Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

The pace at which we are getting through applications is ramping up: we will very soon be working our way through more than 10,000 a week. I completely understand the frustration that the hon. Gentleman expresses, because we would all like to see the process working far more quickly than it is already, but we are committed to ensuring that it works more quickly by the day.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

We are all so proud of our constituents who have stepped up to be hosts. We should equally be proud of the council officers who are scrambling yet again and will absolutely deliver. They need two things to make their lives easier. The first is the housing checklist that was promised on Tuesday but is still not in place; the worry is that people will be put in homes that are not suitable. The second is DBS checks. The Minister will be aware that, during the pandemic, powers were delegated to second-tier authorities to help to make the checks work. That legislation has expired, which means that it can be done only at county level; in Oxfordshire, only three people are allowed to do it. Will the Minister have a look at those two issues and come back to us as quickly as possible? If we need new legislation, we should be ready to make it.

[Eddie Hughes]

Yesterday, I met the leader of the District Councils’ Network, who explained that the checking process with properties seemed to be going very smoothly, that councils were completely familiar with what they were expected to do, and that they were making the appropriate checks. What I think we need to understand is that sometimes we do not need to be totally prescriptive. Councils have great experience in the area and can use common sense and be proportionate in the checks that they make. I think that those checks are being carried out and that appropriate property is being identified.

I agree with the hon. Lady about the fantastic effort. This feels like a period of genuine national endeavour. I commend all colleagues across the House and their staff who have engaged with the process and are working tirelessly on behalf of constituents to ensure that problems are overcome and matches are made. Long may that continue.

Budget Resolutions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

The Budget proved one thing about this Conservative Government: they are totally out of touch. They are out of touch with the cost-of-living crisis: despite people struggling with rising heating, food and mortgage bills, the Conservatives’ response is to raise their taxes. They are out of touch with the crisis facing our children: despite the dramatic loss of learning, thanks to covid, the Conservatives plan to spend less than a third of what their own catch-up expert recommended. They are totally out of touch when it comes to climate change: despite the Budget taking place on the eve of the most important set of climate talks ever, the Chancellor had literally nothing to offer on positive action for the climate. Instead, he offered tax cuts for people using fossil fuels, not least on short-haul flights.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It was such a missed opportunity and such an own goal. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there were other things that the Government could have done, such as the electrification of east-west rail, which would have affected my constituency? That would have shown that the Government were serious about decarbonisation, but what they did was encourage people to fly when they should not be flying.

Rough Sleeping

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members to wear masks when they are not speaking. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. Members should send their speaking notes by email to [e-mail]. Similarly, officials should communicate electronically with Ministers.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered ending rough sleeping.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. It is a joy to be back in Westminster Hall with colleagues after what has felt like a very long time. While it looks a bit sparse, and I appreciate that there is a lot going on in the Chamber, I know that ending rough sleeping is important to many Members across the House. I am grateful to have been granted this debate to bring it up the agenda.

Here we go again: we are debating how we end the blight of rough sleeping. The pandemic has shown us that the will and capacity to radically change policy is there, albeit in an emergency. “Everyone In” was without doubt a success. It was a phenomenal response to an international health crisis, but it is not a sustainable response to a national rough sleeping crisis. That is what I want to focus on. The pandemic has shown that there are systemic problems preventing us from grasping the nettle and getting to the root causes of rough sleeping and homelessness.

I do not dispute that “Everyone In” was remarkable, and I applaud the Minister and the Government for their efforts. During the pandemic, 355 people in Oxford were brought off the streets and out of hostels into safe accommodation. Now, 215 people are in settled housing. It is becoming clear that we need to turn our minds to a long-term, permanent solution. Insight from the CHAIN database tells us that in 2021, at the height of the pandemic and the “Everyone In” campaign, London saw more people returning to rough sleeping than it had in the last four years. That is about one third of the rough sleepers that were on the streets. Why, when we had the successful programme, was that happening?

We have to ask those who were affected. There is a gentleman called Mr T, who spoke to the Mayday Trust last year as part of their “Wisdom from the Pandemic” work. From Westminster tube station, just metres from where we are now, he said:

“They gave me a room in a hotel. It was miles away. I was lonely, everyone I know is here. I didn’t know what was going on, how long I was going to be there, so I came back here.”

The “Everyone In” campaign may have worked, but it did not work for everyone. We need to learn from these experiences.

Councillor Ben Martin, cabinet member for housing at Swale Borough Council, told me that his experience is that rough sleeping must be about the individual, not the symptoms, and about their hopes and dreams, not their problems. To fundamentally end rough sleeping, we need to treat rough sleepers and the homeless as humans with individual needs, not as statistics. Take substance abuse. Councillor Fran Oborski, who is the treasurer of a homelessness charity, emailed me about how many rough sleepers have substance abuse issues—something that is often not helped in hostels or temporary accommodation—and said that we need to improve access to rehabilitation services for those who want or need them.

Someone who used to be homeless and who now works with rough sleepers emailed me to say that the speed with which services want people to make progress only adds to their problems instead of solving them. Given the pressure the services are already under, they cannot address the traumas rough sleepers have faced. That point is echoed by the Salvation Army, which points out that we need more funding for support services to tackle the root causes.

“Everyone In” brought people off the streets, but it did nothing to repair trust between many rough sleepers and authorities—councils, services and Government. Someone who simply goes by the name London Homeless Info emailed me to say that they are sceptical about the aims of councils, charities and services. We will not solve the rough sleeping crisis without addressing that issue of trust. How do we do that? That is what we all want. How do we break the negative cycle of people returning to the streets and failing in those services—and, more to the point, those services failing them?

The liberal approach would be to empower those forced to sleep rough, not to dictate—as is often unfortunately the case currently—narrow pathways designed by others. People going through tough times should be able to decide for themselves what support they want, and the state should then be ready to respond. I appreciate that that is no easy task and actually flips the entire system on its head, but if we actually listen to rough sleepers we know what they want.

Gemma, who was sleeping outside Joe & The Juice on Oxford Street last year, told the Mayday Trust:

“Living in a hostel is no life. It doesn’t help me with my depression. The atmosphere feels like a graveyard in there.”

Richard, who was begging on Victoria Street, said:

“I’m being told I have to go to a hostel; I really don’t want to go. I know I will relapse. Everyone there takes drugs. I’m trying to stay sober but they are forcing me to go.”

Talk about a rock and a hard place—someone gets themselves on their feet and is told that they have to put themselves in a position that will send them backwards.

The answer to rough sleeping is not just more money, more emergency accommodation or more housing, especially social housing. We have to look beyond the statistics. All of that is important, but when we are commissioning the services, we need to change our mindset. We are commissioning with, not just for, people. We need to provide them with unconditional and personalised support.

We also need to appreciate, Ms Rees, that a rough sleeper could be us. They could be our friends or our family members. Their stories highlight that often what causes someone to become a rough sleeper is a series of events that compound—family breakdown, job loss, ill health. We cannot think of rough sleepers as an other. They are us. We need to give them the autonomy and respect that any one of us in this room would want.

Aspire and Oxfordshire Homeless Movement do something like that. They treat the person as an individual, with coaching, and catch them just before the point of rough sleeping. After Adeline reached out to them, she says, she has

“now found a part-time live-in role, complemented by my freelance graphic design work, and sleep well and safe. This experience made me realise that anyone can become vulnerable at some point in their life”.

I dare say that, after the pandemic, more and more people of a background that most of us here might recognise—perhaps even more than before—are ending up in this situation.

The Mayday Trust has done lots of work to develop a new approach called the person-led, transitional and strength-based response, or PTS. That gives people the ability to choose the support that they want at a time that works for them, working with someone who coaches them through and helps them find the right pathway. Upcoming research from the New Economics Foundation shows a correlation between being treated with dignity and respect and a person taking positive actions. We all want those positive actions to happen, because that is how we end the rough sleeping crisis. That kind of approach—trusting people with their own decisions—helps to build trust between the individual and the state.

As the Local Government Association, Crisis, Shelter and others have said, we urgently need a renewed, detailed, cross-departmental strategy for how the Government plan to meet their commitment to end rough sleeping by 2027. I say that knowing, of course, that the Minister takes a particular interest in this matter. However, we are very concerned that, to end rough sleeping, we need all Government Departments to join up in their thinking. Without a new strategic approach, the Government will not meet this manifesto commitment. The Government have broken three of those so far. Will this one be next?

