Lord Barwell
Main Page: Lord Barwell (Conservative - Life peer)(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the number of homeless households rose by 44 per cent between 2009-10 and 2015-16 to almost 60,000; further notes that the number of people sleeping rough doubled between 2010 and 2015; notes with concern that across the UK 120,000 children will be homeless this Christmas; recognises that between 1997 and 2010 there was an unprecedented fall in homelessness; and calls on the Government to end rough sleeping and take action to address the root causes of rising homelessness.
With 10 days to go to Christmas, a record number of homeless people are sleeping on our streets, in shop doorways and on park benches. More than 100,000 children will spend Christmas day in temporary accommodation—children with no home, young lives scarred by insecurity and impermanence. That shames us all. Homelessness is not inevitable in a country as decent and well-off as ours. It is a problem that we can solve. We know what works, because we have done it before. The Labour Government reduced rough sleeping by three quarters, and cut statutory homelessness to levels that led the independent audit by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to declare “an unprecedented decline”.
I had hoped that this debate, called in the face of rapidly rising homelessness on all fronts, would be the basis for fresh thinking and a new national will to put an end to the scandal of people sleeping rough on the street for want of somewhere to stay. I still do, but I am disappointed that the Government have rejected our motion, which simply sets out the facts. I say to Ministers and to Government Members who may support them today that they can delete our motion but they cannot deny the facts.
The facts speak for themselves. Rough sleeping fell by about three quarters under Labour; it has doubled under the Conservatives since 2010. The number of households accepted legally as homeless fell by two thirds under Labour, but has risen by nearly half since 2010. The total number of children in temporary accommodation has risen every year since 2010 to over 100,000 in England and 120,000 across the UK. For the avoidance of doubt, the source of these facts and figures is the Communities Secretary himself. If he or his colleagues on the Front Bench need to check, the figures are from Tables 1, 770 and 775.
Let us compare the feeble facts and figures in the Government’s amendment. The Government are pleased with the provision of temporary accommodation, when this can mean whole families sleeping in one bed. It can mean lights that do not work, no fridge, no cooker, no locks on the doors. The Government are spending more money on homelessness. The sums of £315 million, £149 million and £50 million are totals over a full year of Parliament and are dwarfed by the scale of cuts— £5 billion of cuts to housing benefit, and the Supporting People funding halved. Finally, the Government say they are committed to building more homes, when the number of affordable homes being built has hit its lowest level in 24 years, and the number of new social rented homes is at its lowest level since the second world war. In case Ministers have any doubts, the figures are from Table 1000 published by the Communities Secretary.
I warn Conservative Members to take with a large pinch of salt whatever their Front-Bench team say about housing and homelessness. Simply ask, “Is it working?”
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
The right hon. Gentleman says that we should take with a pinch of salt what those on the Government Front Bench say. What does he have to say to the Labour Mayor of London, who says that this Government have just given London a record level of funding for affordable housing?
John Healey
I would say two things. First, a large part of that is underspends from the previous period, simply rolled over. Secondly, this year the Government are spending in total about £1 billion on building the new homes that we need in this country. In the last year of the last Labour Government, when I was the Housing Minister and in the hon. Gentleman’s place, it was £3 billion.
I said earlier that the rapidly rising homelessness shames us all. It does, but it should shame Ministers most of all. The hard truth for Tory Ministers is that it is their decisions since 2010 that have caused the homelessness crisis. There are record low levels of affordable rented housing—last year the lowest since 1991. There is a lack of action to help private renters, while eviction or default from a private tenancy is now the biggest single cause of homelessness. There have been deep cuts to housing benefit and charity funding that helps the most vulnerable people, including the homeless.
The amendment mentions the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I am disappointed that he is not in the Chamber. We back this cross-party Bill, but we set two tests for the Government on which we will hold Ministers hard to account: first, fund the costs of the new legal duties in full; and secondly, tackle the causes of the growing homelessness crisis in this country. I welcome the Bill because it draws on similar legislation that the Labour-led Government in Wales introduced in 2014. It is early days, but it seems successfully to have prevented two thirds of all households assessed as at risk of being homeless from losing their home. That is what good councils are doing, day in, day out, across the country, despite the toughest funding cuts and the toughest service pressures.
