Temporary Accommodation

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

The reality is that under universal credit, a tenant can choose to have the rent paid directly to the landlord, and I would certainly recommend that families in this position choose that option. I also believe that the delay in paying universal credit should be reduced from six weeks to four weeks. That is my personal view, which I have advanced to Ministers.

On the question of solutions, I have already mentioned the idea of introducing a rent deposit guarantee project and a help to rent project. Many households face the crisis of not being able to raise a deposit in order to rent a property, and they become homeless as a result. It is estimated that by investing some £31 million a year, we could help 32,000 families in England alone to raise a deposit and secure a property at a rent they could afford. That could save the temporary accommodation budget £1.8 billion over a three-year period. That seems to be a sensible route to follow. What lobbying is the Minister doing of his friends in the Treasury on that issue? That proposal could clearly save money, save a lot of angst and perhaps save lives.

I also want to talk about the rise in rough sleeping. I applaud the Government for setting out the need to halve the number of rough sleepers in this country—and, indeed, to eliminate rough sleeping completely—but the reality is that it is on the rise and we need to take urgent action.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bob Blackman]

I have given way several times already, and I know that many colleagues want to speak in the debate.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister update the House on the question of rough sleepers—in particular, the question of their designation? In London, only about half the rough sleepers are UK citizens; a large number in London and beyond are from outside the United Kingdom. This is a serious problem. People are coming to this country, and they may have been trafficked or whatever: we need to get to the bottom of why they are sleeping rough on our streets today.

These are my asks for the Minister. Bed-and-breakfast accommodation is the most expensive form of temporary accommodation, and its use is on the rise. Obviously, we need to exclude the Grenfell Tower situation, because that involves a very different position, but bed-and-breakfast accommodation is an expensive and unsatisfactory means of accommodating families. The solutions to these issues will be key. It is more than 40 years since we built 250,000 properties in this country. That is the fault of Governments of all persuasions. We clearly need to build 300,000 properties just to deal with the need that exists right now. Will the Minister update us on how we are improving the level of house building in this country, so that we can address the fundamental issue of providing enough homes for the people who want to live in them?

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[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on his speech and thank him for reminding me to bring Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for her speech and for securing this important debate.

The situation in my home borough—Newham—is dire. The local authority reports that more than 5,600 people approached the council last year, worried about homelessness. In total, 4,725 Newham households are in some kind of temporary accommodation, and more than half of those are currently in the least stable form of nightly paid accommodation. I hope that hon. Members across the House will agree that those statistics drive home the scale of the problem we are discussing. As we know, temporary housing conditions can massively damage families’ wellbeing and opportunities. To illustrate my point, I will talk about just one case out of the hundreds that I have received recently.

In August, I heard from Camila, a grandmother writing on behalf of her grandchildren and their mother, Lisa. Camila’s three grandaughters are 14, 11, and five. Lisa has had to live in temporary accommodation for 15 years. The children have known nothing else. The conditions in Lisa’s flat are awful and the situation is having a real impact on the family’s health. The walls are either black with mould or covered with mildew because of the damp. One of Lisa’s daughters has breathing problems and the whole family are frequently sick with infections.

Lisa and her daughters have had to move a number of times already, as we all have experience of in London. On one occasion, Lisa was moved out of Newham, and she was recently told that her family might be moved out of London entirely. Camila is really worried about Lisa’s mental health due to the stress caused by her family’s living conditions. Camila believes that having to move out of London and away from the support network of her family could push Lisa “over the edge” entirely, leaving the family in very difficult circumstances.

The problems of homelessness, debt, unstable homes and constant moves have an impact on children and families, preventing them from putting down basic roots—making friends, getting on doctors’ registers and even joining a library or a youth club. We are really storing up social problems for the future.

I often say that I was privileged to grow up in a council flat in east London. I was moved there at the age of two and a half, during the slum clearances around the docks. That flat provided me with the security to learn and to do as well as I could. My little—well, younger—sister is a well-respected solicitor. [Interruption.] She is actually both; that is true. And I am standing in this House. We could not have done that without the security of an affordable and secure tenancy—the security of a council property—behind us.