The Government are not short of expert recommendations from local government, the sector and elsewhere to draw on. Crisis, which has an event after the debate that I want to plug to all Members, is absolutely right to urge the Government to adopt the Housing First approach to permanently end homelessness for those with the most serious needs. Should the Treasury be listening, if the priority is to rebuild our finances after the pandemic, then it should prioritise the analysis published by Crisis today, which shows that Housing First is cost-effective. For every £1 we put in, we get £1.24 back because we are reducing dependencies on services. It is win-win. Can the Minister tell us if there have been any discussions with the Treasury and the Chancellor ahead of the spending review about rolling out Housing First across England?

The Government are making things harder by cutting the universal credit uplift and freezing the local housing allowance. Shelter has suggested a model of “protect, prevent and build” for this strategy, which I hope the Minister is considering. Shelter, the LGA and individual councillors have told me about the need to fix local authority funding in this area. There should be ongoing, dedicated funding for councils to tackle rough sleeping and prevent homelessness in the first place.

Councils need to be given sufficient time to bid for money, and then to spend it. Giving them two to four weeks to bid for the rough sleeping accommodation programme, which requires that properties are purchased and occupied within the same financial year, makes it almost impossible for local authorities in the south-east to be successful. Surely some common-sense tweaks to that bidding process could achieve better value for the money that is coming in.

There are more lessons that we need to learn, but at the heart of a renewed strategy must be that the rough sleeper is an individual. They should be part of the process, not have policies imposed on them. I have heard too many stories of the bad experiences some people have had with councils, rogue landlords and service providers. I fundamentally believe—I genuinely do, which I do not often say—that this Government want to improve the situation, but I urge them to put it high up on their priority list because 2027 is not that far away. The pandemic has been challenging, but it has also provided an opportunity to see what can work. I say grasp this nettle and use this opportunity.

In conclusion, I have a few simple questions. The Minister will be surprised that I have not mentioned this yet, but when will we scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824? I have been banging on about this for over four years. Six months ago, the Secretary of State said that it is happening. Please can we have an update on some timelines? When will we give councils certainty and long-term funding for rough sleeping programmes? Will the Minister come back to the House with a renewed, detailed and thought-through strategy for how we are going to end rough sleeping for good, recognising the changing circumstances that we are in?

We need to give rough sleepers support, but I urge the Minister to consider that the plan must also give them control. What we are doing is not working, particularly for the last few, who will be the most difficult to win round. We need to start building a strategy that reaches out to them now if we are to be successful in just over five years’ time. With a combination of intervention through programmes like Housing First, prevention through better mental health and financial support and through social house building, and empowerment through a system that works with the individual, we can do this. I believe there is cross-party support to do it. I thank all those who are here today and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

We do not need to concern ourselves with time limits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

On the rough sleeping initiative, I would seek a point of clarification, and I think that many council officers would also be desperate for a clear answer on this. Councils received letters from the Government saying that, because of the rough sleeping initiative, they should end all “Everyone In” programmes, and, in particular, the use of hotels. Meanwhile, they have heard elsewhere from Government that the “Everyone In” scheme is still ongoing.

That has caused huge amounts of confusion, not least in my own area in Oxford, and other councils have also contacted me, desperate for an answer. My question is: has “Everyone In” now stopped completely, or are councils still allowed to use money to put people in hotels, or was that letter not saying the right thing?

[Eddie Hughes]

I would say that “Everyone In” continues; we still have people who are in emergency accommodation. However, we also need to appreciate that “Everyone In” is not a sustainable approach. It was fantastic that, during the height of a pandemic, we were able to move people into emergency accommodation, but the type of accommodation that many of those people were moved into is, by its very nature, not something we would expect people to stay in for a sustained period.

I make no apology for constantly referring to my time with YMCA, but we would have had a range of accommodation. With off-the-street accommodation, we had a 72-bed hostel, but would then move people through a system where they were supported in accommodation until, eventually, they were in a position to perhaps gain employment and support a tenancy on their own.

We still have people in emergency accommodation; I do not think that councils will be pressured to get people out because, for some reason, it is coming to an end. The pressuring we are doing over moving people on is around moving them to more stable, permanent accommodation, which is appropriate to their needs.

[Layla Moran]

The problem with the step process, though, is that those people who do not want to go into a hostel do not get on to that first step, and therefore remain on the street. In light of that, what steps can the Minister take to try to encourage local authorities—or even provide for local authorities—to release housing for Housing First?

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but I would suggest that the question is slightly more nuanced. If, for the sake of argument, I was running a hostel that people did not want to come into, I would be questioning why that was the case. As I have moved around the country, I have seen excellent examples of accommodation which people feel is safer, more secure and more appropriate than sleeping on the street. If the hon. Lady has examples of hostels where she thinks that people do not feel that degree of comfort, I would be happy to work with her and look at that with my team. We should be ensuring that all accommodation of this type, for particularly vulnerable people, is appropriate.

To run through some of the other things the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said regarding scrapping the Vagrancy Act, my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster reminded us what the Secretary of State said previously: we do have quite a busy legislative programme. It is almost amusing to me that it feels like we have barely had the previous Queen’s Speech, and already the hon. Member for Weaver Vale is talking about the next one. We have reviewed the Act, and are considering what action to take. We do not want to get rid of an Act and find that there is an unintended consequence; some useful element that we have thrown in the bin, but which we in this room would not be keen on losing.

With regards to long-term funding: the upcoming spending review is something way above my pay grade. However, it is something that I am contributing to as somebody who has experienced the vagaries of waiting for funding settlements in order to employ staff, and, unfortunately, as someone who has even had staff leave because they felt their position was insecure. We would all accept that, like the rest of us, the Chancellor has been through a pretty dramatic 18 months. We are moving into a more settled position thanks to the success of the vaccine rollout, and the economy seems to be getting back on its feet. Hopefully, the Chancellor feels suitably reassured and is able to give us a couple of years’ funding to provide that certainty.

With regards to a refreshed strategy, I am delighted to have spent a considerable amount of time discussing with Ministers in other Departments what they need to contribute to help us reach the ambition of ending rough sleeping during the lifetime of this Parliament. We have seen some fantastic schemes, such as work done with the Ministry of Justice on the accommodation and settlement of prisoners when they come out of prison—a very delicate time to ensure that they do not automatically reoffend and go back in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

First, I warmly thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate today. As many have said, and as I know, there are other Members of the House in all political parties who feel as strongly as we do. I agree with the Minister that there is not a paper between us on where we want to end up; however, there is a genuine debate to be had about how we get there.

The support for Housing First is welcome, but equally welcome is the Minister’s acceptance that nothing is perfect, nothing is a panacea. In some parts of the country—in the south-east, for example, where there are only 255 Housing First places—we need to work out how we can unlock that housing. I am genuinely concerned about the planning Bill and the impact it will have on councils’ ability to deliver the policy. It feels a little like one hand of the Government does not know what the other is doing. We need to make sure the actions are joined up. I have other concerns about the planning Bill—that is just one of them—but they are not a matter for this debate.

Regarding the Vagrancy Act, I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for the work that she and others do on that. I am hopeful that we will get a positive result in the next few years, but—to push the Minister gently on this—I do not believe that new legislation is needed. The example from Scotland and the legal advice obtained by Crisis and others show that there is already provision in law, and in large swathes of the country local police have decided not to use the Vagrancy Act at all. That shows that already in England the Act is not needed. I understand the precautionary principle, but it has been proved that we do not need it, so just get rid of it.

I will end by asking the Minister for a favour. I mentioned that trust is an important part of this work. An innovative charity, the Mayday Trust, which I mentioned a few times, has come up with a programme that I genuinely believe is the answer to that final 10% we have been talking about today. Will he consider meeting me and the trust, so that we showcase that important work?

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered ending rough sleeping.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

With reference to the Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping by 2024, whether he has plans to update the rough sleeping strategy to set out how that commitment will be met.

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

Our focus in the last year has rightly been on managing the response to the pandemic and supporting tens of thousands of the most vulnerable people across our society. During the pandemic, we took unprecedented action to protect people sleeping rough or at risk of doing so. This saved lives and achieved huge reductions in the number of people sleeping rough: a 37% decrease in the latest statistics. Our ambition to end rough sleeping within this Parliament still stands. We are taking into account the lessons learned from our ongoing pandemic response, including Everyone In and the Protect programme, to inform our long-term plans.

