Deaths of Homeless People

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

I regret every single life lost on our streets. It is heartbreaking that those 729 people died on our streets last year. That demonstrates the need as clearly as ever—there is so much more to do. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and come to the all-party group to discuss this in much more detail.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The Minister is before us to convince us of the Government’s seriousness in taking forward this issue. Back in March, the UK Statistics Authority urged the Government to improve the quality of their homelessness figures, because if the Government do not know exactly how many people are homeless, how can they possibly expect to deal with the issue? What action have the Government taken on that advice?

Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill (First sitting)

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Q I am interested, Councillor Watts, in the comment you made in one of your earlier responses about the level of reserves that local authorities have had to retain, pending the outcome of appeals dating back—is it nine years?

Councillor Watts: To the 2010 revaluation, so from 2013 onwards.

[Melanie Onn]

Q That seems an extraordinarily long time for anyone to be waiting and holding finance that, as was rightly mentioned, should be being spent in local communities. Do you anticipate that the potential change from every five to every three years will improve that situation for local authorities, or make it harder for them?

On the financial position of local authorities and the level of reserves, are local authorities across the country fully prepared to deal with the potentially increased rate of appeals? The Minister has mentioned that he expects there to be fewer because the rates will be altered more regularly and there will not be such great changes.

Councillor Watts: We do not have a view on whether shifting the revaluations from five to three years will increase or reduce appeals—we will have to wait to see. What we need is some resourcing of the Valuation Office Agency and the valuation tribunal just to get through the very significant backlog from the 2010 revaluation. There is no structural fix to that; the Valuation Office Agency and the appeals tribunal just need to get through that backlog, quite a lot of which, it has to be said, is stuck in the courts at the moment. Therefore, it is not an easily soluble problem.

What we have not yet got, partially because it is early days in the check, challenge, appeal system, is any real sense of the number of appeals from the 2017 revaluation, and they could come through relatively late. That is one of the reasons we support a six-month deadline for businesses to lodge appeals, after the new valuations have been published, to give us some sense of the level of risk. But it could be that one of the impacts of the CCA system is that people are sitting on potential appeals, which will come through in due course, creating another layer of risk for businesses, and we will have to see about that.

As I understand it, the deadline for appeals on the 2017 revaluation has not yet been announced. We would hope that it was in line with the precedent, which would mean it would be the end of 2021, but we would welcome an early announcement on that to give us some sense of the scale of risk. It could well lead to more money having to be kept in reserves to manage a second or third round of risk around those appeals as well.

We would welcome the extra resources going in to clear the backlog. Whether more regular cycles lead to fewer appeals—I hope so, but we have no evidence to be able to comment on that either way.

[Melanie Onn]

Q Do you have any idea of how much is held nationally in reserves for this purpose? Did you mention that?

Councillor Watts: Yes, it is £2.5 billion.

Adrian Blaylock: It was £2.5 billion at the end of March 2017. If you look at the returns that local government is submitting to central Government in terms of their estimates, roughly £1 billion a year is being added to the appeals provision for loss for that particular year. Obviously, as appeals are heard and settled, some of that provision is released, but roughly £1 billion a year is set aside to settle appeals.

In answer to your question, do councils have enough reserves to pay for it? The way it works is that they will reduce their income from non-domestic rates; when they submit that return to central Government, they assume a level of loss and therefore that they will get less income. In effect, it creates its own provision—if that makes sense. That is where the reserve comes from.

[Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Q Do you foresee any problems with the roll-out of the business rate retention scheme and this Bill? Do you think any anomalies or complexities will emerge from those two?

Adrian Blaylock: Nothing obvious occurs. There are a lot of unknowns about rates retention—we are talking about whether we carry on with a similar model to what we use now, just with the 75%, or whether we go for the alternative model, which was favoured in the December consultation—and what local government needs is certainty of funding, and understanding of when and how the money will come. So I do not think that the Bill particularly causes any issues, but it would be nice to get some early indication of where we are going with rates retention and how that will change.

Councillor Watts: I do not think there are any in-principle reasons why the Bill creates problems for business rates retention.

Annie Gascoyne: I agree.

Domestic Abuse and Homelessness

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing this debate and on all the work that he does with the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, which he leads ably, and presumably alone, now that his Conservative counterpart, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), has been promoted. I wish my hon. Friend well for the future of that all-party parliamentary group, which has done some incredibly important work and given Government clear direction on actions that they could take further to reduce homelessness and on additional steps beyond that which they have already done.

I wanted to participate in the debate because on Friday, at my regular weekly surgery, three cases of domestic abuse came to me. I wish that that was unusual, but sadly, it is not. I will focus on two of those cases, which have particular links to housing. I thought that the Government response to today’s debate might come from a Home Office Minister, rather than the Minister with responsibility for housing and homelessness, because of the nature of the domestic abuse involved. I trust that the Minister will have close conversations with her Home Office counterpart following the debate.

The first case that came before me involved a woman who had experienced severe financial coercive control at the hands of her former partner. After six years of a relationship—five years as a co-mortgager with the individual—the woman has been left with full responsibility for the mortgage and all the utility bills, as well as associated bills for which her former partner happily took her money for five years, but never actually payed the companies. Her ex-partner will not allow her to remove herself from or seek to close down that mortgage, or make any progress whatever on selling the property, so he retains his control over her life and her ability to move on from the relationship, although she is the one who engages with all the different agencies to try to work out a payment plan for all the debt accrued as a result of that relationship.

This woman has been to every organisation that she can think of, whether it be Women’s Aid, StepChange or her local authority, and has even taken advice from a solicitor on how to extricate herself from this situation. The only response is that she should default on her part of the mortgage payments, which would significantly affect her credit rating, and allow the property to be repossessed and sold by the bank at auction, at a much lower price than if it were sold on the open market. Both she and her partner would lose out, but her former partner could not care less about losing out—all he wants is to ensure that she struggles and that she cannot move any further along.

As an exercise in domestic abuse, such financial coercion is already legislated for, but the police simply do not seem to have the ability, focus and priorities to investigate such incredibly complex and sensitive situations, and the available avenues left to my constituents are few and far between. I hope that the Minister will meet the Home Office Minister, with whom I have already had a conversation about this particular case, to ensure that we see in the upcoming Domestic Abuse Bill a much greater focus on financial measures and packages, and on the institutions that can better support those in controlling relationships, particularly of a financial nature.

On homelessness, for that individual in that first case, getting either another mortgage or private rented accommodation will be very difficult and challenging with a poor credit rating.

The second case involves a woman who had been in a very violent relationship with her former partner, with whom she had four children. The partner was in a particular situation, and the police gave my constituent just 48 hours to get out of the family home and remove themselves as far away as possible.

The homelessness team put this woman and her four children into emergency bed-and-breakfast accommodation, but that was not entirely suitable. It was a long way from the children’s schools, which made it impossible for the mother to do any work because most of the day was spent taking four children back and forth to school on public transport. Her finances were certainly taken up by doing that, because she received no additional financial support in that situation. She then began sofa- surfing with her family, which has gone on for more than two years since they were advised to move on from that housing association property.

