Homelessness

Grant Shapps Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. I have seen at first hand some utterly tragic cases resulting from those policies. For example, a young woman, who understandably chose to remain anonymous, appeared on the “Today” programme. She lived in Waltham Forest, was married to a professional man and they had a nine-year-old. The couple broke up and stayed close, but sadly he died. She then lost her home and ended up in temporary accommodation and was told that because there was no available alternative accommodation that the council could provide for her, she would have to go from Waltham Forest to Walsall. She said, “I can’t do it. My nine-year-old is distraught because of her dad’s death. She hasn’t gone to school for the last three months, with the agreement of the school, as she recovers. I go every day to my mum, who looks after her granddaughter while I train to get back into the world of work.” I do not mind admitting that after she told me that story, with its consequences and the pain that she felt, I was in tears. It is about time that Ministers faced up to the consequences experienced by the victims of their policies.

It appears that there is consensus in this Government that housing does not matter and should not be centre stage. Labour believes strongly—we know—that it does matter. Does the Housing Minister accept how important housing is to the economy? Construction accounts for 3% of gross domestic product, £91 billion of economic output and 1.5 million jobs. Does the Minister accept that it matters to health? The annual costs to the national health service of poor housing and homelessness have been assessed at £2.5 billion. Another depressing statistic shows that, on average, the homeless on the streets die 30 years younger.

Does the Minister accept that homelessness matters with regard to educational attainment? Again, the depressing evidence shows the impact on a generation of young people brought up in poor housing or temporary accommodation.

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

Will the hon. Gentleman remind hon. Members how many debates on housing the Opposition have called?

[Jack Dromey]

My predecessor and I have stood up for all that is decent in terms of putting housing centre stage, and fought hard on behalf of the homeless, the badly housed and the millions who need a decent home at a price that they can afford, whether to buy or to rent. The Housing Minister should not make flippant comments but, instead, take his responsibilities seriously, as Labour is doing.

[Grant Shapps]

That is none then—not a single debate.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate, as well as my thanks to her for understanding my predicament this morning, trapped as I was when trying to reach the House, our inclement summer weather not letting me make the journey.

The housing debate is incredibly important, and homelessness even more so. I pay huge tribute to the hon. Lady for her long-term commitment to this subject, going back many years. Housing does not always get the attention that it rightly deserves, whether from Government or Opposition—I will say more about that in a moment—but not so with the hon. Lady, who is a passionate advocate on housing and in particular on homelessness, on which I have heard her speak often over many years.

We need to set the context. Far from being a recession “made in Downing street”, as the rather glib soundbite from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) suggests, sensible people looking at today’s circumstances appreciate that we need only to look across the water to see what is happening in Europe—the bail-out in Spain and events in France, Greece and so many other places—to understand that the problem is global and not one experienced only in the UK. In fact, the problem has a source, a reason, a cause, which was spending money that we did not have today and expecting our children to pay it back in the future. That was unsustainable; it could not be maintained forever. Only a fool imagines that we can spend money that we do not have forever. We had to do something about it, which means reducing the deficit in every area of the economy. Yes, that includes reducing the capital available to build homes—there is no point pretending that that has not been affected. Our great challenge has been to reduce the deficit while finding ways to increase the amount of house building, which, as we would not know from the contributions of the Opposition Members, fell to its lowest level since the 1920s under the previous Administration’s plans, resulting in a huge housing crisis.

We must look at the overall housing picture to understand the situation in a bit more detail. We have such enormous pressure on housing in this country because house prices were able to double in only 10 years, which is precisely what happened between 1997 and 2007. Lo and behold, what a great surprise, we end up with a large proportion of our fellow citizens finding it almost impossible to buy a house. As a result, rents and the number of people trapped in their housing position grow and grow exponentially. That did not happen overnight but over a decade and more. A lack of house building is at the very heart and is the very root of the problems of homelessness.

[Jack Dromey]

I am aware that the Minister struggles with his statistics, but perhaps he can take the opportunity today to confirm his Department’s own statistics. Under a Labour Government, there were 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders, 0.5 million affordable homes and, as a consequence of the kick-start programme in precisely the same kind of difficult economic circumstances as we now face, 110,000 new homes, 70,000 jobs and 3,000 apprenticeships. That is a record to be proud of. Can the Minister confirm those statistics?