[Layla Moran [V]]

The Everyone In scheme has undoubtedly been a success and led to incredible stories of lives being turned around in a housing-first approach that has support from all sides of the House. However, several councils have reported that the Government have instructed them, through the terms of the rough sleeping initiative funding allocations, to end the use of emergency accommodation for those sleeping rough, so signalling the end of the Everyone In scheme. To make matters worse, the rough sleeping strategy is still in need of updating following the pandemic. Were local authorities instructed to end Everyone In? If so, have charitable and third-sector groups been made aware so that they can fill in the gaps? When can we expect to see the updated rough sleeping strategy and, indeed, the promised review of the Vagrancy Act 1824?

[Eddie Hughes]

As is so often the case, the Lib Dems are more focused on two things: making plans—rather than taking action—and scaremongering. It is categorically not the case that either charities or local councils have been instructed as the hon. Member suggested. Indeed, funding through the rough sleeping initiative continues to fund people in emergency accommodation. More importantly, we should note that that is a temporary form of accommodation and it is incredibly important that we get people moved on to more permanent forms of accommodation. That should be the objective of all of us.

Vagrancy Act 1824

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this important debate, and I thank colleagues from across the House for taking part.

My goodness, it has been a long time coming, but it does look as though the Vagrancy Act might finally be scrapped. My simple question for the Minister is: when? How long do we need to wait for this review finally to be published? How long do we need to wait until this blight of a law is finally repealed?

As many have already said, the Vagrancy Act is an antiquated piece of legislation from 1824 and it has no place in modern society. It is 2021 and we are still criminalising people for rough sleeping. For years, the Liberal Democrats and colleagues from all parties have been urging action, and the price of inaction is high. Rough sleepers will continue to be arrested and prosecuted for being homeless.

I am told by those with lived experience that outside the official figures, there are many more people who may not be charged but who are threatened with the Act to get them to move on. From 2009 to 2019, 131 proceedings under the Act were brought by Thames Valley police alone. How much longer are we going to wait, and how much longer will the Government let this go on?

I started the campaign to scrap the Vagrancy Act in 2017, but the credit needs to go to the compassionate young people of Oxford. The genesis was a petition started by Oxford University students’ union and Oxford-based homelessness group On Your Doorstep. It arose in answer to the needless criminalisation under the Act of dozens of rough sleepers in Oxford. In February 2018, I introduced the Vagrancy (Repeal) Bill and raised it at Prime Minister’s questions.

Together with campaign lead charity Crisis and supported by Homeless Link, St Mungo’s, Centrepoint, Cymorth Cymru, The Wallich and Shelter Cymru, we officially launched the cross-party “Scrap the Act” campaign at an event in Parliament, with a 41-page report detailing the case against it. That included, critically, a lawyer-led review of the other Acts already in place to prosecute fraud and aggressive begging. MPs and peers from all parties heard stories from people who had lived experience of rough sleeping, and whose lives had been affected by the Act. It was heartbreaking, and we all resolved to do more to get the law repealed for good.

In August 2018, when the review was announced, we welcomed it as massive progress. Then we waited and waited. In January 2019 we debated it on the Floor of the House. It was again raised at Prime Minister’s questions with the then Prime Minister that February, and the Bill was introduced again in March 2020. When I heard the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government say on the Floor of the House in February this year—four years on from the introduction of the original Bill—that the Act should be scrapped, the word I said was “Hallelujah!”

Here we are in April 2021. The law is archaic and should be consigned to history, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State has said that he agrees. What now? The campaign has come a long way from its Oxford grassroots origin, and this debate is proof of that. I am saddened that the Secretary of State could not commit to a timetable in a letter to me last week. Will the Minister do that today? Will he guarantee that the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will be in the Queen’s Speech next month? This is the moment. I also agree with hon. Members who call for more, although I hope the Government will not use that as an excuse to delay the repeal.

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 was a step change, and I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for leading that work. I have been so grateful for his support in this campaign.

I also congratulate the Government on the Everyone In programme. I can tell the Minister that it has had a transformative effect on those who finally, for the first time, have a stable abode. I was told by council officers in Oxfordshire that the programme meant that, for the first time, many people engaged with the wraparound services that are available, and because for the first time they had the peace of mind of knowing where they were going to sleep night after night, it was possible to engage with them. That is why I believe that the “housing first” approach is certainly the way to go. We have had months of a pilot, in effect, during this pandemic. As outlined in the Public Accounts Committee report on the issue—led by me and the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan)—that approach also saves money. It is not just the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.

Above all, repealing the Vagrancy Act would indicate a step change in approach by the whole of society. I am sure that Members from all parties remember the death of Gyula Remes in Westminster underground station in 2018, one of the two deaths that year at the very feet of Parliament. How did Parliament react? By erecting a new gate, further down the entrance to the tube station, and pushing the homelessness out of our way—out of sight and out of mind. That will not do, but it continues. Just this morning, a member of my staff saw British Transport police moving on some rough sleepers from outside our tube entrance. When the staff member asked the police officer what had happened to the homeless people, the officer said, “We told them to get lost, in a nicer sort of way.”

We need a step change in our response to homelessness. Our response needs to be more holistic and more compassionate, and it has to start by repealing this cruel and needless law, which continues to be used to punish the homeless. It is a disgrace. We have produced the work detailing why the Government can move forward quickly. The Bill exists, so just pick it up. It sounds as though the review that the Government commissioned has come to the same conclusions as we did years ago. I ask the Minister to do the right thing. Let us act now together. Let us scrap the Vagrancy Act, and let us make up for the nearly 200 years of hurt that it has caused.

Homelessness

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come on to the strategy. I know the Good Shepherd centre’s work; in fact, I volunteered there as a child, growing up in Wolverhampton.

The centre of our work is our rough sleeping initiative. That involves our team of rough sleeping advisers working closely with local authorities to deliver vital services to help people who are sleeping rough. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to those local authorities, and the charities and organisations and their volunteers, who are taking part in the RSI. Our evaluation concluded that the rough sleeping initiative was working. It is seeing an almost one-third reduction in vulnerable people sleeping rough in those areas that are funded by the initiative, compared with what would have happened if those areas had not been part of the initiative.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

We are keen for more parts of the country to benefit from the initiative.

[Robert Jenrick]

I think I have answered that question. We do not recognise some of the figures that we have heard. In fact, the evidence that I have seen has suggested that rent arrears have fallen over time, in the case of those individuals who have moved on to universal credit.

To support the rough sleeping initiative programmes such as those that I have visited in recent months, I allocated this week up to £112 million to fund the programme for a third year. That represents a 30% increase in funding for this already proven successful programme. Councils, charities and organisations throughout the country will be able to use that money to fund up to 6,000 new bed spaces and 2,500 rough sleeping support staff.

[Layla Moran]

The Secretary of State is being very generous in giving way. I am pleased to hear him outline the strategy for rough sleeping, but is he aware that rough sleeping in this country is illegal, under the Vagrancy Act 1824, which is still on the statute book? We are running a campaign with St Mungo’s, Crisis and others to have it repealed.

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Lady may know, we are reviewing the Act; we are very aware of that and want to see it changed.

We are determined to build on the work of our Housing First programme pilots, which we have already heard about. The pilots, in Greater Manchester, the west midlands and the Liverpool city region, have already helped more than 200 people off the streets and into a home and provided each with a dedicated support worker. A further 800 people are due to benefit by the end of the programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As I am sure we all agree, even one person sleeping rough in this country is one person too many. I am delighted to hear that the Government are going to make sure that this does not happen by the end of this Parliament, but I want to ensure that everything that we can do now is also happening. We can do one thing immediately: scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824. That would encourage all agencies to take a much more holistic approach to the problem.

For those who do not know, only sections 3 and 4 of the Act are left, and the Act makes rough sleeping illegal. This growing body of opinion has been formed on the back of a campaign in Oxford run by the students, who could see with their own eyes how fast the number of people affected was increasing in our city centre. I brought the matter here and I am delighted to see how many Members from across the House have now taken it into their hearts, because the legislation does not, I believe, reflect our values. The stance is also popular; a new survey from Crisis shows that 71% of people do not believe that sleeping rough should be illegal.

I found myself in violent agreement with the thrust of the points raised by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway), who argued that in the case of many of the rough sleepers he has met, rough sleeping is actually a health issue. That is what we need to focus on.

