Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Gagan Mohindra Excerpts

Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for his excellent Bill, on which I was lucky enough to speak on Second Reading in November. I commend the Minister for her foresight in tabling the Government amendments to which we agreed on Report just now; I hope the whole House agrees that they are an additional benefit. The Bill’s intention has the potential to be misinterpreted, so let us be clear: it is there to protect people in supported accommodation and to support the most vulnerable members of society.

In South West Hertfordshire, we have good housing providers and we provide the right support. There are 136 units of supported housing provided by private registered providers in Three Rivers and 2,541 units of supported housing in Dacorum, of which 536 are provided by private registered providers and the rest by the district council. Unfortunately, there are loopholes in the current system that have been open to exploitation. There is evidence that unscrupulous landlords have been capitalising on those loopholes; I have had numerous pieces of correspondence from constituents saying that people are claiming uncapped housing benefits to make a profit.

The Bill will create a minimum standard for type and condition of premises, as well as for the care and support provided. There has been a clear correlation between high concentrations of exempt accommodation and antisocial behaviour and crime. Poor quality of housing—with every room, including communal areas, being turned into a bedroom to make a greater profit for the provider—has led to organised criminal gangs and increased levels of vermin and rubbish, with knock-on consequences for neighbours and for the community as a whole. That creates a risk that local support for these types of dwellings will be undermined.

Lack of data is a really important point that we have debated before in this Chamber. Some 153,700 households in Great Britain were housed in exempt accommodation in May 2021, but the lack of data means that the problem could be much more widespread than even that figure suggests. In some areas of the country, the number of people living in exempt accommodation has doubled in just a few years. That shows the urgency of the issue. Demand is growing and will continue to grow, so we really need to get a handle on this.

I am conscious that several excellent colleagues wish to speak, so I will shorten my comments and end with a point about taxpayers’ money. There is no publicly available data on Government expenditure on exempt accommodation. As we all know, the Government have no money—the money belongs to taxpayers—so we always need to think about value for money. We cannot just throw money at the issue. It is more than possible that the Government may need to spend even more, but we need a better understanding of the issue, and that will be driven by increased data. In the current economic climate, we need to be a lot more conscious of saving the pennies and the pounds.