The homelessness team has now found my constituent a home, which she has been told is permanent, but after a matter of months the walls are crumbling, the roof and the bathroom leak, the whole house has electrical problems and electricians have assessed it as a tinderbox waiting to go up, and an outbuilding in the garden is so dangerous that the children cannot play out there, and one of them has already injured themselves in it. There is a crisis in the kind of property that local authorities can offer people in such dire situations. It would be great if the council or the housing association had sufficient properties, but when my constituent has asked the housing association to rehouse her in more suitable accommodation, she has been told that she made herself voluntarily homeless, and she has accrued debts as a result of non-payment of rent.

I cannot believe that Lincolnshire Housing Partnership, the housing association in question in this case, does not allow a waiver for individuals who have experienced domestic abuse to say that they are leaving a property, particularly when that is done under police advice. I cannot believe that the housing association cannot do more to ensure that people are properly accommodated.

Government have done some good work to prevent those who are suffering from domestic violence and seeking housing support from being turned away from neighbouring or external local authorities merely because they have no local connection. That is welcome. The Minister will know that I am very aware of the work undertaken to try to tackle rogue landlords and protect those in the private rental sector, but these two cases show that financial coercion as a crime is not fully investigated with the same vigour as other forms of physical abuse. The support is not available.

Much more could be done to get the institutions that offer mortgages to provide some breathing space and freeze mortgages until the situation is resolved to ensure that individuals are not punished. The partner of my constituent has gone to ground and constantly changes address so that the mortgage company cannot get hold of him and insist that he sign documentation. That is deeply frustrating for my constituent, because in her eyes she is the victim: she has done everything she can, having done all the right things and having gone to all the right agencies, yet still she will lose out.

The housing association procedures do not seem to reflect the reality of people’s lives. In those extraordinary circumstances, there must be some flexibilities in processes and procedures to make sure that people, particularly children, are not at a disadvantage. Council homelessness teams do not have sufficient good-quality properties to house people properly and rogue landlords are still getting away with offering poor-quality—and frankly, in this situation, dangerous—properties to incredibly vulnerable people. They are taking advantage: a local authority would be charged a much higher rate to house such people, who would feel they had no other choice. There are feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and failing as a parent, as well as the great impact of the disruption on the lives and education of my constituents’ children. That shows that the Government have a role to play to offer greater resources to close the many, very obvious gaps.

I would not feel so strongly about this issue if people coming to see me about it was not a weekly occurrence, but that is what it is, and they all experience similar housing situations. We have a great refuge service in Great Grimsby run by Women’s Aid, which caters for people across the country, but that is not a permanent home. When victims have done nothing wrong, being forced out of their home feels like further punishment.

I hope that in the Domestic Abuse Bill, as well as in the Minister’s remarks, there will be an acceptance that Government should prioritise victims remaining securely in their own homes, with the perpetrator being removed and prevented from interfering with their victims and the wider family. I wholeheartedly believe that it should not be the victims who lose their homes, communities, friends, family, social clubs, schools or jobs, and I hope the Minister shares my view.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I thank hon. Members from across the House for their considered speeches. I particularly congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing the debate and on his tireless work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness. I am delighted that his health has recovered since last week, when he missed the launch of this interesting document.

This Government have made domestic abuse a key priority and we are committed to doing everything we can to end domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is a cross-Government issue, but I shall focus solely on the work of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Since 2014, our Department has invested £55.5 million in accommodation-based services, including refuges, to support victims of domestic abuse.

We have recently launched a consultation on future delivery of support to victims and their children in accommodation-based domestic abuse services, which ends on 2 August. The consultation complements wider Government work on tackling domestic abuse and supporting victims, including the new Domestic Abuse Bill. Proposals in the consultation include a new legal duty on local authorities to provide support for domestic abuse services for victims and their children. This will provide a range of services to support victims and their children in secure accommodation.

Local authorities will be required to work together across boundaries to ensure domestic abuse services reflect the needs of local people, including targeted, specialist support for black, Asian and minority ethnic survivors; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender survivors; and, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller survivors. We will work with local authorities adequately to fund the new duty. We estimate the early broad annual cost to be around £90 million per year. However, we want the full cost to be informed by the consultation and taken into the spending review.

I was asked questions about the domestic abuse commissioner.

[Melanie Onn]

Is the Minister planning to accept the amendment proposed in the report “A Safe Home”?

[Mrs Wheeler]

We want to be informed by the consultation, which finishes on 2 August. We will look at everything in the round after that.

The domestic abuse commissioner will be funded by the Home Office and operate UK-wide. The £90 million will be subject to the Barnett formula for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Ensuring that everyone has a decent, affordable, secure home is a key priority for this Government. That is why we have made a commitment to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end the practice altogether, and why we are dedicated to preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place. It is simply unacceptable that people have to sleep on the streets in 2019. That does not reflect the country we want to be and I am determined to put a stop to it.

My Department, with support from colleagues across Government, has been working tirelessly to put in place new support for people who sleep rough. This has included the rough sleeping strategy, published last August, which sets out our plan to end rough sleeping, alongside bespoke support and funding for local areas through the rough sleeping initiative.

I want to focus specifically on the work the Department is doing to help women. We know that violence and abuse are a key factor in women being made homeless or having to sleep rough. Through our rough sleeping strategy, boldly backed by £100 million in funding, we are providing more support to those sleeping rough or who are at risk of sleeping rough. Crucially, this includes additional funding for dedicated accommodation, frontline workers who are trained to support vulnerable women, staff working with victims of domestic abuse in local authority housing options, rapid rehousing pathway navigators, and our Somewhere Safe to Stay assessment centres. We will extend this to voluntary organisations, commissioned and non-commissioned services, and staff in homeless hostels.

We have undertaken a procurement exercise to recruit the right organisations to deliver the training and we expect to award contracts to successful suppliers in the near future. As part of our rapid rehousing pathway, we recently announced a Somewhere Safe to Stay hub in Brighton, which will focus on supporting women to get off the streets. These hubs build on the No Second Night Out model rapidly to assess the needs of people who are sleeping rough and those who are at risk of sleeping rough, and support them to get the right help quickly. The Brighton service will be a two-hub model, with one hub reserved for women only and specialising in tackling complex needs. The second hub will be delivered by the domestic abuse charity partner RISE.

We are continuing to provide funding through the rough sleeping initiative to ensure that provision is in place for women who sleep rough. This supports a locally driven approach, with local authorities leading the charge. For instance, Southwark is receiving funding of £585,000. This includes funding for a support worker, through Solace Women’s Aid, which will work with offenders who have experienced domestic abuse. Medway is receiving funding of £486,000, which includes a specialist mental health worker to work with people who have experienced domestic abuse and other health issues, as well as additional housing-led approaches for women with medium and high needs, and couples.