It is all very well, in this room, to say that we want to change the law and take a different approach, but people also judge us by our actions. I draw attention to what happened last year, when the homeless gentleman died on our doorstep in the Westminster tube entrance. The answer to that from this place was to evict the group of homeless people who were there, and put up a gate. For shame! It means that now, as we walk in, we do not have to be bothered by that in the same way; they are slightly further down. I do not think that that reflects the values of Members in this House, and I think we need to do things as soon as possible to show what does.

The Government insist on a review and are waiting for that to conclude, but it is not necessary. Crisis, which I have been working with, has done that. It can show how it is possible to repeal not just section 4 but also section 3. To those who say that the Act is not used, I say that it is. In 2018, 11 people were prosecuted for sleeping rough. That is not right; it must be stopped. Let us make this the year that we scrap the Vagrancy Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

We are holding safeguarding reviews where appropriate, but I am happy to continue that conversation with the hon. Gentleman, and to take up his offer to meet the domestic abuse charity that he mentioned.

In West Sussex, people who sleep rough will be directed away from A&E, and supported to access more appropriate and suitable healthcare services.

A number of colleagues from across the House raised the issue of social housing, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), with whom I enjoyed visiting some of these services over the Christmas period. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) put on record his experience on the matter, and spoke passionately about the importance of choice and supply. The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) was a passionate advocate for her constituents and the issues they raise. I am always happy to speak to her about those issues in more depth. We have committed to increasing the supply of social housing, and have made £9 billion available through the affordable homes programme to March 2022, to deliver approximately a quarter of a million new affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including social rents.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Hall]

I am afraid I will not at the moment.

Since 2010, we have delivered more than 464,000 new affordable homes, including 331,000 affordable homes for rent. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) raised his concerns about temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation means that people are receiving help and support, but of course we want to see those individuals and their families moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible, and on a permanent basis. We recently announced £263 million of funding for local authorities to support the delivery of homelessness services—an increase of £23 million on this financial year. That funding will also support prevention programmes to help those who are at risk of becoming homeless.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Hall]

I will not at the moment, but I will come back to some of the issues that have been raised in the debate.

A number of colleagues, including the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), raised concerns about welfare and the local housing allowance. We have of course delivered on our commitment to end the benefit freeze, and the majority of people in receipt of housing support will see their support increase as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

We are providing specialist funding. I am happy to go into that in more detail with the hon. Gentleman.

We understand that enabling access to and better outcomes from services that prevent mental ill health, improve mental health support recovery and promote good mental health will contribute to our ambitions to end rough sleeping. That is why, as part of our strategy, the Government have committed £30 million of funding from NHS England over the next five years for specialist mental health support for those who are rough sleeping.

[Layla Moran]

rose—

[Luke Hall]

I will now address the point that the hon. Lady raised about the review of the Vagrancy Act. I know that she has written extensively about this issue and raised it in the House before. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) also raised it today. They both put on record their experience in and work on this issue. Our rough sleeping strategy committed to reviewing the Act, as they know. We are clear that nobody should be criminalised for simply having nowhere to live and sleeping rough. Because of the engagement with stakeholders that we have undertaken, we know that this is a hugely complex matter with diverging views between charities, the public sector, police forces and local authorities. That is why we believe that this review is the right course of action for now.

I want to address some of the wider points that have been raised on rough sleeping. This issue has been highlighted by a number of Members across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who talked about the £470,000 rough sleeping initiative grant funding going into his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford referred to the encouraging signs that her local authority is seeing through the funding. Our commitment to tackle this issue is demonstrated very clearly by bringing forward by three years the commitment to end rough sleeping altogether by the end of this Parliament.

Our strategy sets out a far-reaching £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now and to put in place the structures that will end rough sleeping completely within the next five years. This means preventing rough sleeping before it happens, intervening at crisis points, and helping people to recover with the kind of flexible support that meets their needs. Across Government, we are working with a renewed ambition to scale up our successful programmes, such as the RSI, and to devise new interventions to meet this important manifesto commitment. We are providing a further £437 million in 2020-21 to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. This marks a £69 million increase in funding from the current year and builds on the £1.2 billion that we have already invested over the spending review period to April this year. We have also expanded the Government’s support through the rough sleeping initiative this year, with £46 million of funding, including £12 million for areas joining the initiative. We expect that to deliver 750 staff and 2,600 bed spaces this year.

This has been an important debate on what we all understand to be a complex and challenging issue that the Government are determined to permanently address. We are glad to have had the opportunity to explain our considerable ambitions—

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Layla Moran Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate on this incredibly important matter. I thank the hon. Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) for supporting the application, along with all the members of the Public Accounts Committee. I also thank the hon. Members for Redcar (Anna Turley) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), who submitted similar applications that have been lumped in with this debate. I also give my thanks in advance to everyone who wants to speak today; I will be as quick as I possibly can.

Local government spending is a story of unsustainability and inequality. According to the Local Government Association, which is holding its conference as we speak, funding to local government and business rates have fallen by £4.1 billion since 2015. Councils have far less spending power, but here is the rub: our local councils are having to deal with a big growth in demand for key services. Taking into account the decrease in Government grants, subsidised a bit by the increase in council tax, our councils have lost nearly a third of their spending power over the last nine years, and key services are suffering.

We all know what that means, at its heart, for the most vulnerable in our communities. Since 2010 the number of homeless households has risen by 33%, the number of looked-after children is up by nearly 11% and the number of people aged 65 and over in need of care has increased by 14%. It is great that we are living longer, but central Government have not grasped the nettle.

The combination of with higher national insurance contributions, the apprenticeship levy and the national living wage means that councils are at breaking point. Given the major stresses on children’s services and adult social care, I will focus on those today, but there are many others, and I look forward to other Members making contributions about their local area.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

For childcare and other local authority services, central Government have shifted funding away from a grant system and on to business rates. Shopkeepers, in particular, are now finding it difficult to carry on their business. Central Government have also failed to deliver on social council housing, which is an indictment.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. In fact, spending on services has decreased by 19.2% in real terms, which is not sustainable.

In my local area, Vale of White Horse District Council is a good example. We won the council from the Conservatives in the last round of local elections, and now we have sight of the finances. I am sure this is not unique in the country, but there is not enough money to fund the basic statutory services that the council is expected to deliver. The council is therefore eating into its reserves at an alarming rate. Coupled with that, an outsourcing agreement that was meant to save the council £50 million, and in fact has saved nothing, is projected to cost the taxpayer money. We are in a dire situation in the Vale.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The situation in the hon. Lady’s area is mirrored in Harrow, where the council has lost over 97% of its revenue support grant since 2010 and is really struggling. Is it not therefore particularly sad that neither of the two Conservative candidates for the premiership are talking about these issues at their hustings?

[Layla Moran]

I hope today’s debate will be a clarion call to them and others about the importance of local government in delivering key services.

The resilience of local councils across the country is a focus of the National Audit Office’s work, and it has real cause for concern. The message I have received from my friends at today’s LGA conference is twofold. First, we must remember that councils are multi-million pound companies, yet they do not know where their funding is coming from past next year. How on earth are they expected to plan without any sense of the medium term, let alone the long term?

Secondly, if we are to shift the burden from central Government to local government, income generation needs to be made easier. Across the country, I am not aware of a single council that has successfully used the referendum mechanism to raise council tax. This is not working. We need another way to make sure councils are properly funded.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Between 2011 and 2015, according to the NAO, 25% of the central Government grant to councils was cut. Does the hon. Lady regret the role of the Liberal Democrat coalition Government in such a heavy level of cuts?

[Layla Moran]

When I was a candidate, I, too, fought against these cuts, particularly those to children’s services. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am a teacher, and I was seeing the effect the cuts would have. Interestingly, the data show that some of that was fat that could be trimmed off. [Interruption.] Let me finish. [Interruption.] Just look at the transcripts from the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government. In 2012-13, there was an increase in efficiency, but I will concede that after that point the cuts should have stopped. The point of today’s debate is to move forwards. Having been elected in 2017, I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in looking forwards and not backwards.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

I am moving on. I am not going to give way.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Lady just referred to the Select Committee.

[Layla Moran]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman in just a second.

