Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 173ZZD, 173ZDA and 173ZD. Broadly speaking, these amendments are intended to improve notification of advice and assistance for persons who become homeless intentionally and are not in priority need. We heard my noble friend Lord Shipley talk eloquently about those deemed to be in priority need but intentionally homeless, and they have a priority need in their favour. However, many people are entitled to receive advice from the local authority about their options when they are homeless but, because they are not in this priority bracket, often they are not given the advice that they need. They are frequently the single homeless who go along to the local authority office, as I have seen during my 25 years in a local council. The local authority office does not really want to deal with them because they do not have a priority need, they are intentionally homeless and they are single. They are often pushed from pillar to post, sleeping rough and begging for places to sleep, and often they have a mental problem or a drug problem. In the minuscule amount of advice that the local authority gives, it seems to say that these people should go to the private rented sector and rent a room. The trouble is that those in the private rented sector do not envisage such people as their top choice for tenants. Such people fall between many stools in this situation.

All the amendments are trying to do is to encourage and insist that local authorities give real advice and assistance to what these people can do to get into a secure place, albeit for a short time, so that they can recover and then come into the normal tenant situation in the urban or rural areas where they live. I hope that the Government will consider this.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, a whole series of significant points have been made which I hope do not get lost. We have had a kind of teach-in on all the issues around homelessness, which I hope can be carried forward in different ways. I shall speak to Amendment 173A, which differs from Amendment 173AA only in containing a typing mistake which Amendment 137AA has rightly expunged. Therefore, I hope I can count the noble Lords who follow me as supporting the same amendment as mine.

The amendment also relates to the proposed ending of the obligation for local authorities to find a place for a homeless household, eventually, if not immediately, in the social sector; for example, in council or housing association accommodation. In future, local authorities would be able to discharge their duty by getting the household into a private landlord's property. Up to now, it has been assumed that the characteristics of social housing, security, which we shall discuss later, and relatively low rents alongside some social support from the landlord have been essential for those who have become homeless. However, some homeless people may not need anything more from their landlord than a roof over their heads for a year or so and some may be able to cope with higher rents in due course.

More realistically, in many areas there is simply no alternative to the private rented sector for some of the people who have nowhere else to go. Even if the nation embarked on a major programme of new social housebuilding, which, despite the good effects on the wider economy, is highly improbable while deficit reduction is the greatest priority, it would be many years before that sector could satisfactorily meet the pent-up demand for affordable decent homes. Even so, using the private rented sector in place of social housing as the long-term solution to the needs of homeless people—households sufficiently vulnerable that councils must accept responsibility for them—is not the same as using the PRS for temporary, emergency accommodation, let alone for short-term lettings to students or to more affluent single people who plan to buy later.

If the council’s duty towards a homeless family is for that family to be satisfied, on a permanent basis, in a privately rented property, that offer needs to satisfy rather higher standards of suitability than for short-term lets. After all, if the household were nominated to a housing association, its housing arrangements would come under the extensive regulatory powers of a statutory regulator, the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords, now known as the Tenant Services Authority, which is to be part of the Homes and Communities Agency. That regulator sets standards on matters such as property condition, rent levels and the rights of tenants to be consulted and involved.

In considerable contrast, private landlords have no regulator, no FSA, Ofcom, Oftel or Ofgem. Many argue, as emerged from the 2009 report from Julie Rugg at York University, that some regulation of the PRS is badly needed. The Association of Residential Letting Agents is keen for amendments to go forward to regulate letting and managing agents. That would bring some 60 per cent of private lettings into a regulated system, but it is clear that the Government are not likely, at present, to be convinced of the case for regulation of this sector. This means protection for the most vulnerable of tenants—the homeless family or the homeless individual—will have to be addressed in a different way.