Temporary Accommodation

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to bring the subject of the crisis of temporary accommodation to the House of Commons today. I thank the Minister for her time and attention this afternoon. Having first met at the ballot box in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2019, it is great to meet here again, at the Dispatch Box.

It means a lot to me to raise this issue today on behalf of my constituent Kelly and her family. Kelly is a proud mum of three, wife to Devon, and a fighter. After being served with a section 21 notice by her landlord, Kelly and her family were forced to leave their home. She was determined to find a new home in the private rented sector but faced so many barriers. One was that many landlords required her to find a guarantor whose salary bracket was not one shared by folks in her network. Another was that many landlords demanded six months’ rent in advance. For someone like Kelly who receives universal credit, having six months’ worth of Eastbourne private sector rent in the bank—to pay so much up-front rent—would disqualify her from universal credit in a heartbeat.

Despite pulling out all the stops to find a new home, having been displaced from their previous one, Kelly, her three children and their stepdad Devon have been backed into the corner of homelessness—into temporary accommodation until a longer-term home can be found via the council or the private rented sector. This accommodation is too small to cater to their aspirations and their needs, especially those of Kelly’s awesome teenage son, Joseph. This is a combination that, by its very nature, is temporary and not secure; accommodation that forces families to exist, not live, and that could not feel further from a home. That is not fair. I have taken up Kelly’s case, and my team and I are working hard to support her, but what I find so extraordinary about Kelly is that in the midst of unspeakable hardship she is so often zooming out and reflecting on just how broken the whole system is, and she has been a tireless advocate for reforming it. A week or so ago, she said:

“Josh, take me to Parliament, and we’ll speak about it up there!”

Days later, I secured this Adjournment debate, which enables us to do exactly that.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. It is an important issue, and I agree that it is admirable for someone in such circumstances to pull out and see the bigger picture. To add to that bigger picture, in the borough of Hackney, half of which I represent, the forecast cost of temporary accommodation is £54 million this year, and there are eight primary schools’ worth of children, equivalent to 1% of our population, living in temporary accommodation. I am sure that the hon. Member would agree that the position is unsustainable, and I congratulate him again on bringing it to the attention of the House.

[Josh Babarinde]

I could not agree more, and I will come to the costs of temporary accommodation later. The hon. Lady knows as well as I do that the National Audit Office described the situation as unsustainable. It needs a resolution, which is why today’s debate is so important.

On securing the debate, I called Kelly, shared the news, and she said in reply:

“What needs to be said is going to be said in the place it needs to be said to the person it needs to be said to. You are the right person to say it, Josh.”

It is therefore so humbling to welcome Kelly and her son Joseph to the Public Gallery. I hope that I am the right person, that I say what needs to be said, and that I do not let Kelly and families like hers down. With her blessing, I have shared some of Kelly’s story today. She is just one of the 117,450 families who are in temporary accommodation in this country right now. That is a 12% rise compared with last year. Heartbreakingly, more than 150,000 children are living in temporary accommodation, which is enough to fill 5,000 classrooms.

[Josh Babarinde]

I absolutely would encourage that. There needs to be more co-ordination between local authorities, educational settings and health and care settings. Many have advocated for a notification system in order to aid the knowledge of those situations, so that they can be addressed.

The circumstances are devastating, and we hear from hon. Members who have made interventions that that is the case in their patches too. Shelter estimates that more than two thirds of people in temporary accommodation have inadequate access to basic facilities—to cook, for example. Many food banks, including mine in Eastbourne, supply kettle packs, because many families in temporary accommodation are unable to cook or heat the food that they get from a food bank in any other way. Isolation is also a consequence, especially for those who are placed in temporary accommodation miles away from their support networks, or where the rules of their accommodation ban visitors. Most shockingly, according to the Shared Health Foundation analysis of the national childhood mortality database, temporary accommodation has been a contributing factor in the deaths of 42 infants since 2019. We cannot go on like this.

Not only is that unacceptable on a human level, but as I said earlier, the National Audit Office has been clear that the situation is unsustainable for local authorities—especially mine in Eastbourne. In my hometown, the number of families in temporary accommodation has doubled since 2019. That, combined with our food bank becoming the busiest Trussell Trust food bank in the country—it distributed more food parcels per head than any other in the UK—led to my campaign to declare a cost of living emergency in Eastbourne. It was the first place in the UK to do so, and that unlocked emergency support for those struggling most.

