Supported Housing

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Across the two boroughs I serve in St Helens South and Whiston there are 2,894 people living in and benefiting from supported housing. These are people and families who have fled violence in their home. There are 54 homes across the boroughs that provide support to help them build capacity to manage and enjoy family life again. These are people with several and, in some cases, severe disabilities. These are young adults, and occasionally young people, who have found themselves with no home and often no family to turn to. These are young adults who have turned to alcohol and other substances to camouflage the pain of broken family relationships. These are homeless people, some former servicemen and some former prisoners. A significant number are older people who have been encouraged to give up their three-bedroom homes—homes they have built up over several decades—and move into sheltered housing to provide a home for their family.

The purpose of supported housing is to prevent people from reaching a crisis point and placing heavy demands on other, more costly public services, such as when a pensioner trips and falls at home and has to go into hospital. It is therefore important to ensure that there is funding for such housing in the new system and that the Government do not create an artificial distinction between short-term emergency accommodation and long-term accommodation.

The system needs to recognise the dynamic of people’s needs and living arrangements. The issue before us today is about not only the availability of funding but the availability of places to support people. I thank the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who was busy over the weekend adopting Labour’s plans for house building. Some say that he is bidding to become leader of the Conservative party, but the quickest, simplest and cheapest method to build houses is to give certainty to social landlords across the country who, in many cases, have delayed and abandoned plans to build new rooms in the supported housing sector. In Knowsley, 227 planned units were subject to a lengthy pause because of the lack of certainty, and there is a risk that once those units, plus 150 homes being built in St Helens, are fully built, they could be taken out of the supported housing sector altogether and let as housing with no support at all.

The Communities Secretary was slapped down by the Chancellor. The supported housing sector has been waiting for an indication of Government policy since February so that it can prepare and plan the funding models for future developments. Instead, the Government’s dithering is having a chilling effect on development and much-needed provision.

I appreciate that the Government originally delayed the implementation of their 2015 proposals, giving them time to upskill themselves on the needs of supported housing residents, but the Government have taken two years, they have consulted widely and the sector has made many submissions. One question was on how they can ensure that local allocation of funding by local authorities matches local need. Indeed, we are still waiting for the answer.

The Government’s proposal to devolve a set figure via a top-up grant, in light of shrinking council budgets, is not the answer. The devolved figure is a set amount and will not take account of changes throughout the year. It is wholly unacceptable that those in greatest need are materially worse off because of where they live in the borough. We do not accept such a provision on healthcare, and we should not accept it on housing needs.