[Grant Shapps]

The problem with statistics, as the hon. Gentleman should know, is that they can be played any which way we choose. For example, six months ago, when the Home and Communities Agency produced the house building figures for the previous six months, the hon. Gentleman made great play of a 97% reduction in the amount of affordable housing starts, although it was a natural consequence of the switch from the old programme to the new affordable rent programme. In the light of analysis of the figures six months on, he has failed to come to the House to explain that there has been 3,500% increase in starts based on his measure. I agree that we are not building sufficient homes in this country, but I am not happy with him ducking and weaving and using one set of figures six months ago and a different set of figures today in order to make a point.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Grant Shapps]

I would like to make progress on the essence of this debate, because I have a feeling that we will never agree on the housing stats, although it is undeniable that house building had slumped to its lowest level since the 1920s, and starts were up by 29% in 2011 compared with 2009, so some progress has been made.

I want to focus on the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Westminster North—I have caught up on the notes—and to address some of the issues. I heard clearly her description of some of the people who are trapped in homelessness, and there is no doubt that the anxiety and pressure is immense. We have all seen that in our constituencies. I have been the Housing Minister or the shadow Minister for five years, and I challenge the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) on who has visited the most homelessness projects. However, he is spot on to say that when one hears such stories and understands what is going on in people’s lives, it is often surprising and even shocking to realise how little of the problem is simply down to the roof over one’s head. I have yet to meet someone who is homeless and who does not have a catastrophic tale of complex circumstances such as family break-up, financial problems, health problems, sometimes mental health problems, having been in prison and not having got their life back together, and sometimes following active service. There is almost always a combination of some of those contributory factors.

I decided early on, following our work with the Homelessness Foundation, which was set up in 2008, that we need to make Government Departments work better together. That is why I set up the ministerial working group on homelessness. It is the first time that Ministers from different Departments—eight of them—have come together to work on these issues. They include the Department for Work and Pensions, which works closely with us.

I think we must accept that the Government and the Opposition start from slightly different positions. I passionately believe in a safety net to ensure that people are not made homeless, and Members on both sides of the House can be proud that this country probably has the best safety net in the entire world.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Minister give way?

[Grant Shapps]

I will give way in a moment. It is a tribute to the Opposition as well as the Government that in this country we do not see families and children homeless on the streets. We do see single people homeless on the streets, and I will talk about the measures that I am taking to try to address that problem.

When people talk about homelessness, there is a confusing set of definitions; that has come out in our debate today. For example, when we talk about homelessness, we are usually talking about homelessness acceptances: people who have been accepted as having a right to be helped and who, in other words, will not be homeless because they will be provided with a home. Until now, that has been an offer in the social sector of a home for life, which more often than not can be passed on to a future generation.

It is still true, although one would not know it from the Opposition’s comments—I even wonder whether they are aware of it—that homelessness today is lower than it has been in 28 of the past 30 years, and half the average level during the 13 years of the previous Administration. I do not want to paint an overly rosy picture, because I am alive to the many real pressures and difficulties for families and family budgets posed by the extended downturn and the world economic problems. Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Rochdale, rightly talked about not playing politics with these issues, but he then proceeded to play politics. It is not simple to resolve the problems, and the Government must find the right responses.

[Jack Dromey]

Does the Minister accept that his statement is misleading, because where we are now is a consequence of the 70% reduction under a Labour Government, and that is now in reverse with a 14% increase in statutory homelessness and a 23% increase in rough sleeping?

[Grant Shapps]

One of the problems is that it depends where the figures are taken from. The high point in the number of people in bed and breakfast accommodation was in 2004, which was a long time—seven years—into the previous Administration. We may say that there was a big reduction in, for example, the number of homeless people in temporary accommodation, and that may have been from halfway through the previous Labour Administration, but we must be very careful when trading figures. I am much more concerned about the outcome for people on the ground, and when I talk about people on the ground, I sometimes mean people at the bottom of the pile who are sleeping on the streets.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington and other Labour Members feel some shame that the true size of the cohort of people living on the nation’s streets was buried under the previous system of counting. For example, if someone was sitting upright in a sleeping bag, they were not counted, and they had to be there at a certain time and so on to be counted. One of the first things I did was rip up the system that tried to claim that only 424 people in the country were sleeping rough. Any observer with any knowledge of the system, let alone hon. Members who had spent a lot of time studying homelessness, knew that that was nonsense. I have tried to reveal the true size and scale of the problem and not to bury it or hide it away, but I want to go further.