Exeter Council has cut the number of rough sleepers, against the national trend, with a new street needs audit and a firm approach to street outreach to make sure people cannot opt out of help. Manchester Council has brought together charities, faith groups, businesses, universities and residents’ groups in a new partnership to end homelessness in the city. Enfield Council has set up a council-owned company to purchase 500 properties over five years to house homeless Enfield residents and, of course, to act as a model landlord.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“notes that homelessness is lower now than its peak in 2003-04; further notes that England has a strong safety net, and that the provision of temporary accommodation means no family with a child ever has to be without a roof over their heads; notes that the Government is going further with legislative protection by supporting the hon. Member for Harrow East’s Homelessness Reduction Bill to ensure that everyone gets the help they need to prevent or relieve their homelessness; welcomes the Government's protection of £315 million homelessness prevention funding for local authorities and £149 million in central funding; notes in particular the recently launched £50 million homelessness prevention programme, helping areas all over the country to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping; and notes that one of the best ways to tackle homelessness is by increasing the housing supply, which the measures contained in the forthcoming Housing White Paper will address.”
Government Members welcome this debate. Nobody is hiding from the facts. Both statutory homelessness and rough sleeping are rising, and it is right that we discuss why that is happening and what we need to do to deal with it.
I want to start with a couple of party political points in response to some of the points that the shadow Housing Minister made, but then move on to talk about the substance of the issue and what needs to be done. The motion gives a slightly rose-tinted view of the record of the previous Labour Government. I am happy to give credit where it is due, and if Members will bear with me for a couple of minutes I will then happily take interventions. The motion would have us believe that from the moment the Labour party was elected, homelessness began to fall and continued to fall during its period in office. These are the facts.
In 1998, some 104,000 were people accepted as homeless. That figure rose throughout Labour’s first term in government until halfway through its second term, peaking at about 135,000 in 2003. Then, to their credit, the Government addressed it, and it fell significantly to 41,780 by 2010—[Interruption.] It is not insignificant at all, and I am happy to give credit for that.
Gavin Barwell
I will just finish the point and then I shall be happy to take interventions. The figure has risen since then to 56,500—not by as much as the motion suggests and certainly to nowhere near the record peak that it reached in Labour’s second term.
There are two other measures that we should look at, one of which is the measure of housing supply. The best measure of that is the net additions to the housing stock each year.
Gavin Barwell
I will cover the three points and then take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
Over the course of the Labour Government, in the first year the figure was 149,000, then 148,000, and then 132,000, 146,000, 159,000, 170,000, 185,000, 202,000, 214,000, 223,000, 182,000 and 144,000 respectively. In not one year of those years did the previous Labour Government build enough homes, and in only three did they build more than the current Government are achieving—and that was at the height of an unsustainable housing boom that ended up crashing our economy.
The third measure by which we should assess the housing record of the previous Labour Government is affordability. In 1997, the ratio between median earnings and median house prices was 3.54. By 2010, it had increased to 7.01. I am happy to acknowledge that in the subsequent five years of the coalition Government it increased further to 7.63. Looking at all those three measures, while the Labour Government certainly did some good things, and I have no problem with giving them credit for that, the record is far less rosy than the motion suggests.
John Healey
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He sounds as though he is rehearsing to become the Chancellor giving an autumn statement or a Budget statement. This Government promised in their 2015 manifesto to see 1 million new homes built in this country. They are so far off track, even at the current levels, that it could take until 2025—five years late—to build the number of homes that are needed. The number of new affordable homes built is the lowest on record.
We are talking about homelessness. It is absolutely the case that when Labour came into government in 1997 we were faced with a rapidly rising trend of homelessness, just as we are faced with a rapidly rising trend of homelessness now. The difference was that Labour acted. The figure peaked in 2003, and homelessness over the next period was cut by two thirds. The question for the Minister is this: is he going to act now? Are the Government going to do anything about the rapidly rising and scandalously spiralling level of homelessness we see today?
Gavin Barwell
That was a long intervention that did not refute any of the points, but let me deal quickly with each of them. First, on supply, the Government are behind but not way behind, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests they are. [Interruption.] In 2015-16, the first year of the five years of the Parliament, we delivered 190,000, exactly as the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) has just said, and to meet the 1 million target we need to be at 200,000 a year. I will return to the subject of affordable homes later, if the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) will bear with me. The fundamental point that I was trying to make is that we could do with a little less complacency from those on the Opposition Front Bench. [Interruption.] Bear with me for a second. There is no room for complacency on this side of the House, either.
