Supported Housing

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I join the Minister in paying tribute to all those working on the frontline, particularly those helping the homeless over this Christmas period. I also thank him for the early copy of his statement.

Although I fail to see anything fresh in this oral statement, I nevertheless welcome it, because this House has played a big part over the past two years in getting the Government to reverse their previous plans on supported housing. Individual Members on both sides of the House have spoken strongly, as have charities and housing associations, to warn of the folly and flaws in the funding changes. The Joint Select Committee report has laid a cross-party basis for the Government rethink. Labour has led three Opposition day debates and, as the Minister says, this statement, “responds to the resolution of the House” on the last of those.

In that Labour debate on 25 October, I warned that the devil is always in the detail and in the funding. I am sad to say that today’s statement does nothing to help clear up concerns on both fronts. On funding, the Minister has repeated the same flawed promise, saying, “All short-term provision currently funded by the welfare system will continue to be funded at the same level by local authorities in 2020.” That is only a commitment for 2020; there is no pledge beyond that, even though the Red Book last month showed that the Treasury has inked in cuts of half a billion pounds in 2021-22. Will he clear up this problem today by confirming there will be no cut in funding in the second or subsequent years?

The Minister moved on to say in this statement that, “grant funding for this part of the sector after 2020 will continue to take account of the costs of provision and the growth of future provision”. This is precisely the problem: it will be Ministers who make grant decisions on funding for the future and Ministers who will say they have taken account of costs and growth. Unlike the welcome move to keep other types of supported housing in the welfare system, this will no longer be needs-led and no longer based on the right to help with housing costs for individuals. That is why St Mungo’s and others say that with these plans

“it is unlikely that providers would be able to secure loans to develop new services or be able to reassure regulators that providing short-term supported housing is financially viable in the long term”.

So what changes will he make to the plans to provide reassurance on this?

On detail, the Minister has dispelled none of the confusion about how the new system will work in practice. The plan is to keep a resident’s entitlement to housing benefit, but services with the new grant will not charge rent and will not draw down or cash in that entitlement. So what happens if a service does not receive a grant? Can its residents receive housing benefit? If a service has grant for some but not for all residents, can some still get housing benefit? Will he consider cutting the current two-year definition of “short term” down to 12 weeks, which will deal with some of the big problems in universal credit, and then make people eligible to claim housing benefit? Finally, what will he do to make sure such organisations that do not currently deal with local authorities and do not, for instance, get Supporting People funding, do not fall through the gaps in the new system?

In future years, students will be given this as a case study in disastrous Government decision making. This is the third policy rewrite in the two years since George Osborne made the crude policy decision to give the Treasury big cost savings, and the Government still have not got it right. So will the Minister accept that the Government must work further with Parliament and the housing sector to meet the terms of the resolution and sort out a good long-term system for the future and funding of supported housing?

[Mr Jones]

This is the season of good will to all men and women, and the right hon. Gentleman set off in his remarks so well, but then was not too festive in his spirit. He mentioned short-term accommodation and asked what would happen post-2020. If he looks, he will see that there is clearly a transfer from the Department for Work and Pensions to the Department for Communities and Local Government to cover the cost of short-term supported housing going forward. We are absolutely clear, and we will come forward with further plans following the consultation, on how we will assess future provision, how we will deal with that and what we will need to make sure that the providers have a sustainable position going forward to reflect inflation.

The tenants will not lose the ability to get help with housing costs, and we fully expect that when the system comes into effect people will be in a position to have the help and support they need. We do not expect that people will have the opportunity to claim housing benefit for the same service at that point, but there are deficiencies in the current system that the right hon. Gentleman just does not acknowledge, such as on the position of women who go into a refuge in terms of their being able to work—I mentioned that in my original statement. Sometimes these women cannot claim housing benefit in that position and so cannot work.

I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are working closely with the sector. He asked about several aspects of how the policy will work with respect to local authorities. We are putting in place a strong statement of expectations and strong conditions for the ring-fenced grant.

With respect to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the two-year definition for short-term supported accommodation, I can tell him that we asked a working group, which included providers from across the sector, to look at the issue. Although it was not absolutely clear, the working group came up with the two-year period as a sort of minority verdict. That is why we have followed the path that we have.

I reassure the House that the Government are absolutely committed to protecting the most vulnerable. We are absolutely confident that by working with the sector we can get this right.