Let me move on to adult social care, because it is really important. The Chancellor’s extra £750 million for social care in 2019-20 falls drastically short, given that the funding gap for adult social care is expected to reach £3.6 billion by 2025, according to the Local Government Association. This is a vital government service and central Government responsibility is shared between two Departments. I have many questions for the Minister, but one is: where on earth is the adult social care Green Paper? The situation is no longer sustainable. The adult social care sector in England accounted for 1.34 million jobs in 2016-17, yet, according to the National Audit Office, it has been 10 years since a national workforce strategy has been published. Furthermore, 43% of those aged 80 or over in England in 2016 needed help with activities for daily living, yet only 20% actually received the help they need. Demand is increasing and less is being provided—and to fewer people.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

And of course I happily give way to the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Betts]

I am not sure the hon. Lady will be quite so happy when she hears what I have to say about the matter. Again, this is typical of the Lib Dems, is it not? We see collective memory loss about what happened between 2010 and 2015, and them now washing their hands. Does she accept that the biggest cuts in real terms per year in adult social care happened between 2010 and 2015, and she and her colleagues in the Lib Dems bear equal responsibility for that?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. As I say, I am looking forwards.

On adult social care, the Liberal Democrats are proposing—I would be curious to know whether Labour is planning the same—a penny in the pound on income tax to add to the social care budget, in order to sort out the short-term funding issues. That has to be just a short-term solution. The longer-term solution is not this tit-for-tat political to-ing and fro-ing; it has to be a cross-party effort to find a long-term settlement that will last for decades, not years.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady on this. The Select Committees on Health and Social Care and on Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a joint report on the future funding of social care. One of its recommendations was a social care premium—an insurance based model like the German model. Would her party engage with that, on a cross-party basis, involving Conservative Members and Members on those Benches?

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree with that. Those calls were led by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has been working on this issue on a cross-party basis. We have to do this together or we are not going to do it at all.

I now come to children’s services, an issue that, as a former teacher, is very close to my heart. Councils are overspending on these services, too—they did so by £872 million in 2017-18. The Public Accounts Committee has reported that 91% of authorities overspent. We are talking about young vulnerable children here. Something odd is happening, because although the number of children in the population has gone up, increasing by 7% since 2010, the number of child protection assessments has increased by 77%, on average, across the country. Worryingly, however, the figures are really different depending on the area of the country, suggesting that best practice is not being spread. For example, Camden Council has decreased the number of children that it has in looked-after care but other parts of the country have increased this by more than 90%. What are the Government doing to ensure that what some councils are clearly doing right is being spread? Meanwhile 42% of all local councils are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted—but that means 58% are not. That is atrocious. We need to make sure that councils are held to account. My understanding is that Ofsted is so overstretched that it has for the moment suspended the rating of local councils. Will the Minister clarify whether that is true?

The final thing I wish to talk about is prevention. I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and my colleagues and I are interested in value for money for the taxpayer. I am deeply concerned that the changes to children’s centres and youth services are not delivering value for money. In fact, worse than that, they are failing the young people of our country. The decrease in the number of Sure Start centres in Oxfordshire has meant that we cannot reach the same number of families as we did previously.

Meanwhile, the head of Ofsted said in her annual report:

“The evidence suggests that these cuts to youth and other services are a false economy, simply leading to greater pressures elsewhere.”

The Minister will know that in 2015 the Government axed the Audit Commission. Who is looking after the money? When something is cut in one Department, what effect is it going to have elsewhere? I am told that the responsibility is now in the purview of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but it is not transparent. In the reports that the Public Accounts Committee has seen, it was not obvious that everyone knows what is going on. That is a key ask of the Minister: who is looking after the money? From what we have seen, not enough people are.

The lack of someone looking after the money has an effect on things such as the schools system. Schools have now become a repository for every other issue that has happened in local government, and we see the same with our police. I am sure many Members know of similar issues to those that I see in respect of special educational needs and disability funding: there just is not enough money adequately to support the children who need education, health and care plans. Why, when schools are already under funding pressure, are they being asked to provide the first £6,000 towards any plan? Surely it would make more sense that if a child has a need, that need is fulfilled.

Similarly, when are we going to see the Government address inequalities in the system, such as those relating to young carers? They are required in statutory legislation to undergo an assessment of what they need, but there is no legislation that follows through on that and says that they have to be provided with the things they have been assessed as needing. Who is dealing with those kinds of inequalities?

[Gareth Thomas]

One pressure that the hon. Lady has not mentioned is homelessness. Although we on the Opposition Benches will not be surprised by the Government’s lack of additional revenue to tackle homelessness, does she not think it particularly odd that the Conservative party, which claims to be the party of the armed forces, is doing nothing about the scale of rough sleeping among veterans?

[Layla Moran]

As I said at the beginning of the debate, we have seen a rise in homelessness. It has been a particular focus of mine on the Public Accounts Committee, and the hon. Gentleman might be aware of my campaign to scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824. We need to make sure that the fact that we are a compassionate nation is reflected in all parts of policy. I could not agree with his point more. As he rightly pointed out, there are many things that I have not touched on, but I am sure other Members will. This has just been a quick canter around the finances in the estimates.

I hope that the Public Accounts Committee’s reports on local government spending and sustainability are bedside reading for all Ministers, because they make recommendations that I sincerely hope Ministers will take seriously. When the Minister responds to the debate, please can we have answers on the following? First, where is the spending review? How on earth can we expect councils to plan for the medium and long term when they do not even know where next year’s money is going to come from? Secondly, where is the fairer funding review? The Government have moved the burden of taxation from central Government to local government, but the underlying inequity in the system still exists. Thirdly, linked to that, where is the business rates review? As was alluded to earlier, local economies are suffering because of a lack of joined-up thinking. Finally, a refrain that I hope and am sure others will continue: where is the social care Green Paper?

We need all four together before we can achieve genuine value for money in what local councils deliver. Anything else is a false economy. All of us see the knock-on effects of these Whitehall spending decisions in our postbags. We also see the desperation of people who come to us because they feel that their local councils have failed them. However, half the time, it is not local councils that have failed them; it is central Government. Local government is vital. It is the coalface—it is where real policy meets real people. I hope that today’s debate will be a clarion call. Local government may not always be sexy, but it is certainly significant. I thank all colleagues for being here and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to have today’s debate.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to catch your eye in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who is a highly valued member of the Public Accounts Committee, of which I have the honour to be deputy Chair. It is clear from her speech that she is extremely knowledgeable about this area, particularly about education, on which she is the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

I also pay tribute to other Members who have helped to secure this really important debate. The reason it is so important is that local authorities are by far the largest devolved form of government in England. They deliver a range of vital services, such as education, planning and social services. The money devoted to local government, and therefore to the effectiveness of these services, is vital to the people of this country, which is why, for the first time in 27 years in this place, I wanted to speak in an estimates debate, but particularly in this one on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It is a disaster for the people covered by a local authority area when it runs out of money and centrally appointed commissioners are brought in to oversee the finances, as we have seen in Northamptonshire County Council. We need to look very carefully at the role of section 15 officers, who have issued more than 114 notices of loss of financial control since 2010-11. We particularly need to encourage the Government to be intrusive in their inspection of local audits, because it is possible to spot when a local authority is beginning to get into trouble far sooner than was the case with Northamptonshire, thereby possibly avoiding bringing in the local commissioners.

As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said, the finances of local government are fairly parlous at the moment—resources fell by 34% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2017-18. Paragraph 12 on page 9 of the National Audit Office report states tellingly that overspending and the use of resources were not fully financially sustainable over the medium term. I encourage my colleagues on the Front Bench to look very carefully at this whole matter.

Local government is now facing a funding gap of £3.1 billion by 2019-20, which is estimated to rise to a staggering £8 billion by 2024-25, according to the NAO. Local government spending is being stretched significantly as we face the demand for services way outstretching available funding. This year, for example, Gloucestershire County Council has had to raise its council tax in every district to make £21 million of savings to deal with the financial pressure. To simply keep up with the county’s demand for services, council tax payers now need to provide nearly £295 million.

Children’s social services are a particular worry in the county and across many education authorities. It is the No. 1 financial pressure on Gloucestershire’s 2019-20 budget, as the authority will spend an additional £16.3 million on the most vulnerable children and young people in the county. Ofsted made a monitoring visit to Gloucestershire’s children’s social services in April—its sixth monitoring visit since our local authority was judged to be inadequate in March 2017. It is promising to see that progress has been made. However, that progress was deemed to be slow, and we cannot continue to fail to provide good enough social services for our most vulnerable children and young people.