We are supporting 63 projects across England to provide support for over 2,500 victims and their families, and over 2,200 additional bed spaces in accommodation-based services, including refuge. In response to the earlier question, the definition of domestic abuse used by the Home Office and by us includes coercive control.

Underpinning our work on rough sleeping is the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which came into force last April. This is the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades. I am sure many Members are aware that the Act brought in a number of new duties and strengthened a number of existing ones. The Act extends the duties that local authorities owe to homeless households and expands the types of household that are entitled to help. That means that, for the first time, people without dependent children, who are often not deemed to be in priority need and were often turned away with little or no assistance, are now entitled to help from their local authority.

The Act strengthened the advice and information duty. This enhanced duty means that local authorities must provide free advice and information about homelessness and the prevention of homelessness. They must also ensure they design that advice to meet the needs of particularly vulnerable groups, including those who are victims of domestic abuse.

The Act also strengthened the prevention duty, meaning that local authorities must take reasonable steps to try to prevent a person who is threatened with homelessness within 56 days from becoming homeless regardless of priority need status or whether they have made themselves intentionally homeless. Local authorities must now also take reasonable steps to try to relieve a person of their homelessness, again for a period of 56 days, regardless of priority need status or whether this was done intentionally. At the heart of the Act is a more person-centred approach to find bespoke solutions, including for victims of domestic abuse.

We want survivors to stay in their own homes, when it is safe and possible to do so. Sanctuary schemes are supported as part of our £22 million fund, which lasts from 2018 to 2020. The duty also covers sanctuary schemes across the country. We will work closely with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to make sure that that option is always there.

A new duty was also introduced for specified public authorities to refer those whom they think might be homeless or threatened with homelessness to a local housing authority of their choice. Children’s services and A&E services are among the specified public authorities. That will help to ensure that people’s housing needs are considered and that services work together more effectively. We know there have been significant changes for local authorities, which it has taken time to embed. Good progress is being made, but we know that there is more to be done by local areas.

As to our most recent statistics, they are experimental, but there are some promising signs. Since the introduction of the Act just nine months ago, more than 60,000 households, including families and single individuals, have been helped to secure accommodation.

I welcome the report produced by the all-party group, but there are a few discrepancies in it, which I think I must pick up on. Certainly, most of the experiences cited happened before the Homelessness Reduction Act came into force, and I completely understand why. I am aware that prior to the Act people were sometimes turned away without being able to make a homelessness application. That is precisely why the Act is so important and why it had cross-Government—indeed, cross-Chamber—support.

Local authorities must now assess everyone’s needs if they are homeless or threatened—

Domestic Abuse

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I commend what the hon. Gentleman says. I know from my ministerial experience the incredible work and support services that are provided in Northern Ireland. As I indicated in a previous answer, I would like to consider how we can ensure that there is a good connection with each of the devolved Administrations, and perhaps we can have a further conversation outside the Chamber about that.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Grimsby has had domestic violence provision for more than 40 years. The refuge is run by Denise Farman, who does an excellent job, and women arrive from all across the country to receive support, often with their children in tow. The service is funded only in terms of the property’s rent, through housing benefit. There is no additional funding for any of the other services it provides, including specialist support for the children—everything from swings and play equipment to talking therapies. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential to ensure that this funding is ring-fenced, so that the broad provision of these services is available and sustainable for the long term, and they do not have to worry about year-to-year funding gaps or rely on public funding through donations?

[James Brokenshire]

I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting that specific service; I know that the Minister for Women, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is on the Front Bench, has visited it. Ultimately, we want to ensure long-term sustainability and confidence in service provision to meet local needs. I remain open-minded about how we look at this as the consultation develops. The duty is intended to place in the minds of local authorities the way in which funding is provided and the need for services for children or other specialist support, outreach or accommodation-based services. The point of the consultation is to listen and ensure that when we implement this through the Bill, we do it well.

Bird Nesting Sites: Protection

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) on obtaining this debate in response to the public e-petition, which has rightly engendered a lot of support and interest up and down the country.

The petition comes virtually at the same time as the publication of the United Nations report that shows the extinction rates accelerating and “nature’s dangerous decline”. That report, from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, raises some interesting points. It ascribes some of the loss of those natural species and habitats to

“changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change; pollution; and invasion of alien species”.

I instigated a debate here on the latter subject not long ago, regarding the importing of plants, trees and so forth from overseas.

It seems to me that the RSPB strikes a chord when it states:

“We cannot keep trying to squeeze nature into smaller and smaller spaces or demanding it fits in with our plans.”

The problem is that since 1970 the global human population has more than doubled, from 3.7 billion to 7.6 billion. Since 1900, the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%. There has also been a 100% growth of urban areas since 1992. All those things conspire to squeeze out nature or, if not to squeeze it out, to squeeze it into a tighter spot.

That is why I believe that, with the exception of some eminent hon. Members sitting around this Chamber, we have woken up very late to all this. There must be a trade-off between economic growth and the need to provide houses for people, which no one debates, and the requirement to ensure that the built environment is sustainable for the natural environment. We cannot have one without the other. Where would the world be without birdsong? A very sad place. Where would the world be without swallows? I have not spotted a swallow in my part of the world, Devon, at all this year.

Doing nothing is simply not an option. For too long we have put up with some of the behaviour of the volume house builders. It is perhaps unfair to paint them all with the same brush. It is an easy thing to castigate, but somebody has to build those houses. I lament that there are not more local house builders. I think this Government can do a lot more, as they have said they will, in encouraging smaller local house builders—those same house builders who were squeezed out by the last recession—to play their role, because they are from the communities in which they will be building, so they are likely to build in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

Time and time again we have seen, up and down the country, the major volume house builders riding roughshod over local planning officers—because there are not enough of them and many of them are not qualified enough—changing the terms on which they develop and, too often, squeezing out the natural environment. I am not against profit; I am a Conservative, and I believe in profit and that a rising tide lifts all ships. However, I am a believer in responsible capitalism, and it is about time that this Government, or any Government of any hue, were a little tougher with some of those volume house builders. Perhaps then we, as Members of Parliament, would not have to put up with so many constituents complaining to us about shoddy finishes and the like.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The point the right hon. Gentleman is making about the volume house builders and their complete disregard, it seems to me, for some of the planning regulations in place has been reflected in my local authority area. In Humberston, Persimmon Homes has cut down about 200 perfectly healthy trees to build its properties without having the proper permissions in place. It will now have to replant all those trees, but they should not have been removed in the first place. Does he agree that there should be much more enforceable action on these big build companies to ensure that they adhere to the rules that are laid down in the first place?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I do and I do not agree; I agree that that sort of behaviour is wholly unacceptable, but I do not agree that they should replace like for like, if it is the case that they have done this where there were tree preservation orders or the like. If they have cut down a number of trees, they should be obliged to plant many, many times the amount of trees they have cut down, to encourage a change in the pattern of their behaviour.

