Homelessness Reduction Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to pay tribute to her work to stop human trafficking. I am the 12th speaker in the debate and I am pleased to note that the first 11 have all been strongly supportive of the Bill. I should remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The debate has demonstrated the wide expertise and experience in this House, which has been brought to the fore in the detail on the clauses of the Bill. It is a vitally important Bill and I too pay tribute to Bob Blackman MP, the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the Government for their support, to the charities and the voluntary sector, and all those who have undertaken such an enormous amount of work to make this Bill what it is. It has benefited from a lot of scrutiny before it reached your Lordships’ House. That has come through in terms of the clarity with which the policy changes are proposed. The Bill rightly identifies the importance of extending more help to homeless single people, and seeks to do something practical about the problems caused by Section 21 notices.

We have heard a great deal about the large number of voluntary organisations that assist to ameliorate homelessness and I was particularly pleased to hear the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who mentioned Street Pastors. In the early hours of a Saturday morning a few weeks ago I accompanied the Street Pastors in Newcastle upon Tyne in order to meet those who were sleeping rough. Two things struck me. The first was that the rate of rough sleeping in the city was clearly rising, and the second was that a number of those who were sleeping rough had recently been discharged from prison. We heard earlier about those who have left the Armed Forces, and it should not be the case that people are discharged from an institution and have nowhere to go.

We have seen the impact of this problem both in the numbers of those sleeping rough and in the Government’s own homelessness figures, which show that in December there were nearly 75,000 households in temporary accommodation, including 125,000 children who were homeless at Christmas. Three-quarters of the households in temporary accommodation are in London, but it is a general problem nevertheless. I am particularly pleased that the Government have recognised this, and I pay tribute to the work that Ministers have been doing. It is hugely helpful to have a sense of common purpose on an issue as important as this.

Much has been said in the course of the debate about why homelessness is rising. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and most other speakers identified the consequences of the reform of welfare, some of which were forecast, I have to say. It is clear that the welfare reforms have had an impact. We have not been building enough homes for social rent in this country. I think that the housing White Paper may help in that regard and I am pleased that the Government seem to have altered course. It is pretty evident to me and to most noble Lords that it is vital to build more homes which people can rent at a social rent, because otherwise it is very difficult to see how homelessness will be reduced.

Falling security for private tenants has been a factor as well. I was particularly concerned to hear during the debate that this may get more difficult unless the supply of homes increases. Of course, we have had the impact on supported housing. We heard from a number of speakers that it has made it more difficult for a number of voluntary organisations and housing associations to manage supported housing. This is a question that successive Governments have not faced up to: a recent report by the Chartered Institute of Housing pointed out that the Government are investing some £45 billion in housing up to 2020-21, but only £2 billion, or 4% of that, is for housing below market rent. There is a very big strategic issue here for the Government to address: subsidy is going into owner-occupation, which is understandable in many ways, but I believe that the Government have got the balance wrong. We need to give extra support to social rented housing.

Quite a lot has been said about the costs of homelessness. The issue for local government around the initial costs of prevention is clear and evident and will become more evident over the two years of monitoring. Can local authorities manage to fulfil the terms of the Bill? I very much hope that they do and they all need to try. Evidence from Wales shows that the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 has led to a 69% reduction in the number of households owed the main homeless duty. If figures of that scale can be produced it indicates that if the public sector invests properly we will save money later. I commend what has happened in Wales and I hope that, with the huge financial burden which is about to occur in London, for example, which has some three-quarters of homelessness, the investment will enable savings to be generated further down the line.

Very close monitoring is important. Crisis’s research is impressive and indicates that public spending could fall by around £370 million in England if 40,000 people were prevented from homelessness for one year. These are very large sums of public spending. I mentioned the importance of close monitoring of what happens over the next two years. A number of noble Lords talked about this. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, reminded us, in her closely argued case on statistics, that we have to understand the numbers. They have to be right or it is very difficult to draw conclusions. I pay tribute to her work on letting agents’ fees: that is equally helpful in assisting those, particularly in the private sector, having to move very frequently who have been confronted by regular payment of letting agents’ fees.

The contributions of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester and the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, stressed the importance of all councils engaging with the voluntary sector and brought together the issue of local working. It is vital that all public agencies work strongly together to deliver the solution that we all want. I have two or three very brief final comments. I was very struck when reading the Bill by the amount of written correspondence that there is going to be as local authorities are required to do more for individuals. That is essential. One consequence of that will be an increasing role for advocacy, and the voluntary sector may have a key role in helping. There will be a need for advocacy support in terms of personal planning, reading and writing letters for those who are disadvantaged. I very much hope that part of the monitoring will relate to how individuals are helped, because official procedures can be daunting.

The issue of co-ordination between the DWP and DCLG was mentioned several times. It is difficult when different Whitehall departments have different objectives. The noble Lord, Lord Best, reminded us that cuts to housing support can prevent the help that individuals need. I entirely support his call for the freeze on the local housing allowance to cease. I wish the Bill speedy progress through this House. It is not a solution on its own but it is part of the solution. I finish with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who said, “At last, there is a mechanism for embracing prevention”. I think those are probably the most important words we have heard in the last two hours, because the mechanism contained in the Bill will enable many other things to happen.