Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the significant increase in the numbers of people housed in non-commissioned exempt accommodation under successive Conservative Governments; regrets the opportunities that this increase has provided for unscrupulous operators to exploit vulnerable individuals for financial gain at the taxpayers’ expense; recognises that a range of factors have driven the marked growth of this sector including a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing, reductions in funding for housing-related support, new barriers to access for single adults requiring social rented housing or mainstream privately rented housing, and a weakening of regulation and oversight; further regrets the detrimental impact that the growth of poor quality non-commissioned exempt accommodation is having on the health and well-being of those vulnerable individuals placed in it and on the public purse; and calls on the Government to introduce a package of emergency measures designed to secure immediate improvements in the quality of non-commissioned exempt accommodation and associated support, to ensure claims for exempt Housing Benefit consistently provide value for money and to drive unscrupulous operators out of the sector.

We move from the global to the very, very local. There is a scandal quietly unfolding in communities across this country, and today we set out our determination that the Government will finally take this seriously and act to put it right. Across Britain, from Blackpool to Birmingham, houses are being bought or rented supposedly to house vulnerable people in accommodation with extra care and help. Instead, these shameless profiteers are leaving vulnerable people languishing in disgusting, unsafe housing, and people who badly need our help are denied it. The taxpayer is paying for all of this and it is blighting entire neighbourhoods.

It was right to ensure that those who genuinely provide or need supported housing could access enhanced housing benefit, because the cost of housing vulnerable people who need care and support is undeniably higher. Before I came to this place, I worked for Centrepoint, whose work with care leavers, and young people with mental health problems and addiction issues is second to none. It takes time, care and commitment to help those young people build the lives they deserve. But it is utterly wrong that we have allowed this system to be abused and used by people who are destroying entire communities.

Very many good organisations do provide proper support through supported exempt accommodation, and they are as appalled as we are at this scandal—it cannot continue. Colleagues on the Opposition Benches have raised this issue time and again with Ministers. How can it possibly be that nearly 18 months after the Government recognised the problem and commissioned pilots to consider how to solve it, this is still going on? Over the past few years, this problem has skyrocketed. More than 150,000 households in this country are living in exempt accommodation—that is a 62% increase in five years. Not all of them are bad placements—some of them are a lifeline—but it is crystal clear that there is an growing scandal of rogue operators, who know how to cheat the system, and are making life a misery for the people they are supposed to care for and the people who live in these proud communities. They deserve so much better and we are determined that they are going to get it.

I would like to thank colleagues from across this House, and particularly Members from Birmingham and Bristol, who have long recognised the growing scandal and campaigned hard to make it right. They are here today and I am sure that they will have plenty to say to the Minister about it. Many of our local councils, too, are doing great work to address the problem head-on. For example, Birmingham City Council has introduced greater scrutiny of new exempt benefit claims and encourages all providers to sign up to a set of quality standards for exempt accommodation. It has joined a partnership of voluntary and statutory agencies to produce a charter of rights for residents of supported exempt accommodation. But such efforts are thwarted by weak laws and a Government that will not grant them the powers to take action.

This Government have not even given us the information that we deserve. It took a Freedom of Information Act request from the charity Crisis to tell us how many tenancies there are—we do not know where they are. There has been no announcement about the pilots for several months. We have not even been told whether they have ended, what they have concluded or the timetable for when action is going to be taken. But we do know this: the law is too weak. It says a provider must deliver care, support and supervision that is, in legal terms, “more than minimal”. But “more than minimal” has no firm definition, test or criteria It could mean having a manager who visits the property once in a blue moon or installing a CCTV system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) told the Minister in a recent Westminster Hall debate, in one shocking incident a key worker visited a property where the tenant had just been murdered, mistook the murderer for the victim and told her mother she was fine—she was dead.

We will hear many terrible stories today from colleagues in this House that show that this “more than minimal” definition is allowing these disgraceful firms and individuals to milk the taxpayer at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in our country; they are destroying neighbourhoods and we are determined that the stories of those people affected will be heard in the highest levels of Government today.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What do the local authorities or governments say when a specific case is reported of totally unsatisfactory accommodation in the way the hon. Lady alleges?

[Lisa Nandy]

They say, “Give us the powers to act. Give us the powers and the laws that we need and we will take action.” The people who lead authorities throughout the country have skin in the game: they live in these communities. These are not just the people they are elected to represent; they are friends, family and neighbours, as well as constituents. The people who lead authorities care deeply about taking action but simply do not have the power to do so.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Analysis carried out by the homelessness charity St Mungo’s estimates that between 2009 and 2018 funding for single homeless people fell by a shocking £1 billion—a cut of more than 50%. Does my hon. Friend agree that 10 years of devastating Conservative cuts are the cause of the growth in exempt accommodation and that the Government must now properly fund local authorities so that they can provide the homeless accommodation and build the council homes that we need?