I am afraid that it often comes down to the lack of local planning officers or their inability to challenge those large companies. Local councils are terrified of being taken to appeal, because then they have to fund it, so it becomes a vicious circle and a win-win for the volume house builders, as we have seen—although I say again to the volume house builders, or their representatives watching this debate, that I do not view them all in the same light.

That is one of the points on which I wish to conclude. The Government have been quite clear, but they need to be a little bit clearer what they are going to do about this. Why do we not have a register run by the Department, naming and shaming the worst offenders, so we can see on a regular basis which house builders and developers are behaving responsibly and which are not? There are also such things as shareholder action groups, and they and others can vote at annual general meetings and so forth and can bring the matter to the board’s attention. Naming and shaming, in this instance, is an extraordinarily good way to proceed.

I believe it is time to stand up to that sort of abuse. We are in the slight conundrum—or I am—of castigating some of these volume house builders while at the same time recognising that we need to build more houses, and quickly, if we are to avert what is becoming a national crisis in getting younger people on to the housing ladder. However, with the current scrutiny of developers, I would have thought it would make eminent good sense from the point of view of their own public relations. Indeed, if I were advising them—I am not available to advise them, incidentally—on public relations, I would say, “This is precisely the sort of headline that we don’t want to read about ourselves.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

The application from my hon. Friend to be the high-profile supporter of the new south-western powerhouse is now complete. I look forward to working with her to ensure we provide support for her ambitions and those of the people she represents.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Online agent Rightmove continues to allow discrimination against low earners, single parents and the disabled by declaring “No DSS” on its portals. Will the Minister please take action to end this potentially unlawful practice?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

First, I thank the hon. Lady for all the hard work she put in when she was on the Opposition Front Bench and for the principled stand she has taken. It has been a pleasure working with her. Secondly, we have declared that we want all sites to take off “No DSS”-type adverts. I have been very encouraged by what has happened with Zoopla and National Westminster bank. This work is ongoing, but I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady to see what we can do to spread it further.

Draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 General Committees

[Kit Malthouse]

It is certainly our intention that, once this has landed, the system of recognition will be reviewed. One thing that the regulations do is to freeze the qualifications at a particular date, so that we can buy ourselves some time to have exactly those discussions. I will come to this later, but in relation to other countries, such as Switzerland, that cannot be accommodated in these regulations, there have been very productive conversations, which will allow mutual recognition in the future.

The regulations allow applications made before exit day to be concluded under the current system as far as possible. For future applications, the regulations will freeze the current list of approved qualifications under the EU’s mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive. As a result, after EU exit in a no-deal scenario, an individual holding an approved qualification will be able to join the UK register of architects if they have access to the profession of architect in their home state. That approach will preserve access for UK practices to EEA-qualified architects. The process will be open to anyone with an EEA qualification and access to the profession in the corresponding state, regardless of their citizenship.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The Minister is not addressing the fact that although the qualification requirements are frozen during the review period, however long it may last, at the end of the period new qualifications may be required. How long does he expect the review period to last before we get a settled position? Does he think there will be a detriment to people if new qualifications come in during the review period?

[Kit Malthouse]

Those are perfectly reasonable questions. We do not anticipate significant movement in the number of qualifications. Initially, the risk is low, but we would like to get the system under review as much as possible. If it becomes clear that a qualification needs to be accommodated, it is perfectly possible for us to take steps to do that on a one-off basis. The intention behind the system is that we maintain the ability of UK architect practices to access talent from across the world. Let us not forget that quite a lot of architects who come from non-EEA countries work in UK practices. They are accommodated in the UK perfectly happily.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I will start with some comments from an article in dezeen, an industry online publication, from March 2017:

“Politicians have failed to grasp the value of London’s booming architecture industry, which is worth more than the city’s industrial design, graphics and fashion sectors combined and growing almost twice as fast, according to a new report by the mayor’s office. The London’s Architectural Sector report states that the city’s architecture industry is worth £1.7 billion and is growing at 7.6 per cent every year.”

That figure of £1.7 billion for London is set against the industry’s value of £4 billion to the economy nationally. The industry’s rate of growth in London outstrips that of the creative industries as a whole—they were growing at about 3.9% a year when the article was written—and London’s entire economy, which at that time was expanding by about 3%. The dezeen article continues:

“‘The value of architecture in London may be undervalued by creative policy makers,’ says the report. ‘The sector is 38 per cent bigger than the product, graphic and fashion design sectors.’”

In the article, the director of the London festival of architecture said:

“We cannot take the success of London’s architecture sector for granted. Our research shows that this success—including booming exports—is driven by a diverse workforce from all over the world…We look to the government to negotiate responsible post-Brexit trade deals if London is to remain the world’s architectural hub.”

That goes to the heart of the regulations. We must secure the future of the UK’s booming and well-respected architecture sector.

[Neil Coyle]

I am pleased to hear a recognition of the importance of the sector to London, but the sector is particularly important to my constituency. We can see the contribution that architecture has made to my constituency simply by looking out of the window. Architects based in my constituency and well beyond are concerned that the freeze, as the Minister described it, will become an ice age. The Government have failed to provide a clear date on which the review will conclude and any new system will be in place. It would be good if the Minister could provide reassurance on that to allay fears in the sector.

[Melanie Onn]

I am sure that the Minister has clearly heard my hon. Friend. Perhaps the Minister will, in his concluding remarks, give some confidence and security to the sector—it is very important to my hon. Friend’s constituency—in recognition of its value to the UK economy.

Although the regulations go some way to addressing the concerns of the architectural sector, they give rise to further concerns about the secure future growth and stability of the industry. They propose a seemingly short-term solution to provide the sector with some relief in the days after March 29. The regulations do little, however, to make up for the damage that the industry has faced since the referendum, which has caused an alarming amount of uncertainty for businesses in the last two and a half years. That has led directly to the postponement of projects up and down the country as this period of chaos has badly damaged the investment market.

An article on Consultancy.uk referred to the “Global By Design” document published at the start of last year by RIBA, which looked at the opinions of some 1,000 RIBA members. The article talks about the £4.8 billion gross value added to Britain’s economy every year by the sector, and it states:

“A large part of the architectural sector’s pessimism seems to stem from the fact it is so heavily reliant on easy international trade. The UK architecture industry is the largest exporter of architectural services in Europe, and according to RIBA’s report, since the referendum, one fifth of architects have considered taking on even more work internationally. This point is further driven home by the fact that 74% of architects believe that access to the EU single market is necessary, if they are to expand their international workload. Without this apparent life-line, future growth in the industry could be severely hamstrung.”

I do not want to set hares running about a cataclysmic decline of the sector, but there are clear concerns about its future. I hope that the Minister takes them into account in all his consideration of future arrangements.

