(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI congratulate the Secretary of State on his appointment and welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) to our housing team. This tenant fees legislation is very welcome. We know that the majority of landlords are good landlords, or strive to be, and understand the expectations upon them before they embark on becoming a landlord. However, a number of rogue landlords and letting agents give the sector a bad name, undermine the good work of quality agents and landlords, and they have squeezed tenants for cash in unfair ways, with disproportionate charges for unjustifiable reasons. It is right that the Government are acting to change this unfair system and Labour welcomes that, but it would be remiss of me to fail to remind the House that we first suggested a move to ban letting fees back in 2013. After five years, it is good that the Government are finally acting on this issue. If we get the Bill right, it will have a positive impact on people’s lives on a day-to-day basis.
The overriding purpose of the legislation is to help to shift the balance of power from unscrupulous agents and landlords towards decent tenants—to make renting fairer, more affordable and more transparent and to give tenants greater clarity and control over what they pay. We will all have heard horror stories of agents or landlords charging people excessive fees to secure properties, or throughout tenancies, imposing additional charges with excessively high administration fees. With fewer social properties available, this places great difficulties on those with low incomes, or those who are renting alone or simply cannot afford thousands of pounds in up-front fees. In an increasingly competitive market, that has led to the UK’s nearly 5 million private renters sometimes feeling that they are an easy target from which to extract unnecessarily large sums of money. That is on top of the £50 billion a year paid in private rents.
As the number of private renters is predicted to rise to 5.6 million people by 2021, we should be aiming for a gold standard of contract of understanding between renters and landlords, or their agents. As it stands, there is an inherent tension between landlords who view their property as an asset or investment and a tenant who sees it as their home. We have to take steps to bring those two positions closer together.
Increasingly there are larger, more professional companies recognising the importance of peoples’ home life and striving to provide properties in high-demand areas. They do not use agents, seek to develop a sense of community and aim to retain tenants for as long as possible and keep rents affordable in line with local incomes—in places such as Argo Apartments—and stand in stark contrast to the enormous billboard I saw from Wentworth Estates, boasting that it could guarantee rents for between one and five years for landlords, would provide three months’ rent in advance and could offer “free evictions”.
Does the hon. Lady agree that another way the Government could follow both Labour and Green party policy would be to tackle extortionate rents? The elephant in the room is the need for some kind of rent controls, including rent caps, because although what is in the Bill is a welcome step forward, until we tackle the size of rent increases, we will not be able to provide the homes for the people who need them.
Labour absolutely recognises the—[Interruption.] Before the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) leaps on me—before I am able to make myself clear—Labour absolutely recognises the issue of the amount that people are paying in rent and recognises that there could be restrictions on the percentage of increases in rent, not a rent cap.
The pressure in the housing market is rapidly producing new forms of exploitation. For example, an alternative letting agency-cum-landlord service called Lifestyle Club London markets itself as a membership club. Tenants or members pay an annual fee instead of rent. Club staff are entitled to inspect rooms unannounced at any time and fines can be given for anything even as minor as dirty dishes. This is a fast-moving area. We can see that there are wildly differing practices in the world of private rental and that tenants have had difficulty in getting the treatment that they deserve, which is why groups such as Generation Rent and Marks Out of Tenancy have emerged to give a collective voice to private renters on matters of not only policy but practice.
Although the Bill is satisfactory in many respects, it still provides the opportunity for the continuation of an exploitative approach. For example, clauses 1 and 2 detail the prohibitions on landlords and agents applying fees in many circumstances. The cap of £50 for any of those charges is very welcome, but the explanatory notes go on to say
“or reasonable costs incurred if higher”.
That is a clear opportunity for a coach and horses to be driven through this otherwise very good Bill. We know that some letting agencies and landlords will push these grey areas, and without directly spelling out what charges are permissible and what “reasonable costs” are, there is undeniably room for incorrect interpretation.
The Government have so far given an indication that they will provide guidance on these and other issues, but how can that be enforced? If I speak to Shelter about how a renter can take a case against a banned fee being levied against them, the question then becomes a test of reasonableness. Whether or not such charges are reasonable, I know that it will say that if the Government want to genuinely give tenants additional powers, regulation is required to ensure that they are enforceable and meaningful.
The same goes for default fees, which are to be capped at the level of the landlord’s loss. At first glance, this seems eminently reasonable. A landlord should not be required to pay for a banking or other fine due to a tenant making a payment late or the replacement of a lost key or entry fob. However, the Minister must be aware of the scope for this to become a nice little earner for agents or landlords who would seek to unfairly penalise their tenants for minor errors.
