Homelessness among Refugees

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing the debate. The question she asked at the outset is absolutely right. Without any disrespect to the acting Minister, why has the debate been bumped to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government rather than the Home Office? With the best will in the world, the acting homelessness Minister will not be able to comment on some of my hon. Friend’s fundamental points relating to the reasons why those granted refugee status find themselves without funding or housing. He cannot take action on national insurance numbers, the minimum level of expected treatment of refugees and respect for their status, the responsibility of the state for those vulnerable people who have fled war or persecution, or the post-grant appointment service. He cannot tell us what has happened to the pilot. He cannot tell us where the review is, or anything about access to interpreters to help asylum seekers and refugees navigate our systems. He cannot respond to the important points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) on work permits for refugees.

As he is unable to assist with all those things, I hope that the Minister will undertake to hold a meeting with the relevant Home Office Minister, have discussions and feed back to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston the Government’s thoughts on these important issues, or facilitate a joint meeting. It would be a fine example of the Government working cross-departmentally to tackle the gaping holes in Government policy, which will ensure that the very good Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 will not meet its stated aims. The Minister must agree that the Government’s failure of process, exacerbating a problem elsewhere in government, is ludicrous.

However, there are some things on which the Minister can comment. He can say something about prioritisation on housing waiting lists, and whether the systems—particularly local connection requirements for refugees—are fit and fair for purpose, from his experience and understanding of them. I am interested to know whether he recognises that some people in category 3 or 4 on waiting lists will be left there for years in limbo—usually single people and those at highest risk of homelessness.

The Minister can also say whether he believes that the Homelessness Reduction Act properly covers refugees and providers of asylum accommodation. There was very little discussion of that aspect of the Bill during its passage, with most of the consideration focusing on the roles and responsibilities of local government. Perhaps the Government intend to say that asylum seekers are covered because everyone who is homeless is covered, and that it is the local authority’s responsibility to deal with it in the best way for their local area. That would be a wholly inadequate response.

We know that the implementation of the Act will prove very challenging. Local authorities are already stretched to meet the needs of their local areas. Indeed, just before the debate I had a meeting with representatives of Centrepoint, who told me that, in the year 2016-17, 86,000 young people presented as homeless. They have concerns about how addressing that will be funded, let alone meeting the specialist needs of refugees who may be traumatised, face language barriers, and have little or no knowledge of our less-than-straightforward systems. If the Government are truly concerned about the prevention of homelessness, what action do they plan to take to tackle the immobility of people in accessing housing, and not leaving them for excessive periods hoping for a home? Will they review the funding settlement for local authorities before the expected October implementation date?

The Minister can also tell us where the Government’s rough sleeping strategy is. The Opposition heard rumours that it would be published last week. Surely it is not the intention that it will be slipped out on the final day before Members leave Parliament for the recess.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Whenever that is.

[Melanie Onn]

Indeed. Whenever that is.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) rightly said, refugees are people who have gone through the trauma of leaving their home and possibly their family. Yet rather than offering a safe haven for those vulnerable people, our current system creates further difficulties and challenges at a time when many would think that their troubles were over. Given all that, it is little surprise that there are calls from the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, the all-party parliamentary group on refugees, St Mungo’s, the Refugee Council, NACCOM, Crisis and others to extend that 28-day grace period to at least 56 days, and to implement a number of other recommendations.

In response to the Home Affairs Committee report, the Government pledged to introduce a new vulnerable persons service. Yet data from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network revealed that the number of new rough sleepers in London with refugee status increased in the period 2017-18 compared with the previous year, and is up nearly 75% from just two years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) said just how disproportionate was the number of refugees in the homeless population and that, when we do house them, they end up in sub-standard, low-quality, poor housing. The Government must recognise that and take account of it. That is consistent with NACCOM’s findings that nearly 30% of people requiring emergency sheltered accommodation last winter were refugees. It bears repeating that those people are fleeing persecution, war and possible famine. All those things often come with health complications that would make a harsh winter extremely difficult for a rough sleeper to withstand. It is not Government policy to track the deaths of rough sleepers, so we do not know how many refugees have lost their lives as a result of rough sleeping. The Government aim to end rough sleeping by 2027, but if they want to get anywhere near that target, they must realise that their current reforms and actions are nowhere near enough.