The article goes on to say that

“68% of architects have already seen Brexit impact their revenue stream, as they had projects put on hold…more than 2 in 5 architects (43%) had projects cancelled since the EU referendum.”

That represents a rise since the last time RIBA published such a report. The Government must now ensure that the sector can recover fully and that it is given the opportunity to grow, following our withdrawal from the European Union at the end of this month.

Chiefly, the regulations fail to guarantee that the UK’s architecture field will continue to be able to attract and retain some of the world’s best architects. Immigration is integral to the success of the architectural sector in the UK, and one in five architects working in the UK is an EU national. Those workers are integral to the creation of new homes, businesses and communities. They enrich our culture, improve our environment and raise our living standards. They diversify technical skills and support exports through language skills and global market knowledge. Despite that, the Government have failed to provide them with assurances that they will be able to continue to share their knowledge with their British colleagues.

In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive, which the Minister mentioned earlier—it enables European architects to practise in the UK without taking additional exams or training—will no longer apply. There will be significant problems because additional barriers will be created. I urge the Minister to do everything possible to reduce those barriers and make the supply of those skills as seamless as possible. The barriers that would spring up as a consequence would halt the ability of EEA-qualified architects to register to practise in the UK as they do now, and they would drown the industry in red tape and bureaucracy.

The Consultancy.uk website has mentioned the potential for a talent exodus. It states that KPMG ran a study that found that

“young, well-educated and high-earning EU nationals are the most likely group to be planning to return to the mainland. As many as 10% of EU nationals with post-graduate degrees, who earn above £50,000 a year are considering the move, creating the potential for a large talent shortage for employers”.

Although it is recognised that that will be focused mainly around public sector services, such as the NHS, the architecture sector has said that the situation may have an impact on it. The article states that

“the architectural scene would likely be similarly stricken by a shortage in talent, should a Brexit be realised that does not protect the right of EU workers to move freely”,

and it goes on to mention that the MRPQ directive enables the free movement of those professionals. Without that directive, even if free movement rights were in place, protected industries would have no standardised way of recognising the equivalence of degrees obtained in different countries, potentially making it very difficult for skilled workers to find employment in Britain. I will talk about tier 2 thresholds later.

The Consultancy.uk article continues:

“Nearly half of respondents…working for large practices told RIBA they are concerned that the prospect of no MRPQ agreement could see them lose valued staff. Confirming these fears, 60% of architects questioned said that they have considered leaving Britain due to Brexit, an increase of 20% since RIBA’s initial survey”

back in 2016. There are still issues that the Minister must take on board, and I hope he is aware of the comments that the industry has shared quite freely on many occasions.

Regulations 7 and 8 may solve the immediate immigration problems facing the architectural industry, but the Government need to consider the long-term factors that the legislation fails to address. The regulations are designed to be a temporary solution, as I have said, and there are two areas in particular where they fall short of the system that the UK currently enjoys as a member of the European Union. Although the qualifications that the directive protects and recognises will be recognised, the list will become out of date as new qualifications inevitably become part of the industry. I asked the Minister about that in an earlier intervention. That will have the consequence of creating a two-tier system for the registration of EEA professionals.

I turn to the question of future proofing the sector. RIBA’s chief executive last year—I hope he is still in post—said that

“many EU architects continue to face uncertainty about their future in the UK. This is unsustainable: it is having a real-time impact on recruitment and is unquestionably a threat to the success of our economy and society. The UK Government must make urgent decisions that allow the sector to thrive today.”

He went on to refer to redundancies that have already taken place in the architectural sector—Conran and Partners has made a handful of redundancies, and I hope that redundancies will be limited to that handful—as well as delays to the start of projects, or to certain stages of different projects. He cites as at least part of the reason uncertainty caused by the Brexit process.

On top of that, the regulations fail to protect the recognition of UK-qualified architects’ qualifications in the EEA in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Those architects will have to rely on the individual registration policies of the 27 member states. The Government must look to establish with the EU a new mutual recognition agreement as soon as possible in order to provide reciprocity, and a date for that would be very welcome. Without such an agreement, the process by which architects can make visa applications seems uncertain. I would welcome any clarification that the Minister can provide.

Architects may well have to apply for a tier 2 skilled visa, and the £30,000 minimum salary requirement for such an application will be unachievable for the large number of architects who do not meet that threshold. Just 5% of tier 2 applications made in the sector between November 2017 and April 2018 were accepted, and that does not give the sector a great deal of confidence that that will be the easiest route through which to secure the talent it requires. Furthermore, becoming a tier 2 sponsor is hard for many architecture firms, because it is an expensive and lengthy process. Has the Minister done any work with the architecture sector and RIBA to assess exactly how much that will cost, and whether the sector can bear the cost? According to RIBA, the number of EU architects registering to practise in the UK has dropped by 42% since 2016. Do the Government recognise that denying the architecture industry a free flow of talent, skills and knowledge will impair its growth and stability?

In his previous role as culture Minister, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who is now Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, described the architecture and design sector as

“vitally important to our future as an outward looking, creative nation”.

We cannot achieve that future if we only pay lip service to that sentiment. I recognise that he is no longer culture Minister, and there is a new Minister in place, but I hope that the Government continue to express that sentiment. We simply cannot achieve that goal if we do not have the right people in place to make it a reality.

The architecture sector is looking for access to the best talents and skills; trade agreements that open access to foreign markets; support for education, research and innovation; action to address the UK’s infrastructure and housing shortages; and common standards and low compliance costs. Perhaps the Minister, in his closing remarks, will offer the sector some confidence that all of its top issues are being taken into consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

There might be a misunderstanding here. Fundamentally, the regulations set out that the recognition of the person’s qualification to practise stays exactly the same. The only thing that changes is that, instead of the Architects Registration Board being able to get the information required to prove that the person has the qualification, the person has to get that information in the event that we do not have access to it. Fundamentally, the ARB will operate in the same way, but the route of access to the information will become the obligation of the individual. It will not be within the ability of the ARB, because of the lack of access to that information.

Competent authorities in the EU may decide to continue to provide the flow of information, in which case nothing will change. We are very keen, in introducing the regulations, to ensure that there is some stability for EEA nationals. We hope that the EU and the competent authorities will reciprocate, but Committee members will understand that that is not under our control. However, we are seeing movement in Europe suggesting that they are keen to do so. In theory, the cost to business should be minimal, because it is just about the flow of paperwork to prove that the qualification is valid.

We are in conversation with the industry, through our general engagement, about the impact of immigration. A discussion is going on, brokered by us, between industry and the Home Office about the impact of the immigration policy that the UK might put in place. We will continue to keep that conversation up and running.

[Melanie Onn]

I want to take the Minister back to the question of IMI documentation. It can sometimes be difficult for individuals to secure that paperwork, so there may be delays. Will he encourage reciprocity of arrangements to ensure that there are no delays if the IMI information is not available to the ARB?

