Supported Exempt Accommodation

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend has been doing huge amounts of work on this issue in her constituency. Many of my Birmingham colleagues are in this Chamber today. This is a big problem in our city, and I thank my colleagues for their interest in this debate and for the work they are doing in their own constituencies. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about regulation, and I will come to some of the regulations that will be needed.

Some might be thinking that there is surely someone regulating the system and carrying out the very checks to which my hon. Friend just alluded. There is a regulator for social housing, but it simply does not have the powers to deal with rogue operators, because those people know how to game the system. They have set themselves up as small operators, so they are outside of the direct purview of the regulator. They can make lots of money with little to no scrutiny, which is leaving too many people in my patch in utter despair. More than 150,000 households in the country are living in exempt accommodation—this represents a 62% increase in five years—and there are 1,600 such properties in my constituency alone. There has been a massive increase, and we are seeing these problems all over the country.

As I have said, the tenants are too often being let down. Many of my constituents come to me with their problems, and many of my colleagues have raised in the House, and with the city directly, the issues that their constituents face with their properties. It is not unusual to find properties that are in complete disrepair and that we would not consider fit for human habitation in any way. It is not unusual for vulnerable women to be housed with dangerous men in these properties—for them to be at risk of attack or, in fact, to have been attacked.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I am becoming a broken record. I have brought a case to the Department of a 19-year-old rape victim who is waiting for trial and has been housed, without any regulation, with men who have been released from prison for the exact same crimes that she wishes to put people in prison for.

To respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), two women in the last three years have been murdered in “exempt, supported” accommodation. In one case, the key worker did not notice that the woman had been murdered. After visiting the property, she said to the woman’s mother, “Oh, she’s absolutely fine”—but the person she had seen was the person who had murdered the woman. That is the level of support that vulnerable women are getting in this accommodation. It is dangerous, and it must stop.

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She has raised those horror cases in her constituency at regular intervals, directly with the Department and in this House. Those cases of women left at real risk of harm, having truly suffered at the hands of dangerous men who they should have never been housed alongside, are not unique.

It is not unusual, when I have investigated cases in my constituency, to discover that the housing contract that was approved has forged signatures on it. There are multiple layers of subcontractors that get involved with the providers in this sector, and it is not unusual to see faked documents. I have had constituents come to me and say that they are being held to a contract that they have never seen before. It is also not unusual for people to be left without any hot water or electricity.

It is often the case that the tenants, who are desperately in need of care, support or supervision, are left to rot in disgusting properties and at real risk of physical danger. The residents who live alongside them are also being let down: over-concentration in particular areas just loads more need and deprivation into areas that are already struggling. Crime and antisocial behaviour has massively increased. I have had constituents break down, explaining that they are worried that their children are witnessing public drug taking, people collapsing in the street having drunk too much or urinating in their front gardens, all on what were once modest, quiet residential streets that were home to tight-knit communities. That is why so many people in my patch and my city are in utter despair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

I understand the hon. Lady’s frustration and the case she is making. Having worked for a good-quality provider, I understand the marginal prices that they work on. It is possible to put good-quality providers out of business through unintended consequences of applying tougher restrictions right across the sector. We need to be careful that we do not throw out the good with the bad when making the suggested changes.

[Jess Phillips]

I also used to run one of those accommodations, and we had an inspection regime before we were ever entitled to advance with the Department for Work and Pensions. That is not happening today. Every single year that we were given enhanced benefits at Women’s Aid in the Black Country, which serves the Minister’s constituents, there was an inspection. Cuts to councils have ended those inspections. I had to prove what we were doing. I had to show CCTV. That does not happen now. In Birmingham, £100 million a year is being given to rogue providers with no inspection, yet my individual constituents trying to get welfare and disability benefits from the DWP have a greater inspection regime than the people making £100 million.

[Eddie Hughes]

I understand the hon. Lady’s experience, which we share, but to a degree she proves the point of the pilots; some councils have invested in staff to carry out inspections—as I mentioned when referring to Blackpool—and as a result of carrying out the inspections to which she refers, they have been able to cut their benefit bills. Councils are making the choice as to whether to invest in those staff. I remember such inspections myself. There must be an element of choice, because some councils are making choices.