Throughout the country, 42% of children’s social services are rated good and we spend some £8.8 billion on them, but 91% of local authorities have overspent in this area and we need to understand why. We had the education debate yesterday, and although there is a record amount of money in education overall—rising from £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion in 2019-2020—the problem is with distribution. That is the case for my local authority, and I suspect that some of my colleagues on both sides of the House who are in the f40 group would agree that the distribution of money is critical. For example, an authority such as Hackney is getting £6,500 per secondary place, yet some schools in Gloucestershire are below the fair funding amount of £4,800 per secondary place.

[Layla Moran]

I apologise for intervening, as I have already spoken for a long time. I am a vice-chair of the f40 group. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the current calls from the f40 are about not just distribution but quantum? The “Together for Education” event that took place across the way in Westminster on the weekend before last called for an extra £2.2 billion a year in the education budget, because the f40 group recognises that we can redistribute all we want but the quantum also needs to rise.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I accept what the hon. Lady says. The problem is that it is about not only the money that schools get, but the costs that central Government keep imposing on schools—pensions, the apprenticeship levy or other expenditures. The costs keep going up, so the amount that schools have to spend is squeezed every year.

The Government need to do two things. First, they need to consider the quantum, as the hon. Lady has said. Secondly, when they impose an additional tax or an additional cost on a school, they need to consider very carefully how that school’s budget is being squeezed. We want to give our children the fairest possible start in life, and allocating adequate resources to education is almost the most important thing a Government can do, which is why I feel so strongly about this issue.

I also feel strongly about children’s special needs. The amount that Gloucestershire is spending in this regard is going up and up. I am grateful to the Government for providing an additional £1.35 million this year and next to deal with the problem, but they need to understand the causes of the increased demand in special needs, and education, health and care plans. The Government probably need to ring-fence this budget so that we do not get into the situation that we did this year, whereby Gloucestershire County Council was going to top-slice its general schools budget by up to 0.5% to deal with the problem. It is currently entitled to do so, but that is not fair on schoolchildren in general, which is why the Government need to ring-fence this budget.

Local enterprise partnerships—where local authorities contribute a significant amount of money, certainly some of the expertise and some of the governance—are rather variable, as we discovered from the NAO report. Some work extremely well; some work far less well. Some are governed extremely well; some are governed less well. There is geographical overlap in some, but not in others. If the Government wish to deliver their industrial strategy to the best possible degree, they need to look at the whole matter of LEPs quite carefully.

The fire and rescue service in Gloucestershire is currently run by the county council, but there is considerable pressure from the Home Office to transfer it to the police and crime commissioner. We have already had one inquiry and the proposal was rejected, yet the police and crime commissioner still wishes to overturn the decision. I say to my colleagues on the Front Bench that a considerable amount of resource and effort is being wasted by continually bickering over this matter. The fire and rescue service, I say loud and clear, is well run in Gloucestershire. The county council supports it, as do, I think, most Conservative colleagues—certainly, I support it very strongly. It should remain where it is.

We need to get local government funding functioning properly. This is a really serious problem. The Government wish to move to a new form of funding—the core rate support grant—in local government in 2021. That means that there are vital decisions that they need to make quite quickly. The proposal is that councils should keep three quarters of the revenue, down from 90% originally, but fundamental decisions on how this will work are coming very late in the day. No council should be under financial pressure, because of the tier splits, to move to 75% retention. We need to decide what the distribution system should be. If Westminster Council, for example, keeps 75% of its rate support, it will be awash with money, whereas a council in the north that keeps 75% will be in severe shortage. The councils need to know. As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon says, it is only fair that the funding system for councils both for next year and the year after are made very clear fairly soon.

The other side of the coin is that the Government have a target for building 300,000 more homes each year. Councils will be able to do that only if they are properly incentivised by the council tax system. They need to be able to work out what that system is going to be. As part of the local government finance reorganisation, what will the incentives be for councils that want to expand their council tax base, as with the incentives to expand their business rate base? Again, the Government need to make some decisions on this. They need to tell us whether the new homes bonus will remain, and in what form, to give councils that incentive.

This is a huge field. I think I have cantered over some of the main areas, and others will do the same.

Vagrancy Act

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am grateful to the House for allowing me to raise the issue of the Vagrancy Act 1824 on this of all evenings, when others out there might be forgiven for thinking that we do nothing other than talk about Brexit.

I have been campaigning to repeal the Vagrancy Act for well over a year now. In fact, my campaign began in response to a petition by the Oxford University Student Union and Oxford-based homelessness campaign group On Your Doorstep. I want to give them full credit for starting this.

The Vagrancy Act is a cruel and outdated piece of legislation. It was aimed at tackling the rise in homeless veterans after the Napoleonic wars, and even then it was controversial, with the great abolitionist William Wilberforce suggesting that it was too catch-all because it did not consider people’s individual circumstances. Nearly 200 years later, it is still used to criminalise people for sleeping rough or begging.

Between 2014 and 2016, more than 3,000 homeless people were dragged before the courts in violation of the Vagrancy Act. That is only the tip of the iceberg, as many more individuals will have been arrested but had their cases dropped, or the Act will have been used as a threat to move them on.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. This issue affects us all. Just last week in my constituency, I had to deal with a homeless person in great need. Does she agree that the use of this law to target people who are sleeping on the streets or begging should be stopped, and instead councils should work with compassion and care to help people who are desperate and find a way to make our social care system work for that individual, as opposed to simply moving them on, as helpless and hopeless as they were before? Compassion and care—that is what we need in society.

[Layla Moran]

The words “compassion and care” will repeat themselves in what I have to say tonight, and I could not more agree with the hon. Gentleman. The signal that this sends to others about who we are as a society is why I believe this Act needs to be repealed as a matter of urgency.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is quite right to refer to William Wilberforce. He acknowledged at the time that the Act did nothing to take into account personal situations and the reasons behind homelessness. As she said, his words ring true two centuries later. Does she agree with me, and I think with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that in a modern society it is far more effective and compassionate to use time and resources to help those who desperately need that support, rather than relying on this blunt piece of legislation on the statute book, which, as Wilberforce pointed out, does nothing to help those living on the streets and simply criminalises the vulnerable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I could not agree more with every word the hon. Lady said. Indeed, if we want an example of how badly the Vagrancy Act can be used, last year Windsor Council suggested, just before the royal wedding, that local police use the Act to “clean up the streets”. That was a disgraceful display, but, unfortunately, it is not uncommon. The Act is a common tool that is available to the police across the country.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this very pressing issue to the House. Does she not agree that it is particularly cruel, given that a lot of homeless people are actually ex-military men who have devoted their lives and given their commitment to this country? They are on the streets for various reasons, but we should treat them in a very different way, rather than punishing them when they were originally prepared to give their lives for this country.

[Layla Moran]

In fact, this comes back to why the Act was controversial 200 years ago, let alone now. The use of the Act is damaging and counterproductive in tackling rough sleeping. Rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness, which we all know are incredibly complex, the Act simply displaces people from one area to another, which is particularly problematic given that the funding of support is still to an extent based on local connection.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Layla Moran]

I give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Anneliese Dodds]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent case, and I am very pleased that it is one that my party supports as well. When I have had discussions with rough sleepers—at the new hub, O’Hanlon House, the Porch, the Gatehouse or, indeed, doing a St Mungo’s round—in every case those discussions showed that people really need the support she is talking about, rather than to be criminalised, which can of course set them back substantially. Does she agree?

[Layla Moran]

I completely agree. Indeed, we know very well from our city how much our local constituents care desperately, and care and compassion, as has been mentioned, is actually the driving force behind why people care so deeply about this matter. The legislation acts as a barrier to cultural change. It sends a message that the act of rough sleeping itself is morally wrong, and it treats people who are sleeping rough as a negative problem to solve, rather than individuals in need of positive support.

In 2018, I met the Leader of the House on this matter, and asked if she could help me to repeal the Act. She was sympathetic, but she told me that some homelessness stakeholders wanted to keep the Act in place. This was reaffirmed by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), who is the Minister for homelessness, when we met last year. However, in my second meeting about this with Ministers, I got positive engagement. I am disappointed that the Minister for homelessness is not on the Front Bench today, because I am going to answer some of the questions she raised in the meeting. However, she made the point that the Act was used to encourage rough sleepers to get off the streets and into shelters.