[Kit Malthouse]

Absolutely. Nobody wants there to be any delay in the provision of information, and the ARB will seek to obtain that information itself informally and on an ad hoc basis. There is no intention on either side of the channel to hold up the approval of architects’ registration. We want to find a way to co-operate on that process. There is a technical, legal basis, because the IMI may not be available.

Having said that, I have a professional qualification myself—I am a chartered accountant—and if I wanted to practise chartered accountancy in an EEA country, I would expect to have all the documentation in my briefcase when I went to do so. It is not that difficult. If I am paying 450 quid a year for my registration at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the least it can do is to provide me with my practising certificate, if I am a practising chartered accountant. Sadly, as a moderate accountant, I have not practised for many years.

Do not forget that people with a professional qualification have a requirement to do what is called CPD—continuing professional development—to maintain their suite of skills. That applies just as much to architects, and of course the CPD process is approved by the various competent authorities. The idea that architects qualify, never communicate again with their approving body during their professional life and then cannot find the paperwork when they need it is not a true reflection of the situation, but I understand what the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was saying.

I hope that that has covered most of the questions. I am grateful to Committee members for considering the regulations. We recognise that the industry is an important one for the UK. Many of the industry’s comments that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby referred to were probably made before we released our policy, which the industry broadly approves of, albeit on a temporary basis. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

Unhealthy Housing: Cost to the NHS

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing forward this important debate on a critical issue related to housing. It is reflective of the crisis in housing. From the contributions we have heard today, it is painfully clear that alongside the families left waiting for social housing, the young people unable to get on the property ladder and the thousands of rough sleepers on our streets, the NHS is suffering as a result of an ongoing housing crisis in which one in three people in the UK live in poor-quality housing.

If we take a short trip down memory lane, we will recall that the last Labour Government’s decent homes programme invested £22 billion and brought 1.4 million social homes up to a habitable standard. Contrast that with the position now: the English housing survey gave us data across the whole housing sector showing that 20% of homes in our country were considered non-decent in 2016. More than 500,000 social homes failed to meet the decent homes standard in 2017. That perhaps comes as no surprise when we consider that just £1.6 billion was spent on the decent homes programme between 2011 and 2015, when funding was stopped altogether, with the Government expecting councils, which are stretched to breaking, to pick up the pieces.

Cold and damp houses have a detrimental effect on health by increasing the risk of cardiovascular, respiratory and rheumatoid conditions. They can exacerbate the symptoms of arthritis and reduce dexterity among elderly people, thereby increasing the risk of falls. They cause mould, colds and flu. Being cold can impact a person’s ability to cook, shower and clean.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) painted a clear picture of how poor housing also affects our mental health. Our homes are places where our children grow up, where we celebrate milestones and where we spend a great deal of our time, so it is completely understandable that the state of our houses can have such a detrimental effect on our mental health. Research by Shelter indicates that 20% of adults have experienced mental health issues in the past five years as a result of housing problems. Further research by the Sustain project has found that the physical condition of someone’s home is strongly predictive of their mental health. According to Mind, people with a mental health condition are four times more likely to report that poor housing has made their health worse.

The Government’s failure to build anywhere near enough new and appropriate homes—my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) recognises this only too well from her constituency—ends up in a direct cost to the NHS: unhealthy homes affect our mental and physical health, leading to increased pressure on the health service, whether that is on GP appointments, hospital bed spaces or carers. The NHS even has a diagnosis code for inadequate housing, which was listed as a secondary diagnosis in almost 3,500 hospital episodes in 2017-18. More than half were among those aged 65 or over.

Poor-quality housing has particularly disastrous effects on those on low incomes, many of whom lack the means to replace out-of-date boilers and central heating systems, or end up renting off unscrupulous landlords who let their homes fall into disrepair. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made some excellent points about the difficulty of getting private rented sector properties up to standard, and reminded us all of the dangers of the silent killer that is carbon monoxide poisoning, which can often happen in homes of a lower standard. Those things all inevitably lead to avoidable GP appointments and hospital stays.

The cost of the lack of accessible housing cannot be overstated. Elderly and vulnerable people across the country struggle every day in homes that do not meet their needs. As Members have pointed out, some cannot afford to heat their homes properly. Just 7% of homes have basic accessibility features. Those who feel they can no longer live safely or comfortably in their homes are forced into care homes at a cost to their family, the state and their independence.

According to the Royal College of Physicians, falls cost the NHS £2 billion every year. However, many falls are not the inevitable result of ageing and could be easily avoided by removing hazards around the home. Fitting grab rails in bathrooms, building houses with walls strong enough to support grab rails, making sure homes have level access and building stairs with an easy-going pitch are all cost-effective ways to avert extremely damaging falls. Research by the Building Research Establishment indicates that removing category 1 hazards that lead to falls would save more than £400 million every year and would pay for itself within just five years. If we make those changes pre-emptively, the number of hospital bed days lost due to delays in hospital discharge while a suitable home is found will be dramatically reduced.

One of my constituents is a nurse at Scunthorpe General Hospital. She reported to me that she routinely has patients in her care who are forced to wait in hospital for up to three weeks longer than they should for changes to be made to their homes, or for a carer to be assigned. My local hospital trust says that one of the worst things for patients, particularly elderly patients, is to be in hospital longer than they should be. They are at increased risk of infection, and unfortunately that increases mortality rates. That really brings home how important getting housing right at every stage is to individuals’ life prospects, and NHS statistics reflect that.

An NHS annual report on delayed transfers of care in England in 2018 found that nearly 50,000 bed days were lost because of delayed discharges due to housing inadequacy, with patients waiting for major home adaptations, alternative housing arrangements, manual handling equipment such as a hoist, living equipment, a bed, deep cleaning, decorating, or basic decluttering.

The NHS is already on its knees. NHS doctors, nurses and workers deserve better than to be burdened by the failure of the Government to provide healthy homes. The Government cannot ignore the impact of their cuts to local government on the state of our housing. Environmental health departments have not been protected from very severe cuts, and many simply do not have the resources to enforce housing standards fully in their area. The hon. Member for Strangford raised concerns about people slipping out from under the microscope, and that is a prime example of ever-widening gaps in social policy. It is people, not statistics, who end up falling through those gaps.

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), presents a real opportunity for tenants to take some control over their housing standards, but it will not replace the need for proper council enforcement, and the Government must consider whether cuts to local government truly offer value for money when they stop councils protecting tenants from unhealthy housing, and lead to less money in the pockets of our NHS.

We must take the health impact of our homes into account as we build for the future. The current state of affairs is unsustainable and places too much of the burden on the NHS. A change in the way that we build houses will reduce the cost of social care, give people a sense of independence, and allow the elderly to live an active lifestyle at home well into their 80s and 90s.

Rough Sleeping

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince]

I had not seen that, so it would be ill-judged to comment on it. I can point the hon. Gentleman to a very fine article from only last week in, I believe, the Colchester Gazette, authored by the local MP, on why we need the most ambitious Government investment in social housing since the second world war. I will touch on that in a little bit.

