

I absolutely agree. I will come on later to describe some things I have already managed to do this year. I will first make other Members aware of what the Scottish Government are doing in relation to our own homelessness problems, and I will end my speech by taking the opportunity to mention two initiatives I recently had the honour of being asked to visit, to witness the innovative work being undertaken there to reduce homelessness in a very practical manner.

In Scotland, the SNP Government are taking action to end rough sleeping for good. Scotland has some of the strongest rights for homeless people in the world. A major change was made in the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003: from 31 January December 2012, the priority needs criteria were abolished. This was described by Shelter as providing

“the best homelessness law in Europe”.

That is praise indeed. It was also described as very ambitious, and required 10 years of preparation between receiving Royal Assent in 2003 and coming into force at the end of 2012.

Everyone found to be homeless in Scotland is entitled to housing. Most people are provided with settled, permanent accommodation. Last winter—I hope it is now finished—the Scottish Government increased the capacity and capability of homelessness services in three Scottish cities, to meet the challenge of the harsh winter. As part of that strategy, the SNP Scottish Government set up the homelessness and rough sleeping action group to bring forward recommendations on how to eradicate rough sleeping, and also announced £150,000 of funding to extend some projects that had already been assisted in the winter.

Another great example of the Scottish Government’s commitment is the creation of the ending homelessness together fund of £50 million over five years from this year. Importantly, this focus on prevention has already contributed toward a significant fall in homelessness applications—a 38% reduction when compared with the number of applications between April and September 2007 and April and September 2017.

New recommendations to ensure the eradication of rough sleeping have been set out by the Scottish Government’s homelessness and rough sleeping action group. Some of the measures include a national system of rehousing, involving integrated support from frontline outreach services and, importantly, our own local authorities. For example, that includes moving to a Housing First model for those with the most complex needs, whereby people move straight into a permanent, settled home, rather than temporary accommodation. The Scottish Government invested £320,000 to support additional capacity for night shelters and extra staff, to help more people into accommodation over the winter. More money—some £150,000—will be committed this summer to continue some services going forward.

Jon Sparkes, chair of the homelessness and rough sleeping action group and chief executive officer of Crisis, said he was very pleased that the Scottish Government have

“given in principle support to all of the recommendations on ending rough sleeping from the Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Action Group”.

That group has to be praised for the manner in which it has dedicated itself to bringing the right recommendations that will have the biggest impact on the way people sleeping rough can access and receive services. The new recommendations have also been welcomed by Annette Finnan and John Mills of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, who said:

“ALACHO members will welcome these new recommendations, they reflect much of the good work that is already going on in local councils across Scotland.”

That is praise indeed, and it is a good example of how Government and partners can work together.

As has been mentioned by many MPs when discussing Tory policy, welfare cuts are causing major hardship and housing insecurity for far too many people.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

Between 2010 and 2015, funding to homeless services was cut by 45%. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that could be one of the main reasons for street homelessness?

[John Mc Nally]

I absolutely and totally agree. That figure is in your face and unavoidable. The impact those cuts are having on our streets is unavoidable; how could anybody not see it?

The Westminster Government must scrap the punitive cuts that have pushed people into destitution. Other charities and organisations are left firefighting these decisions. I will mention some action that has been taken by way of education into employment—life-changing measures for the vulnerably housed and homeless.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the hair industry, I was honoured and privileged to attend a wonderful example of a community working together, in Exeter in Devon. Hair@theAcademy provides professional barbering courses for the homeless and vulnerably housed. A truly remarkable project, the academy has successfully piloted a level 2 certificate in barbering qualifications for six homeless adults. Those adults, who have issues, are all moving into full-time or part-time employment or self-employment. Before starting, all participants must complete a two-week citizenship course with Learn Devon, to ensure that they are clean and ready to begin learning.

The barbering course has the built-in flexibility to run over six months, recognising that there will be difficulties and issues. I would call it a magna vitae. It shows great, creative thinking from Learn Devon and from Mary Pugsley from Hair@theAcademy, who put the project together. What a great vision she has to help others who are more needy. The course is delivered with one-to-one tutoring, and as the learners become more confident, they are encouraged to become more independent in their learning journey. The courage of the businesses that support the course needs to be recognised. They have allowed these people to enter into life and have changed their lives and their way of living and their own communities are all the better for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn]

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) is absolutely right, and I could not support him more. I congratulate Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, on the action that he has taken to ensure that homelessness is at the top of his agenda and to tackle this issue for his city, including by putting some of his own funds into the task group. The rise in homelessness in Manchester and other areas has not simply happened by chance; it is a result of Government choices.

[Faisal Rashid]

The figures show that almost 5,000 individuals are now sleeping rough on our streets. That is a 15% increase on 2017 and a 169% increase since 2010—a massive increase. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot help the homeless if we do not provide the homes that they require?

[Melanie Onn]

Absolutely, and I will come on to that issue shortly. This problem is not insurmountable. When Labour was in government, there was an unprecedented drop in homelessness, but since 2010 it has worsened by every measure. As the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) made clear, the doubling of rough sleepers since 2010 is a problem of the Government’s own making. Home ownership is at a 30-year low. The average home costs eight times the average salary. Today in England there are 120,000 homeless children. The building of social rent homes has plummeted, with fewer than 1,000 last year—the lowest level on record.

The Minister, who has responsibility for homelessness, recently said that she did not know why homelessness had risen. I find it very hard to believe that anyone in this place cannot immediately see some of the main reasons for homelessness increasing. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly recognised some of them: a lack of social and council homes; disproportionately high rental increases making homes unaffordable for those on lower incomes; reductions in council funding meaning less for drug and alcohol services; crippling welfare reforms that have cut too fast and too far for those who were genuinely just about managing; and difficulty in accessing mental health services as the thresholds for those services get ever higher.

I shall take the opportunity to highlight some of the innovative work that NAViGO mental health services is undertaking in my constituency. It has worked closely with the local housing association to purchase properties and then uses them as step-down accommodation to support the service users who come to it for help, to ensure that they have wraparound care. That is the principle of Housing First in action in measures being taken by innovative organisations around the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) on securing a debate on this extremely important issue. Tackling homelessness in all its forms is a priority not only me for me, but for this Government. I understand his interest in this subject. As he mentioned, he has seen what it is like to sleep rough.

I am also thankful for the other experiences and expertise shared here today, whether it comes from a constituency or wider perspective. I am grateful to hon. Members for their speeches and questions and will, I hope, answer them as I work through my speech.

It should never be the case that someone finds themselves without a roof over their head. That is why, as hon. Members will be aware, the Government have committed to halving rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament and to eliminating it altogether by 2027.

[Faisal Rashid]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Wheeler]

No, I will not. There is not enough time, because I have to give time to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham at the end.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham for his kind comments about the ambitions of this Government. Hon. Members will be aware that at the beginning of this month we implemented the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act, which transforms the culture of homelessness service delivery. For the first time, local authorities, public services and the third sector will work together to actively prevent homelessness for any people at risk, irrespective of whether they are a family or a single person, of what has put them at risk or of whether they have a local connection to the area. To deliver the new duties under the Act, we know how important it is to provide local authorities with the requisite support to build the homelessness workforce. To help this, we have funded the London Training Academy, which will provide current frontline staff and apprentices. I am exceptionally proud of the work that has gone into delivering these changes and the work the Department has done. As ever, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for all his endeavours in bringing this Act to pass.

On rough sleeping, hon. Members will be aware that we are publishing our strategy in July, setting out the measures that we will take in order to achieve our manifesto commitments. Overseeing the development and delivery of the strategy will be the ministerial taskforce, chaired by the First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), and comprises Ministers from key Departments with responsibilities in relation to homelessness and rough sleeping. It is supported by the rough sleeping advisory panel, which I chair, with Mayors Andy Burnham and Andy Street sitting on it. The panel brings together key figures from local government, central Government and homelessness charities. We have met three times so far. Sub-groups of the panel have also been established to look at a range of themes, such as prevention, intervention, recovery, data and long-term social change for the strategy. Good progress has been made on the development of the strategy and I look forward to sharing our plans with hon. Members this summer.

We are, however, determined to take action to tackle rough sleeping right now. I am sure hon. Members will have seen the recent announcement on what we have called the “rough sleeping initiative”, which lays the foundations for the strategy. The measures contained in the initiative are based on tried and tested measures, which have previously had significant and immediate impact on bringing down rough sleeping. The measures include setting up a rough sleeping team, made up of rough sleeping and homelessness experts, drawn from and funded by Government Departments and agencies, with specialist knowledge across a wide range of areas, including housing, mental health and addiction. There is a £30 million fund for 2018-19, with further funding agreed for 2019-20. This funding will be targeted at local authorities with high numbers of people sleeping rough. The rough sleeping team will work with local areas with higher pressure to support them and deliver bespoke local interventions to immediately reduce the number of people sleeping rough on the streets. A further £100,000 will be made available to support the frontline rough sleeping workers across the country, to ensure they have the right skills and knowledge to work with vulnerable rough sleepers.

In addition, the Department is working with the National Housing Federation to look at providing additional co-ordinated move-on accommodation for rough sleepers across the nation, to ensure that they can stand on their own two feet once they have received help. As well as the support provided by other Government Departments in developing the strategy, this new package of measures will be supported by a range of Departments across Whitehall. For example—this will answer many colleagues’ questions—the Department of Health and Social Care will make available experts in mental health and drug treatment services to help support the new outreach teams, including those in hostels, and the Ministry of Justice will focus on prison and probation work with local authorities and outreach teams, in particular to identify short sentence prisoners and offenders serving community sentences who are at risk of sleeping rough. These measures build on existing action we have already taken to tackle rough sleeping. For example, as announced in the 2017 Budget, we are piloting the Housing First approach to support some of the most entrenched rough sleepers in our society. I have personally seen the good that Housing First can do, especially for those struggling with addiction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham mentioned. I saw that when I visited the Housing First projects in Glasgow last month. The Government are keen to see the results of how it will work in England and robust evaluations will inform wider roll-out, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) asked about.

Charities and volunteers carry out vital work across the country. Their work is key to ensuring that rough sleepers get the help that they need and they help us in meeting our manifesto commitment, particularly charities such as St Mungo’s and Homeless Link.

I understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham that people sleeping rough might be migrants. To be clear, we have always worked closely with councils and homelessness outreach services to ensure that the genuinely vulnerable receive the care they need. The Government also provide funding for local authorities for specific projects to tackle rough sleeping by non-UK nationals. This fund helps projects to secure regular employment and accommodation for non-UK nationals, or facilitate voluntary return to their country of origin.

The Government have allocated more than £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period. This includes––this is by no means exhaustive––£617 million in flexible housing support grants, £316 million of local authority prevention funding and £100 million to deliver low-cost move-on accommodation places to enable people leaving hostels and refugees to make a sustainable recovery from the homelessness crisis. There is a further £215 million for a central Government programme, which funds a range of innovative projects across the country and a £20 million fund for schemes that will enable better access in the private rented sector for those who are, or are at risk of, becoming homeless, which the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) asked about.