Gavin Barwell
Let me develop the point; then I will happily give way.
Homelessness and rough sleeping are both rising. The right hon. Gentleman quoted the speech that the Prime Minister made on the steps of Downing Street, in which she said that the mission of this Government is to make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us. Sorting out our failing housing market and tackling the moral stain of homelessness are central to that mission. I want to spend the rest of my speech setting out how we propose to do that, but first I give way.
Rob Marris
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity today, as yesterday. I agree with him: Labour did not build enough housing units, and those of us then on the Back Benches pleaded with the Government to do so, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I welcome the recognition in the Conservative amendment that supply is absolutely crucial. Can I tempt the Minister to go a little further and announce that the Government will abandon the plans that have kept jacking up demand by processes such as Help to Buy, which simply increases prices and increases homelessness?
Gavin Barwell
Until the hon. Gentleman’s last point, I was in complete agreement with him. He is definitely right to say that the main focus of housing policy should be supply, and when he sees the White Paper that the Secretary of State and I are working on, he will see that is the case. However, even if tomorrow we could start building in this country at the level that we need to build, we would have to do that for a number of years before there was an impact on affordability. To do as he suggests in the interim—give up any measures that are trying to help people to bridge the gap—would be a mistake, in my opinion.
Gavin Barwell
I shall make progress, and then I will happily take an intervention from the hon. Member for Ashfield.
I want to set out now the measures that the Government are taking to address this issue. First, we want to broaden the safety net and have more focus on prevention rather than cure. Current homelessness legislation gives local authorities responsibilities in relation to families, to people who are pregnant and to single people who are vulnerable. Other people fall through the gaps. The legislation also encourages councils to intervene at the point of crisis, not upstream when problems are first apparent. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) is in the Chamber, but I think we would all give him great credit for the legislation that he is bringing forward, and the Government are very proud, in the 50th anniversary year of “Cathy Come Home”, to support that fundamental and important change to our legislation.
Gavin Barwell
I give way to my hon. Friend, but then I will come back to the hon. Member for Ashfield.
Wendy Morton
Does my hon. Friend agree that on the Friday when both sides of the Chamber came together to support the Homelessness Reduction Bill, the private Member’s Bill introduced by our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), it was a really positive day, and a good indication that both sides of the House can come, and are coming, together to tackle this issue?
Gavin Barwell
There is actually much more that unites us on these issues than is sometimes apparent from our debates, and I understand that it is the job of those on the Opposition Front Bench to hold the Government to account.
Gloria De Piero
Just one rough sleeper is too many, and there was one rough sleeper in Ashfield in 2010 when we left office. The number has now gone up to eight, and statutory homelessness has risen from 42 to 93. The record of the Labour Government was considerably better for those vulnerable people than the hon. Gentleman’s Government’s. Does he accept responsibility? What is his answer? Why has it happened?
Gavin Barwell
I am the Housing Minister, so of course I accept responsibility. I think I speak for the Secretary of State as well: we were both appointed to these positions by the Prime Minister in July, and our focus is on solving the housing problems that this country faces, which I think are deep-seated. The truth is that we have not been building enough homes in this country for 30 or 40 years, under Governments of both colours, and that is the fundamental driver of the housing problems that we now experience.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned the Homelessness Reduction Bill that is passing through the House. I wonder whether he believes, as I do, that the most important thing about that is the fact that it mandates councils to provide 56 days of support to homeless individuals—for the first time, a really intense programme, to ensure that instead of no second night sleeping out, there is no first night sleeping out?
Gavin Barwell
The Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has introduced does two fundamental things. First, it broadens the safety net and ensures that single people do not fall through the gaps. Secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) says, it encourages councils to intervene upstream to try to prevent homelessness.
Gavin Barwell
If hon. Members are happy for me to do so, I will make a bit of progress before taking further interventions. I will come next to my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).
I have set out the first thing that the Government are doing. Secondly, as the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne acknowledged, we have protected homelessness prevention funding for local authorities—nearly £390 million in this Parliament. Thirdly, we have increased central Government programmes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £10 million in the autumn statement, bringing the total to £150 million over this Parliament. Fourthly, in relation to welfare reform, we have increased discretionary housing payments to £870 million over this Parliament; that is a 55% increase. I was surprised to see when I was briefed for this debate that 60% of local authorities are not currently spending their full allocation.