Reference has been made to the importance of the Supporting People budget. Despite the enormous pressure on reducing budgets to deal with the record deficit, we have kept almost the entire cash amount for the Supporting People programme. In fact, there was a 1% reduction in Supporting People over four years—£6.5 billion. I know that there have been problems on the ground—the hon. Member for Westminster North described them clearly—about the way in which Supporting People money has been spent. I understand that there are challenges when such funding is not ring-fenced—it was not ring-fenced in 2009—and that with other pressures the Supporting People budget has been pressurised on the ground, but it is not that the money has not been going in. Nor is it the case that we have reduced by even a penny support for homelessness. The homelessness budget was £400 million—£100 million a year—for the spending review period, and that has not been reduced.

I do not know whether it has escaped the attention of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, but during the past year, I took another £70 million, which was not in the spending review and aimed at homelessness, and put it into homelessness programmes, because I passionately believe in maintaining that fantastic homelessness support in this country. When we talk about people being homeless, we generally mean that they have been accepted as being homeless so that they can get a home, but there is a category of single people who do not receive help and support through our system. If a single person—the sort of people we are familiar with from our constituency surgeries—turns up at their local authority, under the rules that have applied until now they would simply be told, “I’m sorry, you are not covered as a preference category. We can do nothing for you.” That is not good enough, and I am sure that other hon. Members agree, so I have made £18.5 million available in the last few months to ensure that tailored advice is available for individuals, in addition to £10 million to Crisis to do the same.

I would dearly like to make the category of single people without dependants a preference category, and that should be the objective of any Government when money allows. I have not only protected all the preference categories that Opposition Members talked about—the work of Louise Casey was praised, and I echo that—I have added to those preference categories and I am trying to go further.

It is crazy that anyone who sees someone sleeping rough in this country must call the local authority; they may or may not get a response, and will not know what has happened afterwards. That is not good enough, so I am setting up a national helpline and a website to ensure that assistance can be brought directly to that individual. It will be run with the assistance of Homeless Link and will be in place by Christmas, and I hope that the whole House will join me in supporting it. When we see somebody sleeping rough, we have a terrible moment of dilemma about whether we should try to assist them directly—even if we do not know whether the money will be used in that person’s best interest—or do something else for them. Now we will be able to use the helpline, and information will be available so that people can see whether that person was helped and in what way. I think that is important.

We have also announced the “no second night out” initiative nationwide. “No second night out” came from the first cross-ministerial working group report, and I hope that Opposition Members will welcome it. The £70 million that I mentioned includes £20 million to back that programme, and it means that nobody in this country who is found sleeping on the street should ever experience a second night in that situation. I slept rough for a night to see what it was like: it is frightening and one feels vulnerable. We do not want any of our citizens to be in that position, and there is no reason for them to be because we have also allocated £42.5 million of funding to the hostel system, to ensure that new and refurbished hostel places are available.

The problem in this country, and particularly in London where we have the excellent combined homelessness and information network—CHAIN—database, is generally not about whether a hostel place is available on any given night, but about finding the individual, connecting them with the hostel, and sometimes persuading them to go into it. “No second night out” and the national reporting line is designed to help deal with that, and I am pleased to say that it has been taken up in Merseyside, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle. It is an excellent, practical example of the way that we are trying to work.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Minister mentions telephone lines, advice and websites, but people need houses. In particular, those who are homeless, as well as those living in overcrowded and poor conditions, need new social rented homes. I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber for the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). I understand that she mentioned Hammersmith and Fulham—perhaps the worst housing authority in the country—which builds no social rented homes. As a consequence of that, its homelessness strategy, which I commend to the Minister and ask him to read, states that anybody who needs a three-bedroomed house, or bigger, should be discharged to the private rented sector outside the borough. That is contrary to the housing policy of the Government and the Mayor, but is it something that the Minister supports?

[Grant Shapps]

No contribution from the hon. Gentleman would be complete without a reference to his own time as leader of housing in Hammersmith and Fulham. I think, however, that that council has a good record of looking for constructive measures that help to take people off the housing waiting list. For example, it was one of the forerunners in a programme that I launched recently with the Prime Minister to sell 100,000 homes under the right-to-buy programme. Critically, and unlike the previous programme, every penny of that money will be used to build more homes for affordable rent, and that seems to be a great solution. Not only can a family achieve their aspiration of purchasing their own property, but they can do so in the knowledge that somebody else is being taken off the housing waiting list. I have yet to hear whether the Opposition support the return to the right to buy, with the money going towards affordable houses.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Grant Shapps]

I will happily give way so that I can understand the hon. Gentleman’s policy.