Sadly, we have an estimated 4,677 people sleeping rough on our streets, and 277,000 homeless households. That is due in part to a lack of security in the private rented sector, which, as I mentioned, is now the biggest single cause of homelessness. We have areas where demand massively outstrips supply, including some of our major cities and large towns, with Colchester being a prime example, so landlords will not let to those in receipt of benefits.

The Government have done some great work, which is starting to make a difference and gives some reason for optimism, including the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. I was pleased to speak at all stages of its passage and to sit on its Bill Committee. There is also the £28 million Housing First pilot, the rough sleeping initiative and the Somewhere Safe to Stay pilot. There is funding for non-UK nationals sleeping rough. There are rough sleeping support teams and mental health support outreach workers. Improvements have been made to StreetLink and there are homelessness experts in jobcentres. Those are all part of that £100 million package to support the rough sleeping strategy announced last year.

My concern is that, worthy, important and valuable as those programmes are, they treat the symptoms, not the cause. What do we need to do? The first thing I should say to the Minister is that I do not have all the answers. However, I have some suggestions on ways in which we can start to prevent homelessness and address the issue. First, we need a full nationwide roll-out of Housing First as quickly as possible. The three pilots were important and a great start, but we know that it works; we have seen it work in other countries, particularly in Scandinavia, where rough sleeping has been entirely eradicated. Secondly, fewer than half of local authorities have a night shelter, so we need to fund and build more of those. Regional hubs are hugely important.

As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned, we need to lift the freeze on the local housing allowance, which was introduced in 2016. We also need to embed and fully fund the Homelessness Reduction Act. It is a great piece of legislation, but we must monitor it to make sure that it is working and is fully funded and, equally importantly, that local authorities use it to its full and interpret it in the right way. That is hugely important, particularly in relation to the duties it places on them. As the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, we need a help-to-rent scheme. We need to look at people who have no recourse to public funds. In London and some of our big cities, between 30% and 40% of rough sleepers are non-British nationals and are not entitled to any support, so we need to find a solution for those individuals.

We need to start treating homelessness, and particularly rough sleeping, as a health issue. I mentioned alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health issues. We need mental health support workers to go out with every outreach team up and down the country. I am pleased to see that £30 million will be invested in that regard, which will make a huge difference. For the Minister to say at one of our all-party parliamentary group meetings that the Department very much sees rough sleeping and homelessness as a health issue was an important step change.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman may feel positive about the Government accepting that homelessness should be seen as a health issue, but his Government have cut public health funding.

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady makes a good point about health funding. I have raised my own concerns about that privately with Ministers. There is a huge amount more work to do in that area. I specifically refer to outreach workers going out in our towns and cities across this country and providing support. It is often those outreach workers who are trusted to provide that support. However, I very much take her point.

Minister, we need specialist, well-funded interventions for those high-risk groups that I mentioned—particularly prison leavers, care leavers, survivors of domestic violence and the LGBTQ community. We have to give more support to those amazing charities and voluntary organisations that work so hard to tackle homelessness up and down our country. Many of those charities have been in existence for decades, but the pressures on them now are huge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing this debate. I also congratulate him and the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) on all their hard work as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, not just in the winter months but all year round. They have championed the issue since they came to this place in 2015, and they have been very successful at drawing together organisations, individuals and Members from across the political spectrum to highlight the incredibly difficult circumstances and the plight of the most vulnerable in our society today.

I also thank the organisations that have circulated excellent briefings to Members: the Local Government Association; Mind, whose parliamentary reception I attended last night and will discuss briefly later; Depaul UK, which has been mentioned extensively; St Mungo’s, a steadfast charity that does incredible outreach and support work for people who are homeless; Agenda; Shelter; and Women’s Aid. Those are the organisations whose briefings I have with me, but there may well be others—so many organisations are pleased that we are having this debate.

The number of hon. Members who have participated today shows how important an issue homelessness is and how rapidly it is rising in the public consciousness as a demonstration of what our society is like today. I think a moment of reckoning is coming, because the number of people who are rough sleeping is increasing all the time. The Minister may well challenge me on the point, but in every city and every town around the country, people are experiencing homelessness. Our community’s perception of just how damaging that is for individuals and how it reflects on us all needs to be tackled far sooner than 2027, which is the date that she has given.

It would be very welcome if we discussed the issue all year round, not just in the cold winter months when it is plainly obvious that it must be deeply unsettling for anybody to sleep rough, wrapped up in blankets on the pavement or on cardboard. We cannot just have a sudden moment of conscience when it is cold and raining; it is a year-round issue that we should make every effort to tackle.

Sleeping rough is something that nobody should have to experience. Its impact is dire. Those who sleep rough are more likely to develop drug and alcohol dependency or experience increased problems with mental and physical health, and they are nine times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. Six hundred people, with an average age of just 44, paid the ultimate cost while sleeping rough last year. They included 43-year-old Gyula Remes, a father of two, who died just outside this Palace while waiting for his first pay cheque.

It is shameful that an estimated 4,700 people slept on the street on a single night last year, with many more sleeping in cars, sofa surfing or out of sight of the authorities. I stress that that is an estimated figure—several colleagues have raised the problems with having estimated rather than concrete figures. Unless we know the real scale of the problem, we have no hope of tackling it. I hope the Minister will take that message away.

Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010, so we have to acknowledge that specific policies put into place by this Government, and by the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, have led to more people suffering on our streets. We cannot ignore the impact of a housing system that is not fit for purpose, a stripped-down drug and alcohol support system, cuts to hostel and supported accommodation provision, and ill-thought-through changes to the benefits system that are leaving people homeless and driving them on to the streets. My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) both mentioned the importance of supported housing, which is critical in ending the cyclical nature of homelessness and making sure that people have support—that they are not just given a roof over their heads and left to their own devices. It is also critical that supported housing is properly monitored to make sure it is fit for purpose and people are not put in dangerous situations.

Last week, I visited Rugby and met Labour’s candidate, Debbie Bannigan, who took me to see the work of Hope4. That organisation has seen a huge rise in the number of people using its services. It relies on donations and lottery funding to provide clothing, meals and somewhere to stay for just a few short hours throughout the day, as well as shower and laundry facilities—the only services in the whole town available for people who are rough sleeping.

The reality is that the root cause of rough sleeping is the failure to provide adequate housing for all. Booming house prices and a failure to build anywhere near enough social housing that is truly affordable—a point that we should really start to hammer home is that it needs to be truly affordable, because “affordable” has become an artificial description—mean that far too many in this country are living in housing insecurity. That is precisely the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) is drawing to our attention with his campaign for more social homes, and for council housing in particular. Social housing was once available to many who had a housing need, but a number of social rented homes equivalent to a city the size of Coventry have been lost through a combination of a move into so-called affordable housing, and schemes such as right to buy. The failure to provide adequate replacements means that in places such as Southwark, applicants for social housing may wait an average of three and a half years for a two-bedroom council property.