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, particularly on the latter point about building social housing. She is right, too, to say that it is a symptom of a housing market that is fundamentally broken. The warning light is flashing on the dashboard, but for too long we simply have not recognised it. It was precisely in the city of my hon. Friend, a superb MP for Coventry, that the Prime Minister launched his levelling-up agenda and created the levelling-up Department, promising to wrap his arms around people and communities and to help them to level up. What we are talking about is precisely the opposite.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

The issue raised by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is not right, because once a person comes to an area and offers themselves as a person in need of services, the council has obligations under legislation to provide services. It is not local authorities but the Government who have not sorted this issue out.

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work to draw attention to this appalling scandal.

As the Minister knows, it is not unusual to find properties in complete disrepair that would not be considered fit for human habitation in any way. It is not unusual for vulnerable women to be housed in properties with dangerous men and for them to be at risk of attack or to have been attacked.

Many years ago, I was prompted to enter elected politics as a councillor in the London Borough of Hammersmith, where I then lived, by the story of a 16-year-old girl in bed and breakfast accommodation at the height of the housing crisis at the time. She told me she had been raped by the owner of the property and nothing had been done—she was still in that accommodation. I went to see Hammersmith Council, which was superb and acted to close the facility down, but it had the powers to do so. I thought we had left those sorts of days behind. When I heard from my hon. Friends the stories about what is happening in their communities and how many times they have raised issues to no avail, I simply could not believe that in 2022 we stand here and allow this to continue.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

With one particular problematic property in Bristol, we found we could get only so far with the Charity Commission, because we had questions about the management structure; we could get a little way in trying to enforce planning permission, because too many people were living there; and adjustments kept being made to housing benefit—if we said that they were not offering more than minimal support, they would add a little bit of support. It was so frustrating and we were going round and round the houses. We need a set of regulations that we can go in and enforce straight away.

[Lisa Nandy]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work on this issue. It was clear from the recent Westminster Hall debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) that there was a particular problem in Birmingham, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) did a sterling job in that debate of reminding us that this is a problem not just in Birmingham but in Bristol and right throughout the country. All the Members who contributed to that debate spoke with one voice: we know what the problem is and what needs to be done; all we are lacking is a Government who will get behind what needs to be done and make sure that it happens.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady says that she entered local government to deal with this issue. She entered local government in 2006, following a housing crisis after eight years of Labour Government. Does she not agree with me that the real, fundamental issue, under parties of all shades for too many years, is the lack of homes being built? There has been a massive increase in the past few years, but is that not something we need to do more fundamentally for the entire housing sector?

[Lisa Nandy]

Let me just say that I really regret this partisan tone. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that I entered local politics in 2006 having worked not just with children in care and young homeless teenagers at Centrepoint, but with child refugees, campaigning against practices such as those at Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre that had happened under a Conservative Government but were also happening under a Labour Government. I will fight injustice wherever I find it and whoever is responsible for it, and I will stand up for people who do not have a voice. That is the great gift and privilege of this place. We are handed a megaphone through which we can shout loudly and make things change for some of the most vulnerable people in this country, and that is what we should do. I gently remind him, too, that the record under this Government has been appalling. Social housing builds have fallen off a cliff and housing-related support has been stripped away. Talk to any of the organisations, including Centrepoint, which I was proud to work for, and they will tell you that that situation is causing enormous harm not just to the people affected, but to many of the people who live in those communities, and it has to change.

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

I do not mind being partisan on this issue. Although the Labour Government, between 1997 and 2010, should have built more social housing, the absolute brutal fact of the matter is that the number of social lettings available for tenants has fallen from just under 400,000 to 300,000 in the past decade, and that is on this Government’s watch and they must take responsibility for it.

[Lisa Nandy]

I defer to my hon. Friend on that. She has been a superb champion for housing reform in this country over many, many years, including under the last Labour Government, and particularly in the past decade when we have seen exactly what she describes unfold. She has done more to reform and tighten up the law in this area through the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 than the Government have done in the past 12 years, so, absolutely, I defer to her on that.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she also agree that one problem with the shortage of housing supply is that Government support goes in completely the wrong direction, particularly in terms of buy to let, which I will speak about later if I get called, whereby billions of pounds are going to support private landlords?