I agree with my hon. Friend that there should be some form of adjudication or regulator, whichever way we want to put that argument. The weakness in the Bill, which is a good Bill by the way, is on enforcement, because as most people know, trading standards departments up and down the country in local authorities are totally underfunded.
My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I will come on to trading standards shortly.
There is no definition of what a landlord can include as a loss. If this includes the use of agents and agents opt to charge for their time—to replace a key or make some phone calls—charges may amount to far more than Government ever intended them to. This is one of the issues that we have seen with the scandal around excessive charges to private leaseholders: without a specified cap, there is scope for the unscrupulous to run riot.
The Bill is obviously necessary because of the bad behaviour of some landlords and letting agents. Without the measures that my hon. Friend set out, bad behaviour by rogue landlords and letting agents will not be prevented. They will carry on doing it because there is no sanction and no enforcement to stop them.
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. There is absolutely no point in this House taking through legislation, as good as it is, if it cannot be enforced because it holds no weight in law.
The inclusion of a one-week refundable holding deposit, on top of a month’s rent and six weeks’ tenant’s deposit, is allegedly designed to minimise instances of tenants securing multiples of properties at the same time before finally settling on their preferred property. There has been very little, if any, evidence that this is a regular practice. Additionally, the Government say that there are a number of exceptions to that deposit having to be refunded, including when the tenant provides false or misleading information. Again, although on the face of it, that is a sensible measure, there are no additional protections for tenants if the incorrect information is not their fault. For example, a reference that does not exactly match a tenant’s claims should not immediately mean that they lose that holding deposit. There is scope to develop a mechanism to test inaccuracy and establish the reasons behind it before immediately assuming information has been deliberately misleading.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Despite the fact that I have been involved in this sector for most of my life, and am still involved, I am very supportive of the Bill and the drive to ban tenant fees. That said, on the hon. Lady’s point about holding deposits and the reference fees that tenants pay to the agent or landlord, does she not think it a reasonable concern that if we do not allow a letting agent or landlord to hold back a reasonable amount for referencing, they might be more likely to pick a better-off tenant than some of the lower-income tenants she is seeking, quite rightly, to protect? There are concerns about the commercial behaviour that could result if what she describes was to happen.
The point is that poorer tenants struggle the most. That is why we are trying to make the Bill as good as it can be. It comes back to reasonableness and whether there is sufficient rigour in the proposals to ensure that people are properly protected, and that goes for landlords as well.
The Government must bring back evidence during the remaining stages to convince us that this is a legitimate charge to make, rather than a simple amelioration of losses to agents and landlords. It is notable that the Government have opted to cap deposits at six weeks. The Minister should know that in practice this means all deposits will be six weeks, despite most rents being payable on a monthly basis. Shelter estimates that a six-week cap still means that London renters have to find on average a £1,800 deposit and that outside of London the figure is £1,100. Add to that one month’s rent and a week’s holding deposit, and people are looking at needing £3,750 just to secure a property in London and £2,290 elsewhere. That is a huge amount to save.
Wages are not keeping pace with rents and many people struggle to afford a decent place to live. Most low-paid workers are women. Will they be more disadvantaged by these measures than men, and what about those with disabilities, from black and minority ethnic communities or the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community? The Government have not undertaken a formal equalities assessment of the Bill. Will the Minister explain why and commit to ensuring that an assessment of the proposals is undertaken before the Committee stage? There has been an informal but not a formal process on this matter.
As I said earlier, none of the measures in the Bill will matter without their ability to be enforced. There is direction in the Bill for responsibility to lie with local authorities and their trading standards teams. The Minister will be aware that trading standards teams are currently responsible for checking on age-restricted products, agriculture, animal health and welfare, fair trading, food and hygiene standards, counterfeiting, product safety and weights and measures, and they do this despite having endured a drop in funding from £213 million in 2010 to £124 million in 2016 and a halving of their staffing capability—more in some areas.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has previously expressed its concern that the public are being let down in respect of its current areas of responsibility, let alone additional responsibilities—particularly ones that will not pay for themselves through the imposition of fines, which are limited to a maximum of £30,000, whose rules are not enforceable because the drafting provides too much scope for interpretation and for which the Government only plan to provide guidance rather than issue regulation to support tenants and those seeking to enforce the measures in the Bill.