I listened carefully to those arguments, and I continue to disagree with them. The thing is that threatening rough sleepers with the Vagrancy Act to coerce them into shelters is not the way to help them. It is paternalistic and it claims that it is for their own good, but it actually has the opposite effect. In a survey of people sleeping rough carried out by Crisis, 56% said that enforcement measures such as the Vagrancy Act contributed to their feeling ashamed of being homeless, and 25% said that following an enforcement intervention their alcohol consumption increased. What does that say about the effect of the Act on the human level?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does not the hon. Lady agree that many homeless people have nowhere else to go during the day, and they are therefore just moved on time and again? The only solution is to ensure that people have secure housing, and the Government target nine years from now is, quite frankly, far too late.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Using the Act just moves the problem on; often, it does not tackle the core issues behind what is happening.

This is my first question—of many, as the Minister will not be surprised to hear. Who are these stakeholders who wish to keep the Act in place? I would be genuinely grateful for a response, because they certainly do not include the homelessness charities with which I have been working, or the outreach managers whom St Mungo’s surveyed in 2018; 71% of them believed that the Act should be scrapped. One said:

“The Vagrancy Act takes a moral view on street activity giving no consideration to the complex reasons behind any such activity such as begging and rough sleeping. It is widely agreed that criminalizing addicts and homeless people serves no purpose apart from to further push them to the fringes of society, towards further impoverishment and stigmatization. I agree it should be scrapped”.

Surely we should listen to the views of professionals, who see at first hand the Act’s damaging impact on rough sleepers.

When we met last year, the Minister for homelessness argued that she does not want to criminalise homeless people—I believe her—but that she supports the use of the Vagrancy Act to combat “aggressive and persistent begging”. I went away and did my homework, just as I, like a good teacher, would have told my students to. Legal advice to Crisis concluded that the actions criminalised by the Vagrancy Act are covered by many other provisions in criminal law:

“Much of the language is archaic. The conduct it seeks to criminalise appears to belong to a different era. Legislation other than the Vagrancy Act, if correctly and carefully applied, provides a much better and modern framework than what remains of the Act”.

The Public Order Act 1986 and the Fraud Act 2006 are good examples of legislation that could and should combat aggressive begging. Indeed, in a debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister for homelessness acknowledged that

“Local authorities and police are equipped with a wide range of enforcement powers to combat issues arising from begging…Particularly flexible are the powers contained in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014”—[Official Report, 17 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 386WH.]

If there is other legislation in place, why is the Vagrancy Act needed at all?

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

The hon. Lady is doing an excellent job. I ask this so that I can respond to the debate properly. She made the point that criminalising people who are homeless or begging damages the ability to help them. She went on to say that other Acts may also criminalise them and that they should or could be used instead of the Vagrancy Act. Is there a contradiction in that statement? Would she like to clarify that, just to enable me to respond more fully?

[Layla Moran]

I will come to that later, when I will ask the Minister to extend the review that his Department is carrying out of this legislation to include all that other legislation, but I would point out that the Acts I mentioned are about aggressive begging, which is different, of course, from being genuinely homeless; we need to make sure that the two are not conflated.

In some parts of the country, the Vagrancy Act is not used at all. Chief constables can decide to use the Act at their discretion, and it is used in only 34% of the country. Why does it not have to be used in 66% of the country, and why is it used in 34% of it? Furthermore, use is planned to decrease to 7% of areas. Is the aim to shut this door? However, the Act is still there, though it has been repealed in Northern Ireland and Scotland. If it is barely being used, why not just repeal it?

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

The Act was repealed in Scotland in 1982. Every night, when I go from a full House here to my flat, I pass six homeless people while crossing the bridge to St Thomas’s Hospital. A young girl—18 years old—arrived there last night. She was sitting on the bridge with a bag. I did not know how to approach her, or what to do. That is happening here, and there have already been two deaths outside this House. We have to look at the Vagrancy Act, and I applaud the hon. Lady for bringing the subject to the House.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. His passion is palpable. This measure is receiving wide cross-party support in the House and I would like to take a moment to thank all hon. Members for being here for the debate. It means so much to the community.

I was very pleased to hear that a review is on the cards. I speak to homelessness charities and they are a little frustrated that there has been no announcement on when it will take place. That is important, but I do ask why we need one at all when the situation is blindingly obvious. I encourage the Minister to widen the scope and ambition of the review. There should be a wider assessment of enforcement, for example on the use of public space protection orders and dispersal orders that give the police and local authorities the power to penalise the act of rough sleeping itself. We need a cool-headed assessment of whether that actually helps the people we seek to help. I believe that the Government want to help, but I wonder if the stick approach now needs to be changed.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that measures such as the Vagrancy Act not only criminalise homeless people, but put into the mind of the public that they are criminals and, as a result, they receive worse treatment? In Brighton, one homeless person was murdered last year and many others are regularly attacked. Removing the Act would show that it is not acceptable to treat people who have ended up in dire circumstances in that way.

[Layla Moran]

I agree entirely. The principle of no enforcement without support is vital. As funding for local authorities has decreased, there is often not enough money to tackle the root causes and to give the support to those who are at risk of homelessness or who are homeless. Rather than spending money enforcing laws that punish people and move them on, in the long term it would be a far better use of taxpayers’ money to invest properly in the very welcome Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which I have no doubt the Minister will mention, and to ensure support is in place to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.

We all know that the causes of homelessness are complex. The Government need to do more to support local councils in providing services to combat those root causes. The Homelessness Reduction Act is a welcome start, but it cannot be the end. It is clear that the Vagrancy Act, among other Acts, is the lowest hanging fruit—it just makes problems worse. We need a more compassionate and preventive approach to tackling the national scandal of homelessness.

Repealing the Vagrancy Act would be an easy first step. It would not take any money, just a three-line Bill. The private Member’s Bill is waiting there and I am desperate for it to receive support. I think it would receive support from all corners of the House. I am sorry to say—this is the way with private Members’ Bills—that it was blocked on First Reading. However, we are seeking another First Reading soon. I am delighted that the Labour party is now supporting the Bill—that is brilliant—as are St Mungo’s, Centrepoint and Crisis. There is a real swell in the campaign from across the political spectrum and beyond.

The Vagrancy Act is a symbol: what sort of country do we want to be? Rather than being a cold-hearted mean-spirited country, I believe we should show compassion and care to those who need our help. I ask the Minister to push as hard as he possibly can at the open door to scrap the Vagrancy Act.

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

This is the first time I have heard the hon. Lady talk on this subject in the House. I congratulate her on the tone of the debate and on how heartfelt and passionate she is on this very, very important subject. I congratulate her, too, on securing tonight’s debate.

I want to live in a country—I think we all do—where no one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why the Government have committed to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it by 2027. When I first entered Parliament in 2010, before I did this job as a Minister, I worked for the then Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). We worked together then, as part of the coalition Government, on how we could come together across government, and I think also on a cross-party basis, to tackle the scourge of homelessness. That is why I am pleased that the Government published our rough sleeping strategy in August 2018, which set out, as I think has been acknowledged across the sector, an ambitious programme building on three core pillars. Before I answer the hon. Lady’s questions, I want to expand on them briefly to help us all understand the context of the debate.

First, we want to prevent rough sleeping before it happens. That is hugely important and is our key target. We then want to intervene at crisis point, again to try to prevent rough sleeping from ever occurring. For people who find themselves rough sleeping, we need flexible support that meets their needs and enables them to leave the streets. That is why we committed £1.2 billion of funding over the spending review period to tackle homelessness. We implemented the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—the hon. Lady correctly said that I would mention it—to put prevention, which is key, absolutely at the heart of our approach to tackling homelessness.

We must ensure that people get early support to prevent them from ever becoming homeless, and we must provide support on a broader basis than ever before to help people off the streets. We have started to do that through the introduction of pilots such as Housing First, the rapid rehousing pathway and the private rented sector access fund to help people leave the streets and find a sustainable stay in accommodation.

On the hon. Lady’s main point, the Government are clear that no one should be criminalised in this country for having nowhere to sleep. That is quite wrong, and we are determined to tackle it. We have made it clear in the guidance that public space protection orders should not be used to target people who are simply sleeping rough or are homeless. Rough sleeping on its own does not have, or is very unlikely to have, an unreasonable detrimental impact on a neighbourhood, and therefore those orders should not be used. On the point that the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) made about the real price of homelessness that we see every night in London, we all understand that we should not target or criminalise people who are simply homeless or sleeping rough.

People are convicted every year under sections 3 and 4 of the 1824 Act, to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon referred, but we have seen that they are used to target persistent begging and public order offences in public places. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is shaking her head, but that is what our rough sleeping advisory panel’s research shows. She asked who is on the advisory panel. That information is publicly available. It includes Crisis, Shelter, St Mungo’s, Homeless Link, the Local Government Association and others.