[Lisa Nandy]

My right hon. Friend is right: it is a waste. It is a waste of human potential, a waste of good, thriving neighbourhoods, and a waste of taxpayers’ money. It is more than that actually. The distortion in the housing market in these communities means that working families are being priced out of good, viable family homes. Other social tenants cannot access them either; when a person cannot get enhanced housing benefits, they are subject to the local housing allowance. The regulation is non-existent. Providers are exempt from planning and licensing laws that enable councils to limit the types and proliferation of houses of multiple occupation. The social housing regulator does not have the powers to deal with rogue operators as they set themselves up as small operators outside the direct oversight of the regulator. The effect of all of that is that whole streets and communities become saturated with family homes that are converted into HMOs, providing exempt accommodation and housing vulnerable tenants who are left without support. That creates problems for the whole community, and it is all happening in plain sight.

What is worse is that the people who are most affected—as I said to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden)—are those who cannot do anything about it. Only the Government have the power to make changes for the better, which is why today we are calling for a package of emergency measures to set this situation right.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I am a fellow Greater Manchester MP. We have the “Places for Everyone” scheme that has been submitted to the Government. I am very sympathetic to a lot of what the hon. Lady has been talking about. In Wigan and Bury over many, many years—from the way that the hon. Lady is looking at me, I think she knows the important point that I am making—there has been a dearth of action by Labour-controlled councils to build and to provide affordable social housing. Does she share with me a disappointment that there is no plan within “Places for Everyone” to deliver that?

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Gentleman should spend some time with my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), because she would set him straight very quickly. I know his community very well—it is where I grew up and went to college, and it is where my mum lives—and he has a superb Labour council that backs its community at every turn and was part of dramatically improving the life chances of young people in its community and supporting the community. When Bury Football Club was collapsing, much to our desperate regret, it was his Labour council who stood by the community, while the Government stood and watched as the club fell apart.

[James Daly]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lisa Nandy]

I think the hon. Gentleman should listen for once. His Labour council has stood in as a lifeline for people as support was stripped away over 12 years of Tory Government. It is about time that he not only acknowledged that, but got behind his local community and started standing up to this Government.

The regulation is non-existent. This is all happening in plain sight. The regulations must be toughened up. We need a proper test for what counts as care, support or supervision set out in law. It is right of the Minister to say, as I heard him say in the Westminster Hall debate, that that must be done thoughtfully and with care, but that is no excuse for inaction. Surely it is not beyond the collective wit of Government to come up with a scheme that roots out the bad providers and protects the good.

We need a regulator with the full range of powers needed to deal with the problem, with a fit and proper person test that must be passed before any provider can set itself up to care for vulnerable people. Local authorities need the power to reject applications on grounds of saturation or oversupply in a specific area and to insist on community impact assessments that have the power to prevent such over-saturation.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a former local Labour councillor who tried to deal with these issues in our communities. Those powers are there, but does my hon. Friend agree that central Government frustrated local councils from using article 4 directions, for example, to manage that saturation, and that we need to move beyond that?

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Local councils cannot do this on their own. That is why we have brought the issue to the House today and why my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood brought it to Westminster Hall a few weeks ago. It is why we will keep going and keep on until councils have the powers and the support they need to end this scandal for good.

We need an inspections regime to keep providers on their toes and a regulator that has full powers of enforcement, both to clamp down on those who will still try to flout the system, and to destroy the business model of the rogue operators who know that they carry on in plain sight and get away with it. I know the Minister cares about this issue—he spoke very movingly about it in the Westminster Hall debate—but caring is not the same as acting.

These rogue operators have effectively been handed a licence by the Government to exploit people, abuse public money and destroy neighbourhoods. Bobby Kennedy once said that,

“there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.”

We cannot continue to be violently indifferent to what is being inflicted on communities up and down this country.

What is worse about this situation, for me, is that it is overseen by the Government Department that was created to support and rebuild proud neighbourhoods, towns, villages and cities—the places that once powered this country and built our wealth and influence, and could do so again. The Prime Minister stood in Coventry and promised to give us the tools to change our areas for the better. He said that,

“all they need is the right people to believe in them, to lead them and to invest in them and for Government to get behind them, and that is what we are going to do”,

but they have not.

I ask the Minister today to set this right. Can he tell his boss that this is not like the fight he just had and lost with the Treasury? He does not have to beg the Chancellor for funds and permission that are not forthcoming. He simply has to get his own Department in order and deliver. Otherwise, what is the Department for, if it cannot even get behind our communities when the power to do so lies squarely within its remit?

What were once modest, quiet residential streets, home to tight-knit communities, are becoming no-go areas, plagued by rogue operators, some with links to organised crime. People who work hard and try hard are left, for all their efforts, watching their community go to rack and ruin. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood has said many times, people are in utter despair. They are faced with a choice between leaving the places that they have always loved and called home or tolerating what is now an intolerable situation. That is no choice at all. We should not ask them to bear this for a single day longer. I commend this motion to the House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but we leave those decisions to councils that are commissioning locally. I guess it is up to us to try to ensure appropriate standards against which such accommodation is measured and then to give them the necessary powers to enforce that. Personally, I think that councils already have a considerable number of powers. I am not disagreeing with Opposition Members about what powers are required; I am just saying that I would like to see the existing powers used to the absolute max before we necessarily go reaching for others. If people feel they do not have the necessary powers, I would consider it not inappropriate for the Government to legislate, but we need to consider that carefully.