Those in the private rental sector are in desperate need of clear and positive action from the Government to protect their rights. I hope we will see a strengthening of resolve from the Government as the Bill goes forward. They must not miss the opportunity to make a good Bill a great Bill, and I urge them to take this chance to make real changes that could improve this sector of our country’s housing market.
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI thank everybody who has participated in the debate. We have heard some incredibly thoughtful, welcome and, in some cases, unexpectedly radical contributions. That drives home just how important an issue housing is up and down the country.
However, we have a Government who have failed to do anything over the past eight years to help those who are suffering in this housing crisis. Speeches by Members on both sides of the House have given a glimpse of how across the board the Government are failing. Whether it is statutory homelessness, social house building, rough sleeping, home ownership or the proliferation of temporary accommodation, there is not a sector that has not suffered as a result of eight years of austerity.
To give one example, rough sleeping has increased by 169% since 2010. Crisis predicts that, without substantial changes in Government policy, it will increase by a further 76% in the next 10 years. I cannot be alone in being alarmed by the fact, as the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) said, that children in temporary accommodation lose out on 55 days of school on average. I think that we should all have a great sense of urgency about tackling this issue, rather than waiting for 2022 or 2027 to get to the heart of tackling it.
The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), who has responsibility for housing and homelessness, has said that she does not know why rough sleeping is going up. Perhaps she should listen to the 70% of councils that said that they had difficulty finding social housing for the homeless. Even worse, almost 90% of councils have said that they have struggled to find private rented accommodation.
I welcome the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which was driven through by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). It has huge promise, but we know that the resources that will be delivered to local authorities, which are expected to deliver on every element of the Act, will not match those demands. Schemes such as Housing First are a drop in the ocean compared with the losses of the supported people funding, which the Conservative Government decided to cut.
All of that is no surprise. We know that social house building is hitting historic lows under this Government. In the last year, during the now Home Secretary’s time at the MHCLG, £817 million was handed back to the Treasury that was meant to be used to build affordable homes and support local authorities. That is simply unacceptable. Where private house builders are building, the Government have been slow to close regulatory loopholes that harm consumers.
We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) about the issues in their constituencies. Sixty-nine per cent. of new build properties in the north-west are being sold as leasehold, and that figure is higher than anywhere else in the country. I am sure the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood in Gateacre Park and Cressington Heath will be delighted to hear that their MP is so active on their issues. The fact is that 999-year leases are being given out and maintenance charges continue in that period. That will be incredibly prohibitive. There are charges up to 20 times the ground rent to purchase the leasehold. People have been misled and exploited, and there are clearly issues with covenants in transfer documents. The House must give its attention to those issues when leaseholds are discussed, as I hope they will be later in the summer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston was absolutely right to call these “fleeceholds.” He said that his constituents were unable to move up the ladder because the leaseholds were far too restrictive. I have seen the same in my own constituency. Constituents in Cambridge Park and Limber Court are in retirement villages, on fixed incomes, and they cannot sell their properties. We also have to think about what we can do retrospectively to try to deal with legacy issues when it comes to people selling leaseholds to freeholders who simply want to make as much money as possible out of people. The Government are taking action on the issue, which I welcome, but we have to make sure that we tackle the issues that have been brought to the House this afternoon. To be laid back in any way about this matter would not be acceptable to any of our constituents.
If the Government turned around tomorrow with the money and regulation changes required to seriously start to challenge the housing crisis, that still would not be enough. House building itself faces a crisis, with skills in the building industry in seriously short supply. The Federation of Master Builders warned earlier this year that small and medium-sized house builders are facing the worst skills shortage on record. Demand for carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and plasterers is outstripping supply. Two thirds of construction SMEs are struggling to recruit bricklayers. Who will build the 300,000 houses the Government say they want to build?
Then there is the £250 million that has been put into a flagship Government scheme to boost starter home constructions: it has not led to a single property being built. What a betrayal of young Britons who are struggling to buy that all important first home! I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for his work standing up for young people in his constituency. He says that the wrong kind of housing for local people is being built. It is too expensive. He urges the proper use of brownfield sites, and I hope the Minister has listened. That is a snapshot of the situation across the country.
I turn briefly to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). It is telling that there are 25,000 people on the council waiting list in his constituency. The number of social homes being built has collapsed. The idea that affordable rents should be 80% of market rents means that in reality they are anything but affordable for his constituents. He was absolutely right to raise that issue. The private rented sector is therefore often the only option available. Perversely, one of the leading causes of homelessness is the end of an assured shorthold tenancy—the numbers have quadrupled since the Government came to power.
