Supported Exempt Accommodation

John Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered regulation of supported exempt accommodation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I am pleased to have secured the debate today to discuss something that is a huge problem in my constituency, in my city, and in many other places across the country.

If someone had asked me a few years ago what supported exempt accommodation was, I would not have been able to tell them. I know it confuses people even now. Given my difficulties in dealing with the issue in my own constituency, I have become quite a world expert. I will set out for all exactly what we mean when we talk about supported exempt accommodation.

Supported accommodation is a broad term that describes a range of housing types: group homes, hostels, refuges, sheltered housing, and so on. An offshoot of supported accommodation is referred to as “exempt”. It is basically a resettlement place or accommodation provided by a council, housing association, charity or voluntary organisation, where a person or organisation provides the claimant with—in theory—care, support or supervision. I say “in theory” because too often that is not the case in reality, and that is what I will discuss in detail in my speech.

Exempt accommodation is supported housing that is exempt from housing benefit regulations. If we provide someone with that type of housing, we get access to enhanced housing benefit and can access more money to house this group of mainly vulnerable tenants who are in need of care, support or supervision. We can see why that has happened. The cost of housing vulnerable people—care leavers, women fleeing domestic violence, ex-offenders, people with addiction issues, and so on—is higher. The costs of helping those individuals are higher, so the exemption from housing benefit regulations—the ability to access higher payments to house such people—was designed to allow providers to access adequate sums of money to help individuals as they seek to turn their lives around. Too often, that is very much not what happens in practice.

I stress that there are some good, legitimate providers of this type of housing, who do important work with people in desperate need of housing and help. There are still those who are committed to a social and indeed moral mission to help people to get back on an even keel, recover from addiction, turn their lives around and play a full part in society once again. However, there are too many rogue—I describe them as cowboy—providers who have clocked that this is a lucrative money-spinning opportunity and who take full advantage. They get access to larger sums of money to house housing benefit claimants who need care, support or supervision, and then they do not provide it.

In law, it is the case that all a provider has to do is provide care, support and supervision that is, in legal terms, “more than minimal”. Those three words have plagued me as I have navigated the complex world of supported housing while trying to help my constituents—those who live in such properties and those in communities where there is a proliferation of those types of properties.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

That is the nub of it, is it not? The hugely greater rents and support that landlords can get means that families are priced out of streets, and the problem spreads rapidly down these streets. The behaviour of many of those who get no support makes those streets places where people no longer wish to live. My hon. Friend talks about shady landlords, but is there not a real danger that there is so much money to be made now that organised crime is moving in, in a big way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I will come to his point about the connection with organised crime, which is becoming a real problem. He is right that the distortion in the housing market in these communities means that working families are being priced out of good, viable family homes. Other social tenants cannot access them either; when a person cannot get enhanced housing benefits, they are subject to the local housing allowance

In fact, this lucrative loophole is causing huge problems not only for the tenants, who often get trapped in unsuitable properties, but for the communities living in those in those areas and those who might wish to live in them, too. It is exactly those nefarious operators moving into the sector who are causing problems in my constituency and across the country.

In practice, “more than minimal” means hardly anything at all. I have heard providers say that installing CCTV in communal areas or having a manager who might visit the property once in a blue moon counts as adequate supervision of vulnerable people. That sort of so-called supervision would certainly pass the “more the minimal” test, but the idea that that is what was meant by the regulations that determine access to larger pots of housing benefit is utterly outrageous.

Cowboy operators know that they can access more money per tenant, and they do not have to spend very much—or indeed anything at all—to demonstrate that they are providing care, support or supervision. So, what is the upshot? Lots of cash is available for those who know how to game the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) for securing this important debate. It is a topic that she and I, and a number of familiar faces across the Chamber today, have spoken about.

It goes without saying that problems with supported exempt accommodation are a serious matter that impacts not just the housing benefit bill but hundreds—possibly thousands—of vulnerable individuals across the country. Having previously worked as the deputy chief executive of YMCA Birmingham, I have seen at first hand the challenges that vulnerable people face and the real difference that good-quality support can make. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning the fact that there are good-quality providers who make a difference. I have a strong personal interest in improving the quality of exempt accommodation, and more importantly the life chances of those people living in it.

As a Government, we are determined to tackle the problems that have dogged the sector for too long, but we also want to do more to support the high-quality supported housing providers that deliver services to some of the most vulnerable people in society. We really need them to continue to operate successfully, so that people who need supported housing receive support and a roof over their head.

As the Minister responsible for homelessness and rough sleeping, I know the key role that good support and the right accommodation play in helping those who have fallen on hard times to get back on their feet and rebuild their lives. As the hon. Lady said, this kind of support is not always given. Right now, there are too many cases of rogue providers benefiting from taxpayers’ money without providing anywhere near the right kind of services for residents. The growth of exempt accommodation concentrated in specific areas of towns or cities is also creating neighbourhood issues, antisocial behaviour and criminal behaviour, as a number of hon. Members highlighted.

The Government are doing everything in their power to tackle rogue providers. Officials in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have engaged with Birmingham City Council and local charities to build a better understanding of the issues, including the scale of the problem, the drivers of its growth, and its impact on residents and local communities.

Birmingham is obviously not the only city to experience such problems—the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) raised concerns about her area. At a national level, the Government have raised the bar on the standard of exempt accommodation across the board. In 2020, the Department published “Supported housing: national statement of expectations”, setting out the Government’s vision for better ways of working in supported housing and a much higher minimum standard of accommodation. The guidance was critical in showing what good looks like, and highlighted where providers and councils are working in joined-up and innovative ways to drive up quality. Ministers and officials have engaged with councils, housing providers, the regulator of social housing and other regulatory bodies to improve standards and our understanding of the issues.

That effort has been matched with proper Government funding. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood will, of course, be aware of the pilots. We have provided £5.4 million for a year-long pilot in five local authority areas in England. The pilots have been critical in helping us to understand the issues and the differences that we can make. The participants, including Birmingham, bring together teams from across different services, such as housing, revenue and benefits, environmental health, social care and, in some cases, the police and probation services, to address the different issues that residents face. Although I have not yet received the final report from the independent evaluation team, I know that the pilots are delivering real results and acting as models of good practice for councils to adopt.

Birmingham has developed a new charter of rights for residents of supported housing, along with a programme of support reviews and scrutiny of housing benefit claims. In Blackpool, the council has carried out a review of the support provided in accommodation for victims of domestic abuse to ensure that there is sufficient and tailored support.

[John Spellar]

The problems with exempt accommodation are spreading rapidly because all sorts of crooks are getting in on it. Neighbourhoods are being ruined. Quite frankly, they want action now. When will the Minister bring forward regulations to enable councils to do something about this?

[Eddie Hughes]

I fully accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but part of the purpose of the pilots is to understand not just the scale of the problem, but, more importantly, what type of interventions work most effectively. It is all very well saying, “We know what the problem is. Therefore, we know how to address it.” I am not sure that is completely the case, given that different interventions have had different successes in different pilot areas. It is important, having spent £5.5 million, that we get the full value from the pilots and understand the best-quality interventions to make.