[Layla Moran]

For clarification, I asked which stakeholders agree that the Vagrancy Act can be used. At least three of the charities that the Minister mentions have said to me that they do not, so who wants it to be used? As he can see, I am listening, and I want to understand who wants this and why, so that I can get to the bottom of it. Who are they?

[Jake Berry]

If the hon. Lady would allow me to develop my argument, I will attempt to answer her question.

Of course, other legislation is used. The hon. Lady mentioned the Public Order Act 1986 and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—another very old piece of legislation that makes persistent begging in public places an arrestable offence. She asked why laws other than the Vagrancy Act are not used. It is because they have a higher burden of proof and harsher penalties are often—although not always—attached to them than to the Vagrancy Act.

Budget Resolutions

Layla Moran Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I want to develop a point that was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who said that for many people the Budget was actually a pleasant surprise—it has promised them tax cuts and spending increases—but that in doing so the Chancellor is taking a big risk with an economy that is not particularly strong. It is not particularly strong because, as the Treasury forecast shows, the growth rate looking forward is abysmal—it is about 1.5%, which is one of the worst in the developed world—and that is quite apart from the poor growth at the moment.

The growth rate is also based on a fundamentally optimistic assumption. Quite apart from the lag on growth caused by Brexit at the moment, the assumption in the Treasury forecast is that the Government will land a deal, and not just a deal but a good deal, with a smooth transition to a trading arrangement not greatly different from the present. Well, it might happen—pigs might fly—but it is optimistic and, if that expectation is not realised, the economy has very little resilience. We have very high public debt, as the Government acknowledged. The domestic savings ratio is appalling—I think it is the worst in the developed world and is now negative. The corporate sector is heavily leveraged, as Governor Carney pointed out the other day. All of this is reflected in the current account deficit, forecast to be 4% of GDP, which is one of the worst in the developed world. If something goes wrong, there is no longer an inflow of capital and the exchange rate falls; we have had a devaluation of 17% since the referendum and we will have another one.

The main criticism I have of the Budget is that it may have seemed comforting, but the Chancellor did not actually confront the real issue that we have to face: how do we have a mature debate about how to end austerity? That is going to involve people paying more tax, and the issue is how we do it, and how we do it in the fairest and most efficient way. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has pointed out, we have not really got to the end of austerity, or even to the beginning of the end of it.

For most parts of public spending, there is a continued squeeze. That is true of schools. We did partially protect them under the coalition, but that is no longer happening. Colleges, which are necessary to deliver the Government’s training and apprenticeships, have been cut to pieces. Local government is potentially in an appalling situation. That means a squeeze on social care, which means that the money going to the health service will be wasted because it will have to accommodate lots of elderly people who should be at home. Bankrupt councils, many of them Tory county councils, will be forced to raise council tax, so we will get a tax increase, but it will be a tax increase by stealth, rather than by confronting the matter openly.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

On the schools point, does my right hon. Friend agree that the wording the Chancellor used in relation to money for the “little extras” was insulting to teachers, who, day in and day out, find that they have to reach into their own pockets to deliver the basics in schools?

[Sir Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am amazed that the Chancellor is not even aware of this. Many mainstream schools have seen cuts in teaching assistants, teachers, curriculums and so on. This will be compounded because there is nothing in the spending envelope that offers any hope that the problem is going to be dealt with.

That leads on to the question about how tax should be raised. The Government have offered tax cuts in the form of lifting the tax threshold for low earners and for middle earners. In principle, lifting the tax threshold is an attractive policy. I like to think that I was the author of the one we introduced in government. It was strongly resisted by the Conservatives at the time, but they have subsequently adopted it and claimed credit for it. The attraction was not just that poorer people pay less tax, but that the marginal rate of tax is removed when they move out of the welfare system, which encourages work.

In an ideal world, everybody should have a tax cut, but there is an issue about priorities here. Extending the tax cut to the upper threshold is, frankly, something that the country simply cannot afford. At a time when universal credit is being only partially financed following the cuts made by the Osborne Budget three years ago—only about half of that cut has been reinserted—that should be the priority. It is absolutely wrong that priority has been given to lifting the upper tax threshold. Because the two proposals are amalgamated in the Budget statement, I and my Lib Dem colleagues—and, I hope, others—will vote against this.

Beyond that, what this country now needs above all is a mature, grown-up debate about how the end of austerity will be managed. It is going to involve higher taxes for almost everybody—obviously, mostly at the top end, but there is going to have to be a general increase in taxation. I am afraid that the Chancellor’s pretence that we can have our cake and eat it is not realistic. It will rebound on him and on the Government.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that in addition to all the measures in the Bill, the Government must get their own house in order? Some 10,000 Ministry of Defence homes are left empty; does he not think it is slightly ironic that we are discussing this issue when the Government have so many homes that are not being put to use?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am not aware of the precise statistics for the Ministry of Defence, but in general we encourage all organisations and private owners to bring empty homes back into use. The Bill will apply to all homes. As far as I am aware, there is no statutory exemption for MOD housing, but I am happy to look into that and write back to the hon. Lady. As an MP who represents a constituency with a heavy military presence, with Catterick garrison on my patch, I know well the issues relating to serving personnel and their families having access to good-quality accommodation. I hope that there are few empty homes in my area and that they are all being well utilised. I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that issue to my attention.

It cannot be right that while many households are waiting to find a house to call home, thousands of properties stand empty, some for many years. Beyond that, homes left empty for the long term can often be a blight on a neighbourhood, as well as sites of crime and antisocial behaviour. I am pleased to say that the Government’s record in this policy area is strong. We have ensured that local authorities have powers and strong incentives to bring empty homes back into use.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I thank the Minister for paying tribute to my colleagues in the House of Lords who led on this amendment. Does he agree that another issue is land banking? It is all very well if homes are being brought back into use, but we also have an issue of land that is often kept for a very long time. What does he intend to do about that?

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree that land banking should be looked into. The hon. Lady will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) is currently looking at that issue. Interim findings have been published and more findings will be coming out shortly. I hope that she will be happy to wait for the findings of those reports.

Nor are we proposing to change any other arrangements for charging premiums. It will rightly remain a matter for local authorities individually to decide whether and what premium to charge. In making these decisions, local authorities should of course consider local circumstances, as we have discussed, as well as the guidance issued by the Government.

It is right that we target particularly the homes that are empty for excessively long periods in this way. To be sure, they are likely to be few in number— potentially 11,000, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—but where they exist, they can indeed be a nuisance and a blight on their community. Such properties may even become sites of crime and antisocial behaviour. It is right that local authorities are equipped with greater powers in these difficult cases, where a 100% premium may be ineffective. We are proposing that these higher premiums come into effect slightly later than the original measure, which was announced at last year’s autumn Budget. This will give homeowners sufficient notice of the change. The 200% premiums will come into effect from 1 April 2020, and the 300% premiums a year later. The original proposal, of which people have had good notice, will come into effect from 1 April 2019, as planned.

We recognise the crucial importance of ensuring that premiums are applied fairly. That is why in 2013 the Government published guidance reminding local authorities to take into account the specific reasons a local property is empty, as indeed we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). In the light of this amendment, I can confirm that the Government will take a fresh look at the guidance with the aim of publishing revised guidance ahead of the introduction of the 200% and 300% premiums. This refreshed guidance will be subject to consultation, of course, and we will welcome the opportunity to benefit from the experience of local authorities, council tax payers and others when the time comes. In particular, we are keen to ensure that the guidance clarifies that premiums must be applied with due consideration to issues facing low-demand areas and cases of hardship. We expect to revisit the wording of the guidance to set out clearly the Government’s expectation that premiums are not applied where homeowners can demonstrate that their properties are genuinely on the market for rent or sale and appropriately priced.

Another area we expect to consider is cases where homeowners, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East noted, are struggling to complete or afford renovations that are necessary before the property can be occupied or sold on and where they can demonstrate progress and hardship.

I am delighted to bring forward this amendment, which has been termed the escalator amendment. I am grateful to all colleagues, the Select Committee and partners in the rating agencies for helping to get this amendment and this Bill to the House. By strengthening the incentive for owners of long-term empty properties to bring them back into use, this amendment will surely come as good news for local government, for families seeking a place to live and for the affected local communities as a whole. I commend it to the House.