Rents are rising faster than incomes and there are 900,000 fewer homeowners among the under-45s. Renters are spending £9.6 billion a year on houses that the Government class as non-decent. My hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) discussed really important points about the quality of private rented accommodation. Hopefully, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) is promoting, will make its way through the House rapidly so that we can start to tackle properties that are simply not suitable for anyone to live in, impacting not only on people’s physical health but on their mental health.
There are also the issues around tenant fees and the expenses of people in rented accommodation, who may not ever have the opportunity to be anything but renters. What can we do for those people? In Oxford East, someone has to earn 16 times the average salary to be able to own their own property. That is an extraordinary figure. It cannot be a city for ordinary people—all those who are “just about managing”, who the Government have spoken so regularly about. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central was clear that the provision of homes in her city was inadequate and that property there was too expensive. Only 5% of homes are affordable there—surely far beneath what the Government would expect.
We know that building affordable homes is a good investment. The Government currently spend 95% of their housing budget on benefits to support people in their homes. In the 1970s, over 80% of Government housing spending funded homes, with just a fifth spent on housing-related benefits.
I would just like to mention very quickly the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who was absolutely right as well as very brave to mention the classification of the green belt. Too often the assumption is that the green belt is a national park or an area of outstanding natural beauty and not, as she described, a tyre replacement plant.
Labour has a plan; the Government have empty words and eight years of failure. On every graph to measure housing failure, one can pinpoint clearly where Labour left office and when the Conservative party took charge.
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “tenant)” insert
“and regardless of whether the qualifying tenancy is in the jurisdiction of another local authority”.
Amendment 2, line 25, at end insert—
“(2BA) A local housing authority which grants an old-style secure tenancy under subsection (2A) or (2B) has discretion to decide whether or not the maximum rent for the old-style secure tenancy should be determined according to regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/213) as amended by the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/ 3040).”
Amendment 3, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
“(2BA) A private registered provider of social housing or a housing trust which is a charity that grants a tenancy of a dwelling house in England must grant an old-style secure tenancy if—
(a) the tenancy is offered to a person who is or was a tenant of some other dwelling-house under a qualifying tenancy (whether as the sole tenant or as a joint tenant); and
(b) the provider is satisfied that—
(i) the person or a member of the person’s household is or has been a victim of the domestic abuse carried out by another person; and
(ii) the new tenancy is granted for reasons connected with that abuse and such a private registered provider of social housing or housing trust which is a charity shall be considered a person who satisfies the landlord condition under section 80 for the purpose of granting an old-style secure tenancy in accordance with this subsection.”
We are here to discuss a short but important Bill. It has been introduced by the Government to plug the gaps left by ministerial incompetence in the progression of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Despite the Opposition’s warnings, the Government failed to listen, so we are here today to remedy the situation as fully as possible for victims of domestic violence.
In Committee, we tabled an amendment to try to secure additional guidance and training for local authority staff who are expected to make decisions about domestic violence cases. In response, the Minister talked about the high quality of Southwark Council’s homelessness team as an example of the Government already providing enough support. I am convinced that Southwark Council is doing an excellent job, but it has taken part in a number of pilot schemes, so surely the Minister recognises that it will not be representative of the whole country, particularly as it has been allocated well over £1 million to deal with the new burdens that have been introduced under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. Although there are good reasons for the extra funding, it allows the council to employ specialised officers who are responsible for specific areas of homelessness and to provide an holistic approach to those presenting as homeless.
However, if we look at another city elsewhere in the country—York—we find that it has been allocated just over one twentieth of the resources provided to Southwark and it does not have enough money even to hire one experienced housing officer, never mind a specified officer to deal with domestic abuse cases. The truth is that the quality of domestic abuse homelessness provision varies massively from authority to authority, and getting the proper care is far too much of a postcode lottery.
Although I am not introducing an amendment on this issue today, I hope that the Government consider the reports from charities such as Women’s Aid about the difficulty that some women face when trying to explain their situation to local councils. There are cases of women being told to go back to the perpetrator or to come back when the situation got worse. I think we can all agree that that is completely unacceptable. The Minister should look into those reports and take steps to improve the quality of advice in boroughs and districts where problems have been identified with the treatment of domestic abuse victims.
I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but does she not welcome the fact that the Government are introducing an extra £17 million to help more than 40 local authorities to provide better services? The Government really have made this a priority; does she not welcome that?
As I made clear, we are not tabling an amendment on this, but I urge the Minister to consider the reports from Women’s Aid to make sure that across the country there is parity of service for all victims of domestic violence.