We are committed to finding the right approach to this issue, and we invested £5 million in a number of pilots in recent months to support the worst-affected areas, including Birmingham, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bristol and Hull. Through the injection of those funds, we have been working with local authorities to test approaches to improving the quality of this type of accommodation. We chose these specific areas partly because of the existing commitment to tackle these issues, and I pay tribute to the local authorities, which have worked collegiately and collaboratively with us during the pilots.

To take Bristol as an example, it has been conducting thorough assessments of new schemes and providers for some time. The council was able to use its funding to complete its work in summer last year. Meanwhile, Hull’s supported accommodation review team was implemented in 2019, and the council has already shown a strong commitment to making the changes needed to solve the problems besetting exempt accommodation. Through the pilot, it was able to fund a large part of its programme and to take its approach to that programme one step further. As the House would expect, we know that the need stretches beyond these pilot areas and that local authorities in other parts of the country want to invest in tackling these problems, too.

[Lisa Nandy]

This is a little frustrating, because there is a strong sense that we agree about this, yet it is difficult to work out why nothing yet has been done. The pilots were initiated in October 2020, so why have they not concluded and reported, and why have we not got a timetable by which action will be taken? Perhaps the Minister can give us that today.

[Eddie Hughes]

I have a horrible feeling that I will mention this point now and repeat it subsequently if I am not able to recalibrate in the course of my speech. We have the report from those pilots, and we are working with authorities and officials in my Department to unpick it and to ensure that we completely understand what the information we have gathered is telling us and that any changes we deploy in the future are appropriate. I completely accept and understand the hon. Lady’s frustration. I am keen to see that report published as quickly as possible, and I am sure I will repeat that point later in my speech—my apologies for the duplication.

Some places have taken their inspiration from the work of those pilots and have set up teams bringing together different expertise, including housing benefit and environmental health officers, to focus on emerging issues. We have heard of, and been inspired by, the initiative shown by local authorities such as Nottingham, which have implemented multidisciplinary approaches to supported housing within the council and with key external partners that have a critical role to play in the experience of supported housing tenants. That set-up enables local authorities to keep a constant stream of information going about rogue providers and to conduct consistent and thorough assessments of those organisations and their ability to deliver good support and good outcomes for tenants.

My Department has also been speaking to local authorities in Derby, Cannock Chase and Staffordshire, and to councils across Greater Manchester and Lancashire on those issues. We are engaging with them on how they are progressing. On top of that, I am delighted that work is taking place across boundaries as we are encouraging councils to share good practice so that others can apply it. For example, in Blackburn, housing benefit officers have been working closely with other local authorities in Manchester and Lancashire, discussing and learning from each other’s experience while sharing their knowledge on the common issues that they are encountering locally.

The local pilots have been critical to helping us to understand how the issues are playing out in different places, but we know that they will not solve the issues on their own. At a national level, the Government have continued to act and to raise the bar on the standard of accommodation across the board. In 2020, the Department published the “Supported housing: national statement of expectations”, which was vital in setting out the Government’s vision for better ways of working in supported housing and for introducing much higher minimum standards in accommodation.

The guidance gave providers and councils a clear vision from the Government of exactly what good looks like while highlighting where providers and councils are working in a joined-up fashion to drive up quality. Ministers and officials have also engaged with councils, housing providers, the regulator of social housing and other regulatory bodies to help us to improve our understanding of the issues and to refine our approach.

Although I have not yet received the report, I assure hon. Members that the work of the pilots has already delivered, and is delivering, real results by creating the kind of models for best practice that councils will be able to adopt. In Birmingham, a charter of rights for residents of supported housing has been developed along with a programme of support reviews and scrutiny of housing benefit claims. In Blackpool, the council has carried out a review of the support provided in accommodation for victims of domestic abuse to ensure that it is sufficient and tailored. We have seen great examples in other pilots of local government and the community working together to improve supported exempt accommodation.

Once published and made available to interested parties, the evaluation report will help us to tailor what action is needed and will be taken in future, but this is a complex area. It is important to take the time to consider the next steps carefully to ensure that we get them right. We must be careful to avoid knee-jerk measures that could have unforeseen consequences and only serve to make life harder for residents and the majority of good providers, who we would not wish to see inadvertently pushed out of the vital work that they do in the area.