Fifthly, we are looking at the way in which Government fund local authorities in relation to temporary accommodation. We are looking at replacing the DWP temporary accommodation management fee with a grant from the Department, which will be more than an equivalent amount of funding but will introduce much greater flexibility. Some hon. Members may have received a briefing from the Mayor of London today welcoming that change.
Since the Secretary of State was appointed, we have taken a fresh approach to supported housing, ensuring that the local housing allowance cap will not apply and moving to a new model of funding that is based on current LHA levels but, crucially, topped up by a ring-fenced grant. I think we would all acknowledge the fundamental role that supported housing plays for some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies. It is absolutely crucial that we get the detail of the new funding regime right, and the ministerial team are determined to ensure that we do so. I encourage all hon. Members to take part in the consultation.
The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne talked about a pledge that he had made. To a degree, it developed an announcement made by the former Chancellor at Budget ’16 of a £100 million fund to create 2,000 places in low-cost rented accommodation for rough sleepers in hostels and, crucially, for domestic abuse victims in refuges, so that we can move people on from short-term accommodation into permanent solutions. At this point, I happily give way to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington.
Tom Brake
I thank my neighbour for giving way, and I appreciate what he has just said about supporting vulnerable people. He will know, because I made it earlier, that this intervention is about the question of housing benefit for under-21s. I do not quite understand how that fits into the Government’s homelessness prevention programme. Does he recognise that, as charities have suggested, if just 140 extra young people are made homeless as a result of the change, it will cost more than the Government will save?
Gavin Barwell
My right hon. Friend—I can call the right hon. Gentleman that—will be aware, because he served with us in coalition for five years, that what the Government are trying to do is to switch from the high-tax, high-welfare, low-wage economy that we inherited in 2010 to one in which people are paid more and keep a much greater proportion of what they earn.
Gavin Barwell
To be fair, I am still trying to answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question. We are trying to reduce the welfare bill, and to ensure that we have a fair welfare system that provides help and support to people but does not treat them more generously than others in an equivalent position who are not on welfare could expect to be treated. That is what is behind those changes. I will make a bit of progress, and then I will happily come back to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones).
I have been working my way through the list of measures that the Government are taking, and next up is our attempt to deal with the up-front cost of accessing the private rented sector. One shocking thing, which underlines the point that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) made, is the fact that the main cause of statutory homelessness is the loss of a private rented sector tenancy. That shows how the supply issue is absolutely driving the rise in statutory homelessness. Rough sleeping is a different matter, and the acute housing problem faced by people who are sleeping on our streets is nearly always a symptom of a wider problem in terms of mental health or drug or alcohol addiction. Indeed, the briefing that I had from my officials suggested that in London, nearly 60% of rough sleepers are not UK nationals, so issues in our migration system contribute to that. In terms of dealing with statutory homelessness, access to the private rented sector is key. That is why the Chancellor’s announcement in the autumn statement about letting agent fees—I am sure the Opposition welcome that announcement—is an important step.
Gavin Barwell
I was going to give way to the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), but she has moved seats. I will give way to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) instead.
Dr Huq
The Minister is a London MP, like me, and he has mentioned London. Has he in his surgeries found an increasing number of cases of entire families having to be moved to hostels with no recourse to public funds, which is entirely illogical? Does he not recognise the dismay there will be in Ealing about the mention of the borough in Prime Minister’s questions today? The Prime Minister appeared to blame the local authority for the £180 million cut to its budget. We have 12,000 people on our waiting list, and the cost of buying a home is very high, so does he not recognise that people will be dismayed about what has come out of the Government today?
Gavin Barwell
I am embarrassed to say that I was not present for Prime Minister’s questions. There was a memorial service for the victims of the Croydon tram crash, which is why I am dressed in this way, and that is where I was. I therefore cannot respond to the hon. Lady’s point about PMQs. However, I can say that, as a London MP, I see every week in my surgeries and in my case load the consequences of the long-standing failure in this country, for 30 or 40 years, to build the homes we need. That has happened under Governments of all kinds—
Gavin Barwell
Let me just finish making this point.
London is the part of the country where the gap between what we need to build and what we are actually building is at its most acute. I am sure that I am also speaking for the Secretary of State when I say that I get up every morning thinking about what we can do to sort out this problem. It is my sole focus, and I will come on in a moment to address the issue of supply. Before I do so, I am very happy to give way to the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who is another fine south London MP.