More than half the people in the Refugee Council study have endured a period in a hostel, night shelter or on the streets, and the reality is that someone who has been granted asylum in the UK is only 28 days from the possibility of homelessness. That is half what the Homelessness Reduction Act prescribes as the period after which councils must step in if someone is threatened with homelessness. Why are refugees who have been granted asylum given less state intervention and support than other citizens threatened with homelessness?

Guidance in the application and roll-out of the 2017 Act has not been openly consulted on, so I am not clear who the acting Minister has spoken to. Has he considered extending the list of public bodies with a duty to refer to include those that provide asylum accommodation? Undertaking to do that would go some way to easing the concerns of those operating in the sector.

The UNHCR definition of a refugee states that a refugee has the “right to safe asylum”. The UK has a proud history of providing that, but we must ensure that it is a genuine safe haven for refugees and does not contribute to stigmatisation through lackadaisical policy-making or an unwillingness to make things right. We need a cross-Government approach to ensure that no new refugee ends up on the streets, and I hope that the Minister will tell us how he will do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing this crucial debate. It was a little interrupted, and I am grateful to hon. Members for coming back to the Chamber to hear a response from the interim Minister—I guess we are all interim Ministers in this job, as it is ultimately down to the will of the electorate.

[Melanie Onn]

Is the Minister going to resign as well?

[Nigel Adams]

I have no intentions in that regard.

I thank the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston for her work in this area. Her important work with the all-party group on refugees has raised the profiles of issues that impact on refugees, and I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions today.

We have a proud history of providing protection for those who need it, and the Government are committed to ensuring that all refugees can take positive steps towards integration and realise their potential. This country should work for everyone, especially the most vulnerable in our society, and we remain committed to ensuring that everyone has a roof over their heads and receives the support they need to rebuild their lives.

As hon. Members have said, our manifesto pledged to halve rough sleeping during this Parliament and end it altogether by 2027, and that is in addition to an ambitious homelessness reduction programme. We are making good progress on our refugee resettlement commitments. Last year, more than 6,000 vulnerable refugees received protection under one of our resettlement schemes, and we are now more than half way towards meeting our commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict by 2020. There is much good practice from the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme, and we will build on that as we go forward.

A key commitment in the Government’s integrated community strategy was to work with civil society, and others, to increase the integration support available to those granted refugee status after arrival in the UK. That is a significant development in our approach, which recognises the importance we place on integration for all refugees. We agree that for newly recognised refugees, securing accommodation and accessing benefits or employment are crucial first steps without which longer term integration simply cannot happen. That is why we have introduced a number of initiatives to support refugees during the 28-day move-on period, to which the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston rightly referred.

The post-grant appointment service is a joint initiative with the Home Office and the DWP, which helps refugees access benefits by arranging an appointment with a local DWP office—a jobcentre. The process is now being rolled out across the UK. Hon. Members referred to the pilots and issues that have been found in them. It is crucial that we monitor the progress of this work. I am sure that my colleagues at DWP have heard such comments and will follow up on them. The process has been rolled out. We plan to publish information about the schemes shortly, but the indicators are that, provided refugees attend the appointment, benefit claims can be processed quickly and a payment can be provided, before the 28-day move-on period expires.

MHCLG is currently funding the first year of a two-year pilot of 35 local authority asylum support liaison officers in 19 local authority areas in England with some of the highest numbers of asylum seekers. They will offer tailored support to newly recognised refugees. That will include working closely with the local authorities and a range of third-sector agencies during that 28-day move-on period, to secure accommodation for new refugees to move into, following a successful asylum decision. That should thereby reduce this vulnerable cohort’s risk of homelessness and rough sleeping. We want to work with civil society, local authorities and other partners, to consider what more could be done to support newly recognised refugees in the move-on period and the longer-term journey to integration.