The social housing shortage requires urgent extensive long-term policy responses, but one decision is crucial and would help to continue to improve the housing conditions across the board in my constituency. The Secretary of State could today approve the renewal of Newham’s widely respected scheme for private sector licensing. The scheme has run utterly successfully since 2013, but its renewal now requires approval from the Department for Communities and Local Government and the decision is overdue. The current scheme expires on 31 December, so there is a real risk that my constituents will be left without these protections if a decision is not made quickly.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Those of us who grew up working-class and spent time in social council homes had security. What we see so often in our constituencies is deep insecurity and the depression, mental health and other health problems that go with that insecurity. Does she agree that that is the difference between yesterday’s working classes and today’s?

[Lyn Brown]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Things were not easy at home, but my mum never let us feel that we went without. Both my parents worked in factories in Silvertown, and although there was not a huge amount of money, there was always enough to pay the rent, because it was a social rent. Now, my constituents have two jobs, and they work in very hard circumstances, but they still cannot afford the private sector rents—that is all that is available to them—in my home borough.

Let me get back to the scheme in Newham to protect residents. The scheme’s value in terms of the enforcement of housing standards is clear. It gives Newham the information and powers it needs to monitor and enforce standards in the private rented sector. All private landlords have to register and agree terms with the council, and they are held to account for failures to live up to the agreement.

Just last week, enforcement officers working as part of the scheme found a man living in a 1 metre by 2 metre space under the stairs of a property. There were 11 other people living throughout the rest of the house, and dangerous electrical and fire hazards were found as well. Through the scheme, Newham Council has helped to bring more than 1,200 prosecutions against criminal landlords, which is 60% of the London total—more than every other London borough combined.

If standards are continually driven up in the private rented sector locally, and if enforcement operations are strengthened so that there are fewer rogue landlords and there is less scope for exploitative practices such as the horrendous overcrowding I described, conditions will improve in temporary housing, and that can only be for the good of the children and our society at large.

I hope we will see some serious commitment from the Minister today to deal with the root causes of the ills of long-term, expensive, poor-quality temporary accommodation. Given that he has sat generously listening and nodding away as I have spoken, I also want to hear some positive noises from him about the scheme, and I hope he will soon be in a position to announce that approval for the extension has been granted.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate on such an important subject. The provision of good temporary accommodation is a vital part of getting people the help they need and ensuring that a family are never without a roof over their head. The number of households in temporary accommodation remains well below the peak levels experienced in September 2004, but this Government are certainly not complacent. In order to ensure that families are moved into settled accommodation more quickly, and spend less time in temporary accommodation, we took a major step and changed the law in 2011, so that councils can now place families in decent and affordable private rented homes.

The quality of temporary accommodation is, of course, extremely important. The quality and standard of all temporary accommodation is ensured through a legal duty placed on local authorities, which must undertake an assessment of suitability before placing anyone in accommodation. Affordability, size, condition, accessibility and, importantly, location should be taken into account. The assessment includes the possible disruption to jobs and children’s schooling, points that were made during the debate.

I will respond to as many of the hon. Lady’s questions as possible. To pick up on her first point, we should take health and safety extremely seriously. All homes should be of a reasonable standard, and tenants should have a safe place to live regardless of tenure. Local authorities have strong powers to deal with poor-quality and unsafe accommodation. The housing health and safety rating system assesses the health and safety risks in all residential properties. If a property is found to contain serious hazards, the local authority has a duty to take the most appropriate action, and we would expect local authorities to use those powers. It important that safety levels are always met and that we ensure that homes are of a decent standard.

We are also embarking on an ambitious programme to reform the response to homelessness, which will place prevention right at the heart of the approach. So far, that has included replacing the DWP’s temporary accommodation management fee with a flexible homelessness support grant, which enables local authorities to more strategically prevent homelessness. Taking action earlier and getting on the front foot in order to help to prevent homelessness will result in fewer households having to face the stress and upheaval of a homelessness crisis, and we expect it to relieve pressure on temporary accommodation. The funding will drive change in local areas, and my ambition is to see local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, health services and the wider public sector work in partnership to deliver services that support people’s needs. Overall, we have allocated £950 million until 2020 to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping, as well as supporting the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

The Act is the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, and it will fundamentally transform the culture of homelessness service delivery. Local authorities, public bodies and the third sector will work together actively to prevent homelessness for all those at risk, irrespective of priority need, intentional homelessness or local connection. The Act will require local authorities to work with those in need to develop personalised housing plans, which will be tailored to focus on the needs and circumstances of the individual. That can include actions by other support services that are best suited to support the individual.