Heidi Alexander
I find it absolutely remarkable that the Minister is trying to absolve the previous Government of any responsibility for the housing crisis that we now face. My recollection is that, in 2011, his Government cut the national affordable house building programme by 63%. Will he set out the consequences of that on the supply of genuinely affordable homes?
Gavin Barwell
If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will return to that central question at the end of my speech.
Gavin Barwell
I am still responding to the hon. Lady. I cannot make myself any clearer, but if she thinks that I am absolving the previous Government of responsibility, I am absolutely not trying to do so. Let me say it one more time, so that nobody can be in any doubt about this: we have not built enough homes in this country for 30 or 40 years, and all the Governments covering the period share responsibility for that. If she wants me to offer some defences, I would say in defence of the previous Prime Minister, the previous Chancellor and my predecessors as Housing Ministers that they inherited a situation, after the worst economic crash in generations, in which the priority had to be to reduce the deficit. I will come on to the affordable housing numbers, and I hope my answer will satisfy the hon. Lady.
Several hon. Members rose—
Gavin Barwell
I will give way one more time, and I must then draw my remarks to a close.
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend has already intervened, so I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter).
Dr Poulter
I thought the Minister was ignoring me, but I am sure he was not doing so. I commend his positive and constructive approach to this debate; indeed, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman also took such an approach. The Minister has mentioned rough sleeping and the need to move from crisis to preventive measures. In that connection, will he reflect on the fragmentation of the alcohol and drug rehabilitation services commissioned by local authorities and on the fact that those services are completely disengaged from what is happening in mental health trusts and the NHS, with people falling between the cracks? That needs to be addressed.
Gavin Barwell
I am very glad that I took an intervention from my hon. Friend, because he speaks with real authority on mental health issues. He is absolutely right that we need to look at ways in which we can achieve better integration of services. Many of the people we are talking about have profound and multiple needs, and we must ensure that all the relevant agencies are working together.
If the House will bear with me—I know many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate—I just want to make some final remarks to address the question asked by the hon. Member for Lewisham East. The fundamental thing we need to do is to drive up supply, and we will set out in a White Paper in the new year exactly how we propose to do that. Let me say a word specifically about affordable housing, on which the hon. Lady was pushing me. The autumn statement included three key announcements, one of which was about the flexibility of tenure. We inherited an affordable housing programme focused solely on shared ownership, but we have switched it so that housing associations can bid for affordable rent, rent to buy, shared ownership or whatever is most appropriate in their areas. The Chancellor has added an extra £1.4 billion to the affordable housing programme. As I made clear in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, we have also announced the London allocation of £3.5 billion, which is 43% of the national budget. As I said, if hon. Members do not wish to take my word for it, let me quote the Labour Mayor of London:
“This is the largest sum of money ever secured by City Hall to deliver affordable housing.”
He made that statement before London has got its share of the extra £1.4 billion that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement.
Let me end by dealing with the issue of affordable housing supply. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne was right on one statistic at least: the 2015-16 figures on affordable housing were very low—unacceptably low. That was because we finished one programme the previous year and the new programme was late starting. That is a feeble excuse, and the Secretary of State and I are determined to ensure it does not happen again.
To set out the facts, in three of the five years of the coalition Government, we built more affordable homes than in any of the last nine years of the Labour Government. The record of the Government since 2010—I am very happy to give some credit to our coalition partners—is that we have delivered significantly more affordable housing than was delivered, on average, over the last nine years of the Labour Government. I do not have the figures for before 2001. We have just put extra money into the budget, so we should be able to drive up supply.
I will end by making this point.
Gavin Barwell
No, I am drawing my remarks to a close.
What we need in this country—the hon. Member for Lewisham East was quite right—is more homes of every single kind. We need more homes for people to buy, more homes for private rent, more affordable homes at sub-market rents and more shared ownership homes. We need more homes of every single kind. We are determined to achieve that and, at the same time, to provide the crucial support on our streets to deal with the immediate acute crisis. To end on a positive note, I hope we can build a coalition around the vital change we need in our country to get us building the homes we so desperately need.
Andy Slaughter
I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I am not an expert in planning gain in his own local authority area. There are a number of ways of funding affordable homes, and I will come on to one or two of them in a moment. He is right to identify that matter as being the root cause of the problem.
