Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we have just heard a very well-informed contribution from my noble friend. I greatly welcome this Bill. It provides me with the opportunity to comment on the accompanying Commons report, which I have been sitting on for something like five months, awaiting this debate.

After 43 years in Westminster, I can recall only a small number of occasions where the publication of a Select Committee report has caused so much anguish and concern to committee members about the state of a publicly funded provision and the use of public expenditure. I sat on the Commons Public Accounts Committee for 10 years, and I cannot recall even a National Audit Office report on such a breakdown in the use of public funds. I was shocked to read this devastating report last year, and I congratulate the Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, under the chairmanship of Clive Betts, for its brilliant exposure of a problem which I suspect most Members of both Houses were completely unaware of. I certainly was unaware of it.

For the anoraks outside the House who are following this debate—there are many—the report is numbered HC 21. It was published on 27 October last year and is entitled Exempt Accommodation. In its summary, it refers to a system which

“involves the exploitation of vulnerable people … while unscrupulous providers make excessive profits by capitalising on loopholes”.

That has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Best, but I repeat it for emphasis, because it is a very important statement to include in the report. It also says that

“some residents’ experiences of exempt accommodation are beyond disgraceful … Where the very worst experiences are occurring, this points to a complete breakdown of the system”.

This is hardly the language of reports we have heard from other Select Committees over the years. It continues:

“Areas with high concentrations of exempt accommodation can also attract anti-social behaviour, crime—including the involvement of organised criminal gangs—rubbish, and vermin”.


We have to remember that people have been living in these appalling circumstances. The report then reveals that

“organisations with no expertise are able to target survivors of domestic abuse and their children and provide neither specialist support”

nor a safe environment.

The report is scathing on the availability of data. It accuses successive Governments of having been “caught sleeping”, with a scarcity of data. It cites, for example, the inability to establish how widespread the very worst experiences are and how many exempt accommodation claimants and providers there are. I am sure we can all agree that these shocking revelations demanded action. Clive Betts’s committee’s report, followed by the Blackman initiative, have delivered what I would argue successive Governments of all persuasions have failed to deal with.

I want to flag up a number of issues arising from both the Betts report and the subsequent debate in the House. I make it clear that it is not my intention to seek to amend the Bill before us in any way; we need its swift passage into legislation. However, there remain some issues on which we need further assurances. For example, there was talk in the Commons of the requirement for new planning powers for local authorities to be able to proactively manage the market. The Government have responded with a review, which needs to be followed up.

There was a call more generally for greater national monitoring and oversight powers and of a reformed regime of enforcement. There were calls for the establishment of a system of evaluation and improvement notice orders. This needs to be followed up with a comprehensive consultation process. Of particular concern to my Labour colleagues when it was considered in the other place was the issue of limited resources and the effect on cash-starved, overburdened local authorities, some of which may choose not to license. They may be the very authorities with the greatest problems. The Government’s consultation has highlighted the problem but not dealt with it. But the issue of resources goes wider. For example, what of the funding of the cost to local authorities of adopting licensing schemes? The schemes will cost money, and the money will have to come from somewhere.

Finally, on a wider issue that falls slightly outside the remit of the Bill, there is a need to close the regulatory loophole whereby unscrupulous, exempt non-profit-making providers who let both at below market rents and at market rents are able to operate outside consumer legislation. That was partly dealt with during Commons proceedings, but it remains outstanding. My people have proposed a solution. Will Ministers follow this up at some stage after the Bill’s passage? Could the Minister assure me that the matters that I have raised will be followed up, perhaps in a letter to me?

According to MP research, we are now told that there are 153,000 households in exempt accommodation, with escalating numbers in recent years. Some people argue that that is an underestimate. The problem is that the stats reveal little, as local authority returns are limited in scope. That certainly needs rectifying.

Finally, I want to say a few words of appreciation to Mr Bob Blackman, Member of Parliament. He is not of my political persuasion—we differ politically on many issues, I am sure—but on this issue he has undertaken a fine piece of work on which he should be congratulated, and we are all indebted to him. I hope that this Bill proceeds unamended, without further debate, to the statute book. Equally, I hope that the Government will give clear instructions to their officials to get on with it. We need to deal expeditiously with this appalling state of affairs.