Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Debate between Karen Buck and Kelly Tolhurst

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Kelly Tolhurst)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate on this important issue, which everybody has been pleased and willing to speak about with passion. She has spoken passionately about this topic before, including when we spoke last week about another element in this sphere. I am really grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken the time to attend and to speak on behalf of their constituents. I welcome the opportunity to address their points.

May I start by saying that I, too, am an MP who has worked hard for my constituents? I was very pleased to take on the role as Minister for homelessness, because of my involvement prior to being elected as a Member of Parliament. What I am hearing today is support for a lot of the work that the Government are doing, and a willingness and commitment in terms of the Government continuing to work to reach our objectives.

It is unacceptable that anyone should have to sleep rough. I recognise the incredible achievements in the last eight months by local councils and the homelessness sector—supported by this Government—meaning that in September we had successfully supported more than 29,000 vulnerable people during the pandemic, nearly 19,000 of whom have been provided with settled accommodation or move-on support.

I respect the hon. Member for Westminster North greatly, but I will have to disappoint her. I will outline further the funding that this Government have put into rough sleeping and homelessness. Although we say that this is not just about money, it is also about providing available funding and about what happens on the ground. We cannot ignore the unprecedented action that this Government have taken over recent months.

Our work on rough sleeping is not only world-leading, but has protected hundreds—

[Ms Buck]

Before the Minister moves off that point, will she explain exactly why, if the Government are spending more money, homelessness has risen by 14% in the last year alone?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We have spent an unprecedented amount of money, and we are continuing to invest in those pilots and schemes in order to tackle all parts of rough sleeping and homelessness. There is a distinction between what we have done with Everybody In and what we are doing with Housing First, with regard to our social housing pilots. We are talking about a vast landscape. We are committed to solving rough sleeping and dealing with homelessness. The funding from the Government is an incredibly important part of that, and so are the right interventions on the ground, delivered in the correct way. That is something that I have particularly focused on since I have been in this role.

The spending review demonstrates the Government’s commitment to build on the fantastic progress of Everyone In and to support rough sleepers and those at risk of homelessness during covid-19. Next year, we are going even further and will provide more than £750 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. That includes the additional funding to support frontline services through the rough sleeping initiative and to enable local councils to fund their statutory duties to prevent homelessness. We are also providing capital funding to continue our landmark drive to bring forward thousands of homes for rough sleepers. That will support our commitment to end rough sleeping in this Parliament and fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

On temporary accommodation, I am absolutely clear that we always want to see homeless individuals and families moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible and permanently. The action we are taking to increase the delivery of social housing will support that. I also recognise the important role that temporary accommodation can play in the meantime in ensuring that no family is ever without a roof over their head. Although the overall numbers of households in temporary accommodation have been rising, the number of households with children has remained relatively stable since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act. However, I accept that we must go further. The increase in temporary accommodation numbers since the Act took effect has been almost entirely driven by single households receiving help that was previously unavailable to them. More recently, the increase has also been driven by our action to accommodate rough sleepers during the pandemic.

The Homelessness Reduction Act requires for the first time that local authorities, public services and the third sector work together actively to prevent and relieve homelessness for people at risk, irrespective of whether they are a family or a single person. That means that more single people are getting the help they need. They might otherwise have been on the streets. Since the introduction of the Act, 270,000 households have had their homelessness successfully prevented or relieved through securing accommodation for more than six months.

The hon. Member for Westminster North rightly raised the issue of the quality of temporary accommodation. In 2019, we gave £6.7 million to more than 180 local authorities to boost their enforcement in relation to quality on the ground.

Recall of Tumble Dryers

Debate between Karen Buck and Kelly Tolhurst

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I am sorry to hear about her father, particularly since this urgent question comes the day after Father’s Day. She is absolutely right. This action serves as a warning to manufacturers that if they put unsafe products on the market, this Government will act to make them comply with the law. The beauty of the OPSS, which this Government set up in January 2018, is not only that it is a national body that takes responsibility for national crises, but that it supports local enforcers on the ground with scientific and research-based knowledge. I assure my hon. Friend that we are taking the matter seriously, and this is a warning to manufacturers that we will enforce the law if we believe that they are not complying.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on his dogged pursuit of this consumer scandal. Is not too much onus being left on consumers to understand the potential risks to their machines? If half a million Whirlpool machines are still unmodified, how exactly are the Government tracking progress? If they proceed to recall, which they should, how will they ensure that Whirlpool is successful in getting the message through to the owners of all those machines?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The hon. Lady raises an important point on how we reach consumers, and part of the review covered the adequacy of the outreach programme. Our review found that Whirlpool needs to do more in that space, which is exactly why we issued a notice for Whirlpool to tell us what it will do further on the intention to recall. Whirlpool had time to respond, and we asked for further information on how it will get that information out to consumers. That will be a key part of how we review anything that Whirlpool submits to us, and the process will be ongoing if the recall notice is served or if Whirlpool decides to undertake a recall itself.