I turn to the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which we were considering in Committee this morning and which the Government pray in aid in their amendment. A number of Members who are on the Bill Committee have mentioned it. That Bill is the brain child of Crisis and is supported by St Mungo’s Broadway, Shelter and the consensus of opinion across the housing sector. Those excellent organisations have been on the frontline against homelessness for decades. Like many Members, I have been proud to work with them in my constituency.
More importantly for the Bill’s chances of making it to the statute book, it has the support of all parties and of the Government, and has been ably promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow East. It is no exaggeration to say that it will make a sea change in homelessness law, both through the emphasis it places on prevention and through the changes that it imposes on local authorities to assist non-priority groups, particularly single people, in finding accommodation.
In promoting the Bill, Crisis is also making the statement that it can no longer be expected to pick up the pieces of the failure of much of the apparatus designed to help the homeless. I welcome the Bill both for the signal that it sends and for the detailed requirements that it places on the Government to tackle this growing crisis, but—this “but” has dominated our discussions on the Bill—legislation alone will not solve the problem. Indeed, it may, in the first instance, make it worse. Let me give three reasons why I say that.
First, local authorities, especially those in metropolitan areas, are struggling to deal with their responsibility to those who are in priority need. Members who have seen the Mayor of London’s briefing—I welcome the Mayor’s personal commitment to tackling London’s housing crisis—will know that the number of households in bed and breakfasts in London has risen by 234% since 2010. The figure is 157% elsewhere. The telling statistic for London Members is this: in 2010, 13% of families were placed outside their local authority area, but that has now almost tripled to 35%. Every one of those families is a tragic story of people displaced from their communities, their schools, their jobs and their family support. If we are not careful, one consequence of putting additional burdens on local authorities for the non-priority homeless when they cannot at the moment cope with the priority homeless is that the latter will suffer.
Secondly, there is a general pressure on local authority budgets, with cuts of 40% to 50% —by far and away the largest in any part of the public sector. Those pressures extend everywhere, and I imagine that tomorrow we will hear quite a lot about that and about social care. Because of those pressures across the board, it is absolutely vital that the measures in the Homelessness Reduction Bill are fully funded. I hear what the Government have said about that, but we are still waiting. The Under-Secretary has promised that we will have details of the funding before the Committee reports. It is important that that pledge is honoured and is not just a paper promise. We must clearly see that the measure will be fully funded, otherwise it simply will not work and local authorities will again carry the can for central Government’s mistakes.
The third and most important issue is the effect of the Government’s general policies on housing and homelessness. In the area of housing finance, the benefit cap has just been further reduced, which has had an attritional effect on my authority and many others. The freeze on local housing allowance, the introduction of the bedroom tax and 45% cuts in the Supporting People budget in the last Parliament are unprecedented cuts, and the net effect is to destabilise the people who are most vulnerable and most at risk of homelessness.
In the private rented sector, rent increases and the ability for private landlords to charge higher rents to make more profit mean that evictions are at a high. Some 40% in London—30% nationally—of people presenting to local authorities cite the serving of a section 21 notice, or the no-fault eviction process. We have heard it argued that as a result we need the Bill to put more responsibility on local authorities, but what about the responsibility of the Government to legislate for longer tenancies and, as we would do, to legislate for rent control to combat rent rises during a tenancy? That would have a much more salutary effect in preventing homelessness.
Andy Slaughter
If the Minister does not mind, I will not give way, as I have only two minutes left, and I do not want to take time away from his colleague the Under-Secretary.
Housing supply is the key issue. We have the lowest social housing build on record. We still face the prospect of the sale of high-value council homes, and a reduction in rent has prevented councils from building new social homes. We have 140,000 fewer council homes than in 2010. Unless that problem is tackled we will never tackle the problem of homelessness.
That is the story of the Homelessness Reduction Bill, but it is also the story of this Government and their attitude not just to homelessness but to the housing crisis generally. They talk about solutions, but their policies have made matters worse. We have been promised cash for the implementation of the Bill and we have been promised wider initiatives in the delayed White Paper, but time is running out for the Government to act. Empty words and empty Bills will not stop children being homeless at Christmas or vulnerable people sleeping on the streets. Tomorrow, the new figures on statutory homelessness will be published, but they are unlikely to bring any comfort to the homeless or to the Government. This is a crisis that the Government have neglected, and have even aggravated with the range of policies that they have pursued. If they are sincere about tackling the problems of homelessness, words will no longer suffice—only action will.