[Jack Dromey]

A straight answer to a straight question. Labour has supported the right to buy, but—crucially—we are not convinced about the bogus figures put forward that somehow suggest there will be one-for-one replacement. Councils are not able to retain the bulk of the receipts, and there is no guarantee that if a home is sold in a local authority area, a matching home will be built in the same area. We therefore fear that we will see a significant reduction in available social council stock, without any new build to compensate. Time will tell, but the sad reality will soon dawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

I am still not entirely sure whether the Opposition support the initiative, but one-for-one replacement is part of the policy and is what we intend. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) challenges the Government by saying that the answer is to build more homes. I absolutely agree.

[Ms Buck]

A question has been posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Slaughter) and by me, and I am anxious to have a response. What are the Government going to do about the two rules that are being breached and, indeed, are in conflict with each other? The maximum time that local authorities are supposed to keep families in bed and breakfasts is increasingly being breached, and the respect of local connection rule has been breached in the examples that my hon. Friend and I described. Will the Government enforce those orders?

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Lady knows, I have written to the 20 authorities that were responsible for 80% of the breaches of the six-week bed-and-breakfast rule. I pointed out that they are in breach of the law and asked for their plan or strategy to resolve the issue. It involves a small number of authorities, although I share her concern. I make no distinction politically or otherwise—the authorities concerned come from across the board—and I expect them to put plans in place to deal with the issue.

As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) noted in her intervention, there are enormous pressures in every direction and the problem is not simple to resolve. None the less, the changes we are making are designed to make it easier for authorities to discharge those all-important homelessness duties. Through the Localism Act 2011, we are allowing a discharge of those duties into the private rented sector on a fixed-term lease, with protections in place, which I think is an utterly sensible approach. Quality homes in the private rented sector could massively expand our capacity to deal with families who require assistance. Again, I have not heard—although on this occasion, I do not think I will provide them with the opportunity—what the Opposition think of discharging that homelessness responsibility into the private rented sector, but I think it is an important element.

[Ms Buck]

This issue goes to the heart of the debate, and I do not feel that we have had a response. In order to comply with the Minister’s request, local authorities that have exceeded the limit for families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation need to find somewhere to place them. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith mentioned guidance from Hammersmith and Fulham, and Westminster’s response to increasing demand states:

“Increasing procurement of family-sized properties in East London where the council has focused its out of borough procurement. Investigating procuring new properties in areas outside of London…a number of properties within Kent and Essex and we consider other proposals from organisations who approach us, including areas outside London.”

Does the Minister agree with that or not?

[Grant Shapps]

Guidance is already in place, which I am strengthening, to make it clear that local connections are critical and that people should never be shipped hundreds of miles away. There will, however, be cases where somebody may move from one borough to the next—the local housing area can encompass one, two or three boroughs, depending on location. I have been clear, however, that the kind of Newham games of writing and threatening to send 500 residents across the country are neither fair nor right. I was absolutely appalled by that approach. Interestingly, when I was approached by the leader of that council some time afterwards, he sort of half apologised and suggested that those letters should never have gone out.

In the last minute or two I will return to the comments made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. He says that housing has never been a priority for this Government, but he is absolutely wrong. The truth is that housing was never a priority for the previous Government. Those are not my views, and when the Leader of the Opposition stated:

“We refused to prioritise the building of new social housing”

he was absolutely right. The critical figure that nobody in this House and beyond should ever forget, is that after 13 years there was a net loss in the number of affordable homes for rent in this country. That is a terrible, disastrous record that we are in the process of turning round, with 170,000 new affordable homes for rent that, as shown by HCA figures published today, are on track to be built by the end of this Parliament. I would have thought that that would be welcomed across the House, although bizarrely it is not. The idea that the Labour party is interested in housing is belied by that quote from the Leader of the Opposition and by the nine people who occupied the position of Housing Minister when Labour were in government. It is belied by the fact that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington is the eighth shadow Housing Minister I have faced. This Government are prioritising housing and doing something about getting homes built, which is the best way to prevent people from entering the world of homelessness.