Homeless Young People

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am aware of the excellent work that the hon. Lady has done in campaigning on the issue in general and on the specific case that she mentions. I know that she has fought strongly for that individual’s right to access proper services. I think we are all aware that local authorities are the key gatekeeper in this process. The duty that this House puts on local authorities needs to be clear, and their pathways need to be certain to lead to help for the young people who approach them.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that although ring-fencing is not something that we generally encourage, its removal had quite a significant effect in Northumberland, for example in the move from block-booking supported accommodation from providers to spot-purchase? That is difficult for charities such as Gallery Youth and Berwick Youth Project to cope with.

[Stephen Gilbert]

My right hon. Friend is right. After the ring fence was removed by the previous Government, the impact was felt in Cornwall under the current Government because of the difficult decisions that they had to take to rebalance the books. Supporting People was one of the first areas of funding to be cut in Cornwall. I found myself sleeping outside county hall overnight, with a cohort of vulnerable people, in protest at that decision. I understand exactly the impact of the removal of the ring fence and the budget constraints on providing such vital services.

The point is not simply that the street is an unsafe and unsuitable place for young people. Most young people who present to statutory services as homeless do so because another strategy for coping with having no safe permanent place to live has broken down. The places young people sleep in an effort to stay off the street are often unsuitable for them as vulnerable individuals.

A third of young people Crisis spoke to during a survey admitted to committing a minor crime in the hope of being taken into custody for the night; 17% had avoided bail or committed an offence to receive custodial accommodation and therefore a bed for the night; almost 20% had attempted to admit themselves to accident and emergency departments to get a bed for the night; and, alarmingly, 10% had entered into a sexual relationship to get a bed for the night. These are not safe havens for young people: they put them in danger of further exploitation.

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[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I shall speak fairly briefly, as I had not intended to speak in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) on securing it.

I want to focus on one factor that drives homelessness, based on my constituency experience. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) was in search of political consensus, and in our debate in December the two sides of the House did reach some consensus on the way in which an increasingly harsh benefit sanctions regime is driving people into homelessness.

In the September recess I conducted a community consultation in my constituency. We had something like 63 meetings over three weeks. Individuals and voluntary, community and faith sector organisations working on homelessness raised the issue of benefits sanctions as a significant factor in their work. For example, the cathedral project in Sheffield works with homeless people sleeping on the streets, to get them back into society. On the back of offering a breakfast service, it attracts them in and builds a relationship. It offers support and training and helps people to secure accommodation. It has been successful with such intervention for many years. People from the project reported to me that as a result of the increased pressure from the DWP and the harsher regime of benefit sanctioning, those whom they had helped into accommodation were getting letters whose significance they did not understand, or, in many cases, that they could not read. That would lead to their missing an appointment, and immediately, with no warning—no amber light or signals—their benefits would be cut and they would be unable to maintain their accommodation. When they presented themselves at the DWP the response was, “Go along to the cathedral Archer project. They’ll feed you.” That has transformed the project from a charity that could make a strategic intervention to tackle homelessness into a crisis centre.

That approach to benefits sanctioning has been taken up by Sheffield Citizens Advice. Its social policy group conducted a survey over 12 months and produced a report in May on the experience of JSA sanctions. I want to make it clear that I do not oppose sanctions in principle. Used appropriately and benignly they play a constructive role in encouraging people into work and providing a disincentive to the behaviour of those who do not co-operate with the system. The problem is that they are not being used benignly. To be effective, a sanctions regime must be humane. The report from Sheffield Citizens Advice showed that the system is neither humane nor effective in its avowed purpose of getting people into work and enabling them to afford accommodation.

I was presented with examples from its survey. One person, called Alan, was given a four-week sanction for not actively seeking work. He had limited literacy and numeracy skills and thought it important, so that he could get into work, to enrol on the English and maths course that was offered. He was on it for eight weeks, and thought that because he was on the course provided he did not have to sign on. He failed; he was not given a warning. He was immediately sanctioned.

Tony was vulnerable because of learning challenges and dyslexia. He cannot read or write. Despite getting significant support in looking for work from a local job club, he was sanctioned for not doing enough about his jobseeking. How did the DWP tell Tony that he was not doing enough? It sent him a letter, knowing—because it was on his records—that he could not read. Because he could not read the letter he was sent, he was immediately sanctioned.

[Sir Alan Beith]

A similar example happened to a young person in my constituency. He did not have a mobile phone but was required to give a mobile phone number. He gave his girlfriend’s mobile phone number and was sanctioned because that was not considered adequate.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am sure we could all cite similar examples from our constituency case load. The question is why we have such a punitive sanction regime. I was out fairly recently knocking on doors, as many hon. Members have been doing lately, and I talked to a constituent who is a jobcentre worker. We discussed her work, and she told me that she and her colleagues were under pressure to impose sanctions and hit targets. In a survey of Public and Commercial Services Union workers representing jobcentre workers, 23% said that they had been given explicit targets for referring claimants for sanctions; 36% said they had been placed on a performance improvement plan for not making enough sanctions; and 10% had gone through poor performance procedures for not making enough sanction referrals.

The Government have said that there is no pressure to sanction, but somehow a culture has been created in the DWP that suggests otherwise. The DWP acknowledges that statistics on sanctions are collated centrally and that managers can be contacted if their performance is out of line with that of other jobcentres. It says that that is a matter of good management and that no league tables are compiled, or targets set. In that case, why is a lower level of sanctions seen as an indication of poor performance, requiring managerial action? We need to recognise the impact of the DWP benefits sanction regime, which is driving up homelessness. I ask the Minister to commit to talk to DWP colleagues about that.