Many people are now in the private rented sector, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) raised the need for more security in that sector. At the moment, tenants may face unfair and punitive bans on properties across the sector, landlords may impose punitive rent rises if they want a tenant to leave and renters may be evicted through no fault of their own with just two months’ notice. I know my hon. Friend is deeply concerned about those points.

Last night, I attended the launch of Mind’s “Brick by brick” report, which tells us just how devastating housing insecurity can be for tenants with mental health problems. One in four such tenants have serious rent arrears, and they are four times more likely to report that poor housing is making their health worse. GPs spontaneously identify housing issues as a common contributing factor to their patients’ poor mental health. When the last barrier to homelessness is a rental market that is simply unsuitable for many people with complex or specific needs, it is unsurprising that many end up falling out of it and into homelessness and rough sleeping.

If the Government are serious about eradicating rough sleeping, they must eliminate the housing insecurity that fuels it. That requires more social housing and a private rental sector that places security of tenure at its heart.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) was particularly clear—2027 is far too long. Why does the Minister not raise her ambitions and bring that date forward? What is stopping her from doing that? I am sure that by now she knows what the causes of homelessness are. It is not just Opposition Members who are saying this; it is her own Back Benchers, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said that in five years’ time, we will have the glory of being back to where we were in 2009. That is not an achievement.

Will the Government look to address the shortage in social housing by placing a moratorium on right to buy and pledging to build 1 million genuinely affordable homes over 10 years, to make sure that we get back the council stock we need to get people off the streets? Will the Minister also address the insecurity that many in the private rented sector face by scrapping section 21 and reaffirming the rights of tenants on social security to rent without discrimination? That is something that I have raised with the likes of Zoopla. Will she tell us when we should expect a response to the Government’s consultation on longer tenancies? It closed five months ago and we are yet to hear anything. I also ask her to support the calls of the leader of the Labour party—as, surprisingly, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) has done today—and recognise the absolute pointlessness of the Vagrancy Act 1824.

Even if tenants find themselves homeless, it should not mean that they end up on the streets. After almost a decade of austerity, however, councils simply do not have the resources to provide the type of homelessness service that is needed to end rough sleeping.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and that of Mr Sharma before you. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing this debate and thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for their tireless work as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness.

This is a debate about rough sleeping, so I am thankful for the experiences and expertise shared today, whether that comes from a constituency or a wider perspective. I am grateful to hon. Members for their speeches and questions; I hope to answer them as I work through my speech, but given the time limit, I may not answer them all.

Ensuring that everyone has a decent, affordable, secure home is a core priority for this Government. That is why we have made a commitment to halve rough sleeping, as everybody has said—I am glad that everybody knows it—by 2022, and to end it by 2027. It is an ambitious target, but it is essential that we achieve it. Underpinning that bold commitment is a concerted cross-Government effort to address homelessness in all its forms.

As hon. Members will know, last year we launched the rough sleeping initiative, working with the areas with the highest levels of rough sleeping, and with the support of charities and experts from across the sector, many of which we have heard about today. We announced the rough sleeping strategy, backed by £100 million, and introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, the most ambitious homelessness legislation in decades, with prevention at its heart. In total, we have committed £1.2 billion to 2020—a not insignificant amount of money—to ensure that the most vulnerable in society have the support they need.

I, for one, am encouraged by the figures published last week which show that our approach is working. This is a significant moment. For the first time in eight years, the number of people sleeping on our streets has fallen. That follows year-on-year increases, with an average annual increase of nearly 16%, so we are moving in the right direction. To be clear, our rough sleeping initiative has been up and running for five months in those 83 areas, and those areas have seen a 23% reduction in the count. That is just the beginning; we are bringing in further funding and embedding services. I look forward to seeing progress at the next count—which will deal once and for all with any question of my resigning.

I know we still have a way to go and, as many of you have remarked, it is simply unacceptable that people have to sleep on the streets in 2019. That does not reflect our country, which we want to be the best, which is why I am determined to put a stop to it. The cross-Government rough sleeping strategy, announced last August, is the blueprint for sustained action, looking across the spectrum from prevention to intervention to recovery. In the six months since our strategy was published, we have focused our energies on delivering key commitments that will help those in need and prevent people from sleeping rough in the first place.

We have announced the early adopters of our rapid rehousing pathway, an approach that a number of hon. Members have called for today, which includes 11 areas with Somewhere Safe to Stay hubs. A hub has already started delivering in Nottingham, helping people to secure routes off the streets, with the specialist support that the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) was so keen to secure. We have also secured up to £30 million in the NHS long-term plan for specialist mental health services for people sleeping rough, which will be informed by the findings of a health provision audit to be carried out this year. We have provisionally allocated £34 million for 2019-20 to the 83 areas with the highest levels of rough sleeping to continue their excellent work supporting those currently on the streets, and opened up bidding for a further £11 million to all other local authorities to support them in helping people off the streets now.

There are particularly encouraging results in the 83 areas supported by our rough sleeping initiative, which is backed by £30 million of Government investment this year. In those areas, numbers have fallen by almost a quarter. Indeed, almost three quarters of RSI areas have reported decreases from the previous year. I thank councils across the country for working tirelessly to support people off the streets and into recovery. Those figures are proof of what can be achieved when we all pull together in the same direction.

In just seven months since the funding was announced, councils have used the investment to create an additional 1,700 beds and employ 500 dedicated staff, such as outreach workers, mental health specialists, nurses and substance misuse workers. This means that there are more people in warm beds tonight as a direct result of Government funding and the wrap-around support that goes with it. An excellent example of this is the local authority in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who secured this debate. It is receiving £615,000 this year, which provides funding for a worker from Solace Women’s Aid to support offenders who have experienced domestic abuse, and a further 72 new beds to tackle rough sleeping.

Some 33 Members have spoken in this debate, including both interventions and speeches. The right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) made a fascinating intervention—at the last count, there were no rough sleepers in Knowsley.

[Melanie Onn]

But there is no proper counting system—

[Mrs Wheeler]

With respect, that is not good enough—

Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the veritable skills he clearly has in so many different areas, and on championing this particular course of action. It is right to recognise that we have delivered more affordable homes in the last eight years than there were in the last eight years of the last Labour Government. It is the sort of schemes that he identifies that are helping to make that difference, and we are examining carefully how such initiatives can be rolled forward.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The average mortgage for today’s 27-year-old on the Government’s living wage is more than half of their pay packet, but the Government are still allowing “affordable” to be defined as up to £450,000. Why do the Government not take a leaf out of Labour’s book and support our first-buy homes for which mortgages are no more than a third of average income?

[James Brokenshire]

I will take no lectures from the Labour party, given that when it was in government it saw house building fall to levels not seen since the 1920s. We are taking various steps to see more homes built and to ensure that people can get on the ladder to fulfil their dreams. That is something that we as a Government are committed to doing.