More broadly, homelessness and rough sleeping is a key priority for the Government. As I have mentioned, we have allocated more than £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness to 2020. That funding will assist people to get the help they need and prevent homelessness and rough sleeping in the first place. Newly recognised refugees are entitled to homelessness assistance from their local authority and will benefit from the changes we are implementing through the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which many hon. Members have referred to. That came into being in April. We believe it is the most ambitious legislative reform in decades. Some of the changes introduced in the Act should mean that more people, whether they have priority need or not, are receiving the right support. For clarity, the new duties in the Act include providing and developing personalised housing plans based on an assessment of that person’s need, help to find accommodation and to access debt advice, and, potentially and crucially, help towards finding work.

For refugees, I recognise that the 28-day move-on period is less than the 56-day prevention duty in the Act. Home Office accommodation providers for asylum seekers already have a contractual duty to notify the local authority of the potential need to provide housing where a person in that accommodation is granted status. Combined with support from LAASLOs, the post-grant appointment service and the strengthened multi-agency approach to preventing homelessness, this referral by those providers should mean that the refugees get a range of support to access mainstream accommodation and services within the 28-day move-on period.

In order to deliver the new duties under the Act, we have provided new burdens funding of £72.7 million to ensure that local authorities can deliver their new duties. Funding, however, is not enough to ensure the Act is implemented correctly. That is why we have created the homelessness support and advice team. They have worked with authorities over the last year on a range of issues, but in particular they have supported them in the implementation of the Act.

We are going further on homelessness by committing to halve rough sleeping, as I have mentioned previously, in this Parliament and ending it entirely by 2027. In answer to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), the Opposition spokesman, we will be publishing the rough sleeping strategy this summer, to set out our plan on how to achieve this. We are taking action now through the rough sleeping initiative. It is providing £30 million this year and the money has been allocated to the local authorities with the highest numbers of people sleeping rough. It is the product of many months of work by our cross-governmental rough sleeping and homelessness reduction taskforce, supported by an advisory panel of experts from across the sector and local government.

We have announced £28 million for Housing First pilots in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and the Liverpool city region, which will focus on housing around 1,000 people with some of the most vulnerable and complex needs. The pilots will provide individuals with stable, affordable accommodation and, more importantly, intensive wrap-around support, which will help them to recover from complex issues such as substance abuse and mental health difficulties, and to sustain their tenancies. We expect the first people to move into the accommodation in the autumn. I very much look forward to the positive impacts of those pilots being realised.

To help local authorities support non-UK national rough sleepers, the controlling migration fund has funded projects that are working to support rough sleepers into accommodation and employment, and to return home voluntarily where that is appropriate.

I would like to respond to a number of points raised by Members. I apologise if I do not manage to respond to them all, but I will write to everyone who has contributed today with full answers to the points raised.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked whether refugees would be given priority in housing services. Newly recognised refugees are eligible for assistance under legislation for homelessness and must be provided with accommodation if they have priority need, for example, if they are pregnant or have children. If they have been supported by the Home Office, they are deemed to have a local connection with the local authority in which they have been accommodated.

The hon. Lady asked about local authority asylum support liaison officers and the assessment of how they are working, and tier one classification and national insurance. Each of the 19 pilot areas will produce a report at the end of the first and second years. My Department is in the process of deciding how the evaluation of the pilots will fit into a broader evaluation of the controlling migration fund. On conversation with the DWP regarding reclassification to tier one, I do not know the answer, but I will ensure that the hon. Lady is written to and that she is updated.

On national insurance cards, refugees do not need to have a national insurance number to claim benefits because DWP centres provide one if an individual does not have one. From January 2018, procedures were put in place that mean that the national insurance number is now printed on all biometric residence permits provided to refugees.

The hon. Lady talked about social housing allocations. Certain people must be given reasonable preference under social housing allocation schemes, including people who are homeless. That is to ensure that the priority goes to those who need it the most.

In the time I have left, I will try to respond to hon. Members who are here in the Chamber. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) mentioned the integrated communities strategy. The Green Paper, published in March, recognised the importance of integration for all refugees, as well as committing to working with civil society. The consultation closed on 5 June and we are currently considering the responses. Last week, we launched the £7 million integrated communities fund.

The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who does fantastic work on the APPG, asked about access to English classes. English language tuition is fully funded for refugees who are unemployed and looking for work. I know she raised lots of other points and I will certainly write to her on them. I am conscious that I want to give the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston a short period to sum up.