There is obviously consensus that the Bill is a step in the right direction, and we welcome it, but are there not other barriers to secure tenancies—for example, if debt was incurred in the previous tenancy? Will social landlords have to accept these women? A lot of advice needs to be given, and that is why it is important that the extra services and help are provided.
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I agree: sufficient support should be available across the whole country. Very often, individuals will present with unique circumstances, and legislation cannot provide for each and every eventuality, but making sure that the appropriate training is in place across the country will go some way towards assisting those individuals.
I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend is saying about the postcode lottery. When I raised that on Second Reading, the Minister said that I was complaining about an issue that did not exist, but it has become clear from subsequent meetings with Women’s Aid that different local authorities are applying very different interpretations of the rights in terms of housing allocations and local connections, so I support her efforts to ensure more consistency across the piece.
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and concur with his remarks. Other issues raised by hon. Members have prompted assurances during the Bill’s progress, and I take the Minister at her word and hope the Government live up to her words.
New clause 1 would ensure that cross-border travel does not negatively affect the rights in the Bill. People who flee domestic abuse end up in all parts of the country, but an unevenness in legislation means that domestic abuse victims in the devolved nations are subject to different rights and protections. The new clause seeks to protect the rights of domestic abuse victims countrywide and ensure that travelling from one council area in one country to another in another country does not impede the rights of a domestic abuse victim.
Domestic abuse victims often have little time to plan when fleeing an abusive partner and are unlikely to think that a move to their nearest large town or city might change their circumstances as a victim of domestic abuse, yet that is the reality in places such as Chester and Wrexham. It should be unequivocal that the rights in the Bill travel with the victims. In Committee, the Minister informed me that this matter would be brought up at the devolved Administration roundtable last month in the hope of agreeing a memorandum of understanding between the Administrations.
I understand what the hon. Lady is trying to do, but I do not think her new clause does it, because it says that the Government should “review” the situation. What powers would she want the Government to take to override devolved Governments?
The purpose of the new clause is not to override the devolved Administrations, which is why it calls for a review. If the right hon. Gentleman listens to the remainder of my speech, perhaps it will clarify things for him.
I am pleased to see action to improve cross-border collaboration, but I have not seen any such memorandum. In any event, domestic abuse victims need more than a memorandum of understanding, and we have the opportunity to give them just that right now. I am aware of the sensitivities surrounding devolution, so the new clause does not seek to impose Parliament’s desires on the devolved Administrations, but would instead commit the Government to publishing a review of the domestic abuse policies of each Administration and to working towards ensuring that victims of domestic abuse are treated equally when they move from one nation to another.
Has the hon. Lady written to the Scottish Parliament or Administration, or indeed to the Welsh Government, to ask whether they approve of her new clause?
I have relied on the good offices of the Minister, who is in government, to undertake the duties of consultation with the devolved Administrations, which was due to take place, I believe, on 19 April, and we await the distribution of a note on the outcome of those meetings, which was requested but which I have not had sight of as yet.
It was emailed to the hon. Lady and all Committee members this morning.
That is an opportune time for materials to be sent, as we found out during the urgent questions this morning. I am sorry I have not seen the note. I am grateful that the Minister has provided it, but it is incredibly unfortunate it was not provided sooner, because the information might well have informed the debate. [Interruption.] The Minister may well wish to provide it to me right now, but I am in the middle of my speech and it would be difficult for me to speak and read at the same time—as good as I am at multi-tasking!
Amendment 1 adds a requirement for a secure tenancy to be offered when domestic abuse victims apply for rehousing in a local authority area different from the one in which they previously had their secure tenancy. In Committee, the Minister said that the amendment was ineffective because the requirement was already provided for in the Bill, but there remains some unease about the current wording. The amendment would provide peace of mind, as prescribed by the Government back in 2016. We must not forget that the sector has been waiting for two years, having been assured by the Government that the requirement would be covered by the Housing and Planning Act 2016. The purpose of the amendment is simply to ensure that we do not end up in the same position again if it turns out that the Bill does not guarantee domestic abuse victims secure tenancies if they end up crossing local authority boundaries.
I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me, welcomes the fact that tenants who have suffered domestic abuse will be offered secure tenancies, but does she share my concern about evidence given to the Work and Pensions Committee that when local authorities apply to the Department for Work and Pensions for benefits to support a victim of domestic abuse, they are frequently told that it will be several weeks before a decision can be made, and victims are returning to perpetrators because they cannot be guