Social Housing Standards

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Again, this is a subject that we have discussed outside the House in the past. The existence of damp and mould is a persistent and avoidable issue. It is in no way due to the lifestyle of tenants. As the housing ombudsman’s report makes crystal clear, there should not be any sense of fatalism on the part of registered social landlords or others in dealing with the issue. It is avoidable, it can be dealt with, and it is urgent that we do so.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

According to the English housing survey, 839,000 homes across the country have damp problems, including 409,000 private rented properties and 198,000 social housing properties. However, across the House, we all know that the figures are far higher. For every constituent who contacts me in Vauxhall or any other Member of the House, there are so many other constituents suffering in silence, not knowing who to turn to, living in poor conditions that are affecting their health. I welcome the Secretary of State saying that resources will be available, but the sad truth is that cuts over the last 12 years to our local councils have borne human consequences. This boy’s sad death should not have happened. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the Government have an urgent duty to do better so that more tragedies such as this do not happen?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who on the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and elsewhere has been a clear and consistent voice calling for the better treatment of tenants in a variety of different tenures. The cases that she has brought to my attention and others’ make a compelling case for change. She is right that we in government must ensure that we provide an appropriate level of resource. I do believe that ensuring that more people are aware of how to contact the ombudsman and ensuring that the regulator has additional teeth will contribute to change. But, of course, all of us need to ensure that we keep the situation under review. Her question gives me the opportunity again to praise the work of Dan Hewitt of ITN and, of course, Kwajo Tweneboa, the housing campaigner, who have worked with her to highlight the problems that we both want to see resolved.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, which was, of course, first introduced in the other place, is one of a number of steps that the Government have taken in the aftermath of the dreadful tragedy that occurred at Grenfell in 2017. Everyone in the House was shocked by what happened on that night, when 72 people lost their lives in one of the most horrific civilian tragedies that has ever occurred in these islands. The suffering of the victims of that tragedy is almost impossible to relate, and the testimony, forbearance and endurance of the survivors and the bereaved, of relatives and residents, is very much in all our minds as we consider how we can appropriately learn lessons from the tragedy, put right what went wrong and ensure at last that those who suffered receive justice.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State back to his position. I say that because I think he did make some progress on the cladding issue when he was Secretary of State previously. He will be aware that there are still no personal evacuation plans for disabled people, although the former-former Prime Minister confirmed that the Government would take up all the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry. Will the Secretary of State please look at that?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who, as well as doing fantastic work on the Select Committee in trying to ensure that appropriate progress has been made on matters such as building safety, has been a very effective advocate for her constituents in this regard. Let me emphasise that in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy the Government have to undertake a significant body of work, and the hon. Lady is right to hold us to account for the speed with which we do it. There is work that needs to be done on building safety overall. We have introduced legislation—the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022—in order to take forward some of the recommendations that were already being generated by the inquiry, and indeed in some cases we did not have to wait for those recommendations to know that we needed to act.

The hon. Lady mentioned a very important factor: the personal evacuation plans. Again, this is a difficult and sensitive question. A number of those affected by the Grenfell tragedy were individuals living with disabilities. It is critical to ensure that the correct regime is in place for those individuals so that they are safe in the homes in which they live—and they deserve to be safe—and also to ensure that were disaster to strike, the fire and rescue services would be able to ensure they could be evacuated safely.

I have heard some of the concerns expressed by residents and others about the Home Office’s response to recommendations on personal evacuation plans. I think it important for me to work with the new Home Office Minister dealing with this issue—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines)—in order to ensure that we listen to what residents have said and, I hope, do better. Listening to what residents have said is critical to our whole approach to what happened in Grenfell, and to broader concerns about the quality of social housing and the safety of those in social housing that that tragedy underlined our need to act on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

The issue that we are discussing is quite personal for me. I think back to when we lived in temporary accommodation. We were placed, from Brixton, in a B&B in King’s Cross. My late mother was one of those women who made sure that you never missed school. We always had to take the tube from King’s Cross to Brixton to go to school. When we were finally rehoused—my mum, my two sisters and me—it felt like the fairy tale, with the security of our own home, somewhere that was safe, somewhere that was warm, somewhere where we could push the key into the lock and know that this was our home, which was vital for the stability that we had growing up.

It saddens me that many of the constituents I now represent in Vauxhall do not have that. It saddens me that, as the MP for Vauxhall, the majority of my casework relates to housing. It saddens me that, many years after I grew up on a council estate in Brixton, the conditions and state of some of the properties in which my constituents live has not improved. It saddens me, because I know that as a country we should and can be doing better for those tenants living in social housing. It saddens me that there is still such a big stigma for people who live in council housing. When I visit them, I see them taking so much pride in their home: they are people who decorate their home, and they lay out their pictures so I can see their children and families. They are people who have so much pride in their home, but the way in which they are discussed by some councils and housing associations shows that they are treated with disregard. They are treated as the lowest form of people because they live in social housing. That should not be happening, and the tone in which we debate and talk about social housing tenants really matters.

A number of people living in social housing continue to pay their rent and service charges on time. A number of those people are always in credit, as my late mother was, yet when they contact their landlord or housing association they are sometimes met with a barrage of abuse. They are told, “Why are you complaining?”, and meet a barrage of annoyance. We need to change that, and one way in which we can do so is by introducing regulation. The Bill is long overdue, and it contains really good measures, which I welcome, but the reality is that this long-awaited regulation will not happen if we do not have the right funding.

Another area that we need to look at is safety across the social housing sector. Tenants living in social housing raise these issues time and time again, but they are often dismissed until there is a fatality—we know that that has happened in some cases. We have seen what happened when residents living in Grenfell Tower complained about fire safety. I have consistently raised issues relating to fire and the evacuation of disabled people. My inbox is filled with messages from so many people in my constituency who to this day have unsafe cladding and fire defects in their property. Imagine the mental toll it takes on someone’s mindset when they go to sleep every night with their young child or elderly family member that they care for, knowing that there are safety defects in their property.

There is also the mental stress that people are facing. A number of my constituents are unable to remortgage. Every time the Bank of England base rate goes up, their mortgages go up. They are stuck, prisoners in their own homes that they have saved for and worked two or three jobs in some cases to buy. They dreamed of owning their own home, only to see it all shattered, because that dream has now turned into a nightmare, whether it is leasehold legislation, service charges or bills for unsafe cladding—all things that it is within our power to tackle.

Coming back to the key issue of the state of some of our social housing, it is important to say that over the past 12 years, sadly, we have not seen that investment going into social housing. The repairs and maintenance contracts have been divvied up by different landlords. With some of those repairs and maintenance contracts, they even have the audacity to charge my local council, Lambeth, and not actually carry out the work. We hear stories of tenants waiting two or three hours on the phone trying to get people to come out and do repairs. We hear stories of tenants missing a day’s work, only for the people not to turn up to carry out those repairs. When tenants complain, they are met with the same disdain. This cannot go on.

I hope that we can move forward on this and make sure that we recognise that tenants living in social housing deserve the best standards of living, deserve to be listened to, deserve to be able to challenge their housing associations and landlords, and deserve the compensation that, in some cases, they should have received long ago, if we look at the state of their housing.

My only question to the Minister in discussing this matter is this: can she commit to allocate those urgent resources to the regulator to allow it to perform effectively its inspections and any other new duties that arise from the Bill? If not, I know that many tenants I represent will continue to write to me, because all of this discussion will be in vain. Many tenants will be watching this debate today, hoping that the Minister will give them that reassurance, and I hope that we do not have to come back here in a year’s time to discuss and debate the same thing.

Private Rented Sector White Paper

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

“Being a new and first time mum is hard and challenging without having your foundations stripped from you, evicted with no warning, in the middle of winter, when other rent is hard to secure”.

Those are the words of my constituent Katherine, who gave birth to her baby boy in June. Last December, Katherine signed a two-year contract with her landlord, informing them that she wanted a longer contract to give herself stability during her pregnancy. Unfortunately, she received an email in October saying that the owner had noticed that market prices had increased a lot recently and would like to adjust the rent. After she explained the situation to the letting agent and landlord, however, she was told that the landlord was now moving back into the property—surprise, surprise—and there was no room for negotiation. That has left her and her young family without the security of a home and facing eviction just weeks before her child’s first Christmas.

Sadly, having listened to other examples this afternoon, I know that Katherine is not alone in Vauxhall or across the country in facing the sharp end of our imbalanced rental market. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) outlined the similar situation of a young woman in her 30s who is hoping to start a family. Katherine has started her family, but now faces that difficulty in the rented sector.

It cannot be right that tenants are expected to find thousands of pounds in moving costs in the space of just two months after a landlord serves a section 21 notice. It cannot be right that tenants, who are paying ever-increasing rents, are denied the most basic security of knowing whether they will have a roof over their head in a matter of weeks. It cannot be right that, during the sharpest cost of living crisis in decades, tenants are expected to bid extortionate amounts against each other to secure even the most basic of properties, as happened recently to a constituent in Clapham.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) mentioned that rents in his constituency total about £600; in my constituency, the average rent for a one-bedroom flat starts at £2,000. A tenant recently contacted me to say that they had contacted an online letting agent to go and view a property, only to be informed that 35 people were already in the queue waiting to view and that they should expect to bid for the property.

The Government announced an end to section 21 notices in April 2019. Since then, we have had four Prime Ministers and six housing Ministers, but not a single act to end section 21 notices. During his short period out of the role, the recently revived Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities reportedly urged the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—stay with me now—to stick to a commitment to ban section 21. I will be honest that I am glad to see him back in that role, because I think that he was making some headway in key areas on housing, including cladding. Now, however, I hope that he will put his money where his mouth is and bring forward a date for a renters reform Bill today.

Rents in London have risen by an average of 15%, and across the country by an average of 11.8%. That is not sustainable for our constituents. Sadly, any reforms will come too late for my constituent Katherine in her current property. As the Government delay and dither, more people will be left in a desperate situation as a result of section 21 notices. It is within our grasp to fix this issue. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for raising the issue, but I hope that they will push their Ministers to make sure that we see reform come through now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for it.

I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck), and the hon. Members for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for their excellent contributions and powerful case studies. Collectively, they highlighted both the particular challenges facing private renters and how these challenges vary across the country, and that, irrespective of geography, there is a need to overhaul the private rented sector and to better regulate both short-term holiday lets and excessive rates of second home ownership as a matter of urgency.

I put on record our thanks to all the organisations that have made the case for rental reform over so many years, including Generation Rent, Crisis, Citizens Advice, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Shelter, Z2K, the New Economics Foundation, the Law Centres Network and various renters unions, as well as all the private renters who bravely shared their experiences publicly and the journalists who provided them with space to tell their stories. Their collective efforts have been integral to ensuring this issue is kept firmly at the top of the political agenda.

Labour strongly supports fundamental reform of the private rented sector, and we have called for it for many years. Regardless of whether they are a homeowner, a leaseholder or a tenant, everyone has the basic right to a decent, safe, secure and affordable home. Yet as this afternoon’s debate has reminded the House, millions of people renting privately live day in, day out with the knowledge that they could be uprooted with little notice and minimal, if any, justification.

On an individual level, the lack of certainty and security that is now inherent to renting privately results not only in ever-present anxiety about the prospect of losing one’s home but, for those at the lower end of the private rental market who have little or no purchasing power and who are increasingly concentrated geographically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North said—there is an equalities dimension to this, too—a willingness to put up with often appalling conditions for fear that a complaint will lead to instant retaliatory eviction. That is why some of the worst housing standards are to be found in the private rented sector and why, despite the existence of many good landlords and a steady, if glacial, improvement in conditions overall, one in five private rented homes still does not meet the decent homes standard and one in 10 has a category 1 hazard posing a risk of serious harm.

For tenants forced to live in such substandard properties, whether they wake up every day to mould, vermin or dangerous hazards, what should be a place of refuge and comfort is instead a source of daily unease and, in many cases, torment and misery, which takes a huge toll on their physical and mental health.

Far too many tenants are evicted each year from a private tenancy without due cause, which is why so-called no-fault section 21 notices are a leading cause of homelessness in England. This broken system can no longer be tolerated, not least because the numbers affected have risen markedly over recent decades, as the hon. Member for Harrow East said.

This House last legislated to fundamentally alter the relationship between landlords and tenants in 1988, when I was just six years old—I suspect you were not that much older, Mr Deputy Speaker. The private rented sector has changed beyond recognition in the more than three decades since. Some 11 million people now rent from a private landlord. As well as the young and mobile, the sector now houses many older people and families with children, for whom greater security and certainty is essential for a flourishing life.

To ensure private renters get a fair deal, we need to transform how the sector is regulated and finally level the playing field between landlords and tenants. That is why, with important caveats, Labour welcomed the proposals in the White Paper when it was published in the summer. We unequivocally support the proposed ban on section 21 evictions. There is no justification for such notices, and they should have been scrapped long ago. We support the introduction of minimum standards in the private rented sector through the extension of the decent homes standards, although we have real concerns about how it might be enforced in practice given that it is not an enforceable standard in the social rented sector, where it already exists.

We recognise that landlords will need recourse to robust and effective grounds for possession in circumstances where there are good reasons for taking a property back, for example, because of antisocial or criminal behaviour. However, we want assurances that such grounds cannot be abused unfairly to evict tenants and that they will be tight enough to minimise fraudulent use of the kind we have seen in Scotland.

We welcome the proposed limit of rent increases to once per year, but we take issue with the inadequacy of the proposed measures in their ability to address unreasonable within-tenancy rent hikes of the kind that are likely to increase markedly once section 21 is scrapped and with the absence of any measures to tackle illegal evictions, a point that has been raised by my colleagues.

Labour would go further in several important respects, introducing a more comprehensive new renters’ charter, but we do want to see all 12 of the proposals set out in the White Paper translated into primary legislation as a matter of the utmost urgency. I cannot emphasise enough the need for that urgency, a point we have pressed time and again with successive Ministers, to no avail. There is a desperate need for the Government to act quickly, because the problems inherent in a sector that for far too many renters has always been characterised by insecurity, high rents and poor conditions, have become acute in recent months, as those renting privately struggle to cope with the impact of high inflation and rising prices.

As hon. Members will know, and as we have heard this afternoon, in many parts of the country rents in the private rented sector are surging and the costs involved with moving are soaring. With the Government having decided, once again, to shamefully freeze local housing allowance, millions of hard-pressed tenants are now being stretched to breaking point, with the risk of mass arrears and evictions that entails. What is so frustrating for Labour Members, and for those outside campaigning for renters’ reform and for private tenants themselves, is that instead of introducing legislation that we could have fast-tracked through this House to address this looming winter crisis, all we have, despite years of promises from successive Conservative Administrations that they would enact renters’ reform, is the White Paper and a vague promise, one that I had from the Minister’s predecessor just last week, to introduce a Bill at some point during the more than two years that remain of this Parliament.

[Florence Eshalomi]

On urgency, figures from the Local Government Association show that the ending of a private rented tenancy is the most common reason for homelessness, with this being responsible for 37% of homelessness between January and March this year alone —in those three months. Does my hon. Friend see that this urgent crisis needs solving now?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that, and I will come on to say why I think the situation is particularly urgent and what has happened in terms of the delay that has been caused. It is not good enough that the Government have taken so long to make progress on this issue. It is not as though they have not had ample time to legislate, even accounting for the impact of the pandemic. It is now well over three years since the Conservative Administration of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) promised to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions. In that time, not only have hundreds of thousands of tenants been evicted through a section 21, but more than 45,000 households have been threatened with homelessness as a result of being served such notices. As my hon. Friend just mentioned, the figures released so far this year suggest that possession claims resulting from them are increasing markedly as the cost of living crisis intensifies.

Faced with a phenomenally difficult winter, private renters cannot wait until 2024 for the Government to act. I say to the new Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), whom I welcome to her place, that every extra month the Government delay bringing forward the renters’ reform Bill they have promised means thousands more private renters suffering. The Government must act, and they must act now. If they introduced emergency legislation enacting the proposals set out in the White Paper, Labour would support it and work with the Government to ensure it made rapid progress. But it is the Government alone who control the business of this House and only they can ensure the necessary legislation is given the priority it deserves. As I have put to Ministers before and sadly suspect I will have to do so again, it is high time the Government stopped talking a good game about private rented sector reform and finally got on with delivering it, because private renters have waited long enough for the protections that they deserve and that they rightly expect.

Homes for Ukraine: Child Refugees

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) for securing this timely debate on this important issue.

None of us in this House could have failed to be horrified by the destruction caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ruins in Mariupol and Kharkiv that we see on our television screens, on Twitter and on social media were not just buildings. They were schools, hospitals, supermarkets and churches, like the places we all visit and can still visit. They were homes that people grew up in. They were vibrant communities of friends and families.

We must treat those who have been forced out of their homes with the respect they deserve. That means making it as easy as possible for refugees to build a new community in this country, and giving people the long-term security and certainty they need to live comfortably. While it is right that we do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good when dealing with such a fast-paced crisis, the Government must and can do more to ensure that refugees get the support they deserve.

One of my constituents, who offered her three-bedroom home to two women from Ukraine, had to wait 12 weeks to be told this Monday that she did not meet the requirements to be a sponsor, despite my local council checking her property and my constituent having an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check via her work in the NHS. It is unacceptable that hosts and refugees are having to wait 12 weeks for a decision.

This is not an isolated case in my inbox, and nor will it be an isolated case raised in the debate today or in debates in the main Chamber. Asylum decisions have halved in the past five years and the Passport Office is in disarray, so it is disappointing to have the Minister from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), here to respond, even though I have the utmost respect for him and know that he cares passionately about the issue. However, it is the Home Office that needs to get a grip on this issue.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn mentioned, more than 500 Ukrainian children are currently waiting to find out from the Home Office if they can travel safely to the UK. The charity Safe Passage has highlighted the case of a 17 year old girl, Valya, who has been helped by the hon. Lord Dubs. She has been travelling alone across different war zones for the past two months, unable to get to the UK and also unable to go back home, because her family are now in hiding, fearful for their lives. That should not be happening. The Minister needs to inform us today of what measures he is going to recommend to his colleagues in the Home Office to speed up the decision-making process for people who are so desperate for certainty.

The Homes for Ukraine scheme is not a permanent solution for refugees in this country. Ukrainian families need a home of their own, and we must plan for what happens following that six-month period. Those six months are going to come to a sharp end for many people, and I pay tribute to my constituents in Vauxhall and constituents right across the country who have opened up their homes and are ready and willing to help, but they have been failed.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at least 17 unaccompanied children go missing in Europe every day, falling into the hands of victimisers who traffic them, exploit them—including sexual exploitation—and use those young children. That cannot continue to happen. We need the Government to step up and match the generosity of people across the UK who are willing to help. The Government need to sort out this mess and create a safe route for young children to come to this country.

Building Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to Members from right across the House for their support as this Bill has passed its various stages. I have spoken on this Bill a number of times, and it is fair to say that it is a very different piece of legislation from what was initially proposed. My constituents in Vauxhall, like others in constituencies around the country, have a basic right to live in a building that is safe, and it is a shame that it has taken nearly five years after the Grenfell tragedy for Ministers to implement this new regime. I welcome the establishment of the building regulator and the other measures in the Bill to protect lives, particularly the overdue safeguards for disabled occupants of high-rise flats; that is an issue that is not referenced enough.

Sadly, this is not just about safety; it is about who should pay for the mistakes that led to these buildings being unsafe in the first place. For too long, that has been left to innocent victims, with leaseholders and social housing providers having to pay while the developers and builders who are responsible have had their profits protected. I pay tribute to the many leaseholder campaigns and groups caught up in this, including many of my constituents in Vauxhall who have worked tirelessly on this issue for many years. Without them, we would not have reached this point.

The simple fact is that this crisis will not end until leaseholders in buildings of all heights are exempt from all fire safety costs, but that is still not the situation. Leaseholders can still have to pay up to £15,000 if funds cannot be recovered from the developer or freeholder, and leaseholders in buildings under 11 metres are entirely excluded. I place on record my support for retaining the two amendments, referenced by many Members, that were passed in the other place and that would solve these problems. Sadly, they have not been accepted by the Government. It is neither right nor fair that some leaseholders should pay while others are protected, and I hope the Minister will address that when he responds.

Lords amendment 155, tabled by my noble Friend Baroness Hayman, would abolish the unfair cap and legally protect leaseholders from all remediation costs. The Government claim that it is unnecessary to protect buildings under 11 metres, but fire does not discriminate. It does not care if a building is 11, 15 or 18 metres. I have heard from constituents in low-rise buildings in Vauxhall whose mortgage lenders still require a fire safety inspection. If that inspection finds problems, guess what? Those leaseholders in low-rise buildings will have to pay.

We must not allow the technical details of this debate to obscure the fundamental moral principle at the heart of it. Either the leaseholders are responsible for this crisis or they are not. The Government have said for many years that they are not, and I agree with that. I hope that Members will vote today for the amendments that will deliver our responsibility to fully protect leaseholders from all of the costs of the problems they did not cause. In the name of fairness and transparency, I urge all Members in this House to do that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Minister, Stuart Andrew.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister highlighted that 200,000 people expressed an interest in the scheme, including many residents of my constituency. Stockwell Says Hello, which is helping to sponsor a Ukrainian family, contacted me recently because it could not find any clear guidance on the Government website. These questions have been asked time and again and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) said, the uncertainty may put off many people who want to show their generosity. On 8 March, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), said that 50 extra caseworkers had been trained to process applications. Does the Minister know how many of those caseworkers are in post and dealing with these applications?

[Eddie Hughes]

We can see this as an evolving process, with the Government continuing to ramp up and increase the resource committed. It would perhaps be unhelpful to provide a running commentary on the number of people working on the process, not least because there will be some ebb and flow given the number of people prepared to work over the weekend versus during the week. We are ensuring that the resource attributed to the effort is equal to the need and we are improving the fluency with which applications are being processed daily so that the maximum number of people who have submitted an expression of interest can house somebody from Ukraine.

Private Rented Sector Housing

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for calling this important debate. The Minister may be aware that yesterday, at the Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, we heard powerful testimonies from two social housing tenants about similar issues in the private rented sector.

My constituency of Vauxhall, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), has one of the highest levels of private renters in the country. The average house price in Vauxhall is around £600,000, as of June 2021. Private renters also pay more than their fair share, often spending more than a quarter—in some cases, a third—of their income on rent.

For that cost, the very least my constituents deserve is to live in housing in good condition. That means that the properties they are renting should meet modern standards of insulation and energy efficiency. It means that structural defects should be fixed and not left to cause serious problems. It means that urgent repairs should be carried out rapidly, to a high standard. It means expecting the same standards and efficiency from a landlord that homeowners deserve and have in their own properties.

Too often we see private rented properties not living up to those standards. Instead, we see tenants living with health-damaging features, such as mould, for months if not years. We see requests to fix faults met with sticking-plaster solutions. Although many of us may associate disrepair and poor energy efficiency with our elderly housing stock, those renting new homes and flats are not immune to finding some of the issues that I have talked about. That was the case for my constituent, Louise. She moved into new student accommodation in Vauxhall, as her family home was overcrowded and she wanted space during her time at university. The student accommodation was in a new tower block and Louise moved in soon after it opened in September last year.

Unfortunately, where Louise should have expected a new quality build, she instead found something only half done, according to her description. She says her experience has included being stuck in lifts that did not work, with firefighters coming out to help her; hot water issues; dirty water coming from taps; and tailgaters coming into the building. She said that amenities such as the laundry room were not opened until October, despite her moving in in early September. In addition, the kitchen doors and curtains were all missing.

Louise is far from alone in that experience. It is worth remembering that this is student accommodation, where many are accessing the private rented sector for the first time, and so many are scared to speak up, but continue to live in those substandard conditions. We need to understand that lack of agency when we talk about standards enforcement and ensure that conditions across the board meet the standards that we all expect. First, where standards are in place, as hon. Members have said, local councils’ ability to regulate them is drastically undermined by the cuts imposed by central Government. That makes proactive action hard and it means that tenants with so little experience of the private rental sector are unfortunately exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Providing fair funding to local authorities would allow the enforcement bodies to clean up the sector and ensure that those without a voice were not left at the mercy of disrepair.

Secondly, the insecurity at the heart of current private tenancy law goes hand-in-hand with the fears of raising issues with properties and demanding rights as a tenant. Next month, as the Minister knows, will be three years since the Government promised to end section 21 evictions, yet we are still to see that in the renters reform Bill. I hope the Minister will listen to our contributions this afternoon. I know he cares passionately about this area. I hope he will commit to bringing that vital piece of legislation forward as soon as possible to provide that reassurance and, most importantly, the protection that my constituents in Vauxhall deserve and renters up and down the country need.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is our expectation that those who commit to have someone in their home for six months are undertaking quite a significant commitment, but it is already the case that the expressions of interest suggest that there are many people who want to do exactly that. The experience of previous sponsorship schemes has been that those who have undertaken such a commitment have found it a wonderful thing to have done, and the number of those who have dropped out or opted out has been small. However, it is the case—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right—that there may be occasions where relationships break down, and in those circumstances we will be mobilising the support of not only of central Government and local government, but of civil society, to ensure that individuals who are here can move on. The final thing I would want to say is that many of those on the frontline coming here will of course be women and children, but many of those coming here will want to work, to contribute and to be fully part of society. It is the case already that we have had offers from those in the private sector willing to provide training and jobs to people so that they can fully integrate into society for as long as they are here.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to go back to the Secretary of State’s point when he highlighted that over 14,000 Afghan refugees are still in hotels, including hotels in my constituency of Vauxhall—accommodation that, frankly, is unsuitable for people suffering long-term trauma and people fleeing war. I was not quite sure what the Secretary of State’s response was, but how is he dealing with that type of long-term, unjustifiable and unsuitable accommodation?

[Michael Gove]

I have enormous sympathy for the hon. Lady. One of the reasons why Lord Harrington has joined my Department and is working with the Home Office is to ensure that we can get people whom we have accepted out of hotel accommodation, which is unsuitable for the long term, and into the community, but that requires us to ensure that those local authorities receiving individuals are supported in the way they are. I would be more than happy to return to the House to outline the steps we are taking to deal with this situation, but it comes back to the essential point that the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), brought out. As we show a warm welcome to people who are fleeing persecution, we need to ensure that that welcome can be truly stable and secure. That means additional accommodation, which means moving beyond hotels and local authorities, and that is why the Homes for Ukraine scheme harnesses the kindness of civil society, but there is more that we must do, and we will update the House in due course.