The surge in temporary accommodation led to the financial cost to the council jumping from £2.2 million in 2019 to the £5 million projected for this year.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his indulgence in giving way again. He is right to cite the National Audit Office’s excellent work to shine a light on the issue. Does he agree that if we turned those many millions spent on temporary accommodation into money spent on good-quality affordable social housing, we would go a long way towards solving this problem?

[Josh Babarinde]

The hon. Lady has a crystal ball, because she has again pre-empted something I will say later. I absolutely agree, and I commend her work in her former role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which I know took a deep interest in this matter.

Costs in Eastbourne have skyrocketed. In fact, the council has said that 49p of every £1 that the council collects in its share of council tax is currently spent on temporary accommodation. As a result, Eastbourne borough council has been forced to consult on incredibly tough saving decisions to avoid issuing a section 114 notice, and the picture is similar in other councils.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Asser]

The hon. Lady makes a valuable point. The figures are hard to believe; sometimes I have to check that I have not misread them or added a zero. As she highlights, the issue affects councils across the country and seriously adds to their financial problems. This is clearly unaffordable and unsustainable, even in the short term. We desperately need support, so that we can deal with the impact on councils’ budgets; they face huge pressures already.

As the hon. Member for Eastbourne pointed out through the example of Kelly, his constituent who is in the Public Gallery, the issue is the impact on families. Since the cost of living crisis began, when the supply of temporary accommodation slumped and demand soared in my borough, my advice surgery has seen a massive increase in casework. People have come to see us who have been living for months in a hotel room—a perfectly decent hotel room for someone staying three or four days, but not for a family of four or five people for months on end. They are living in a single room without cooking facilities. The impact on the parents’ mental health and the children’s physical health and educational opportunities was really quite serious. It is difficult to deal with the sheer numbers.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. I am old enough to remember when bed and breakfasts were commonly used for households who could not get permanent accommodation. That was rightly dealt with because it was a scourge on modern society. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are now slipping massively backwards because of the numbers he outlined, and that we need to find a quick solution, in order to support our constituents?

[James Asser]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We have gone back from people in temporary accommodation living in flats to hotels being the only option. My council is desperately seeking alternative solutions, but the sheer scale of the problem makes that very difficult. As a fellow east London MP, the Minister will understand the problem and the issues that we face. I ask the Government to look urgently at financial support in the short term, so that we can try to deal with the immediate crisis, but we also need a long-term solution—a financial solution to help councils through these difficulties, and a long-term solution, a way to build social housing. My council is one of those pioneering the building of new social housing, but in the grand scheme of things, we are effectively talking penny packets, given the scale of the issue that we need to deal with.

I appreciate that we inherited this crisis. It has been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, and seriously exacerbated by the difficulties that councils have faced as a result of the funding settlements that they have had over the past 10 years. They are juggling 10 years of austerity and the cost of these problems. However, it is a crisis that we have to deal with. I am confident that we can, but it is clearly something that we have to tackle as a matter of urgency, not just for the sake of our councils’ budgets, but to help the people who most need help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

The hon. Member has highlighted some really important issues affecting the private housing sector—costs and supply—and the impacts that they have in different areas. I will come on to the action we have already started taking to make headway on those issues.

As we have heard, homelessness and rough sleeping have dramatically increased. In England, homelessness is now at record levels. In March this year, more than 117,000 households, including over 150,000 children, were living in temporary accommodation. In the hon. Member for Eastbourne’s constituency, on 31 March, 373 households and 419 children were living in temporary accommodation. It is shocking that children and families in this country in the 21st century are without a permanent place to call home, and have to live in horrific conditions where temporary accommodation is not of a decent standard. We all know of cases where that is deeply problematic.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend is in this post, because she understands the real issues. We have this ridiculous situation where families in my constituency in east London are being sent to other parts of the country, putting pressure on the housing markets and causing issues there. This vicious circle is costing the taxpayer—and households, our schools and our communities—dear. I am sure that she is moving on to what solutions may be available, and she has our support in finding those.

[Rushanara Ali]

I am incredibly grateful, and my correspondence box is piling up with the mix of issues that my hon. Friend points to. We need to work collectively to tackle these issues, because unless we deal with them in the round, one area’s issues will be transferred to another, which I know is not the answer. We need to address those issues, but it will take some time for us to gather the evidence and work with Members to tackle barriers.