Alongside the Act, we are making positive changes in the way we gather statutory homelessness data, as the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) rightly said. The additional data we gather will enable us to get a better insight into the causes of homelessness and the support that people need. The data will also enable us to monitor the help people have received from their local authority and whether it helped to prevent them from becoming homeless. The data will also provide us with more detail on the temporary accommodation provided to those in need, including on its size, location and quality.

To support the delivery of the Act, we are consulting widely on the revised statutory homelessness code of guidance for local authorities. We will also be providing £72.7 million of funding, in line with the new burdens doctrine. We want to see fewer individuals and families face homelessness, we are committed to ending rough sleeping, and we want to reduce homelessness overall. We are therefore setting up a homelessness reduction taskforce, which will focus on prevention and the important issue of affordable housing.

I will now address some of the other points raised by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. On the Homelessness Reduction Act, the Department for Communities and Local Government has employed a team of advisers. She rightly mentioned how we will hold local areas to account. It is not just about holding areas to account but about supporting them to ensure that the right systems and working practices are in place. The team of advisers will go out to support local authorities on implementing the Act.

It is extremely important that we get to a place where the code of guidance reflects some of the challenges that the hon. Lady mentioned. It is also important—my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East is a strong advocate for this—that the Act makes provision for the Government to introduce a code of practice if it is deemed necessary because local authorities are not taking on their responsibilities under the code of guidance.

I heard what the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden had to say about some of the temporary accommodation in her constituency. I was not aware of the meeting she is holding in Committee Room 9 this evening, and unfortunately I cannot make it, but I take her comments very seriously indeed. I would be extremely grateful if she were willing to meet me in the Department to discuss her concerns in more detail.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East mentioned bed and breakfasts, the usage of which has started to fall in the past few quarters. That is good news but, again, we are not complacent. Importantly, certain local authorities, such as Barnet, Haringey and Tower Hamlets, are now not using bed-and-breakfast accommodation at all. We need to learn from places where good practice is happening, and my Department’s team of advisers will focus on spreading that best practice across the country.

The affordable housing supply has also been mentioned. It is an extremely important part of this. The Government have delivered 240,000 affordable homes for rent since 2010, but we want to build on that and bring forward another 225,000 affordable home starts by 2020. On the recent announcements, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been clear that we want to bring forward houses for social rent, particularly in areas with extreme affordability challenges.

My hon. Friends the Members for Harrow East and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned another important issue: the ending of an assured shorthold tenancy, which is a common cause of people becoming homeless. To answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, let me say that my Department is absolutely committed to looking at how we can incentivise landlords to provide longer tenancies. I hope that we will be coming forward with details on that soon. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne shakes his head, but incentivising landlords is the right thing to do, rather than introducing things such as rent controls, which, as has been widely acknowledged across the sector, will reduce supply rather than increase it.

I certainly hear what the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) said about the Newham private sector licensing scheme—she made an impassioned plea to the Department on that. I am not directly making the decision, but I will make sure that the information she has put into this debate is fed back to the Minister for Housing and Planning.

[Lyn Brown]

I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for listening and for that assurance. If the Department is not going to make a positive decision very soon, I would be very grateful for a meeting to discuss that with the Minister responsible, if there is anything that this Minister can do to enable that to happen.

[Mr Jones]

I will certainly do what I can on that. I expect that a decision should not be too far away on the issue the hon. Lady mentions. She also mentioned rogue landlords. We have to be clear that they form a small part of the private rented sector, but wherever they exist we must work to drive them out of the system. That is why in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 we introduced further measures, such as the power to levy civil penalties of up to £30,000 on a rogue landlord, with the money then going back to the local authority to invest in respect of further enforcement powers. We have also introduced banning orders, so rogue landlords can be banned from renting property to people or from being a property agent.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned the situation in Southwark. I was delighted to go there several weeks ago to visit its housing options team, who are an early adopter of the Homelessness Reduction Act. I was struck by the progress being made in Southwark and the positivity of the team there. They seem to be doing a fantastic job and have embraced the principles of the new legislation. It was obvious that they were helping more people earlier to stay in their home, and I was extremely pleased with what I saw during that visit.