Building Safety Bill

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I start by paying tribute to the many hundreds of Vauxhall residents who have contacted me in my short two years as Member of Parliament for Vauxhall. They have been contacting me even though they are suffering sheer mental stress, contacting me even though at times they feel that there is no end to this nightmare, contacting me because they have been trapped in homes they are unable to sell and contacting me, frankly, because some of their properties are unsafe. At every stage of my continued efforts on behalf of Vauxhall leaseholders going through that anguish and uncertainty over the last two years, the Bill has been held up by the Government as the solution that would finally bring an end to this crisis. Regrettably, it does not.

The Bill is a step in the right direction in the fight to ensure that nobody has to live in a death trap and a fire trap like Grenfell Tower, and as a legislator I support the measures to keep my constituents safe. I therefore welcome the essential changes that will bring an end to the shambolic safety regime that led to the Grenfell tragedy, and the introduction of a regulator to oversee that. I also welcome the new Secretary of State’s change of approach to the question of leaseholder liability, which has clearly become one of the most clear injustices I have seen in politics. It is clear that the Bill will give leaseholders important new rights to challenge freeholders and developers when negligence has occurred. I am pleased, too, that the Government finally agree that no leaseholder living in a building of under 11 metres will pay for the cost of cladding remediation in the future, for which my Opposition colleagues have been calling for many months.

However, we must not pretend that the Bill achieves what it should have done. Millions of leaseholders who have been in a position of deep uncertainty for years will still be there after today, reliant yet again on warm words from the Government and the good will of profit-making companies that have done their best to evade that at every turn. I understand why so many Vauxhall constituents simply do not trust that promises will be delivered on, which is why it is so disappointing, frankly, that much of what was in the Secretary of State’s statement last week is not included in the Bill.

A lot has been said about the inconsistency of saying that leaseholders should be protected from cladding costs while leaving them on the hook to pay for the extortionate cost of other defects, and I add my full support to Members from across the House who have spoken out against that. There are several ongoing issues that the Bill does nothing to address, such as the extortionate insurance premiums and other secondary costs before remediation is completed. Let us be clear that leaseholders will be meeting those unjust costs for years until decisive action is taken.

Most importantly, both the Bill’s provisions and the Secretary of State’s announcement last week appear to apply only to future contexts. Where does that leave the millions of leaseholders caught up at various points along the way of that lengthy scandal? What does the Bill do to empower leaseholders who had their assessment before the recent changes in Government policy and believe that unnecessary work has been recommended for their building? Where is the help for leaseholders whose flats are unsellable until that remediation work is complete but who have been told that they will have to wait many years? They are trapped. The Government have known about all those issues for far too long and have done nothing while leaseholders have suffered. Today, they had the opportunity to accept amendments that would have fixed them, but yet again they chose to turn a blind eye.

With a heavy heart, I welcome the Bill, because it will make my constituents living in high-rise buildings safer. The Minister, in his opening statement, said that living in a home where you feel safe is a basic human right, but many of my leaseholders in Vauxhall still do not feel that they have that right. I lament another missed opportunity to rescue leaseholders from the scandal.

Building Safety

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is certainly the case that many already enlightened owners have done just that. But one thing we are saying today is that ultimately we will ensure in law that it is the ultimate owner of the building that is responsible for that work, so the incentive is to move now for fear of consequences later.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see the Secretary of State acknowledge the unjust treatment of buildings under 18 metres in particular. However, it appears that what he has outlined will involve a voluntary contribution from developers, which may take a while. The leaseholders in my Vauxhall constituency do not have a while to wait. They are fed up of waiting. It has been four and a half years. They want solutions now. So will he confirm that he absolutely understands the urgency that leaseholders want to see and call on those developers to take action now?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. Again, I do not want to over-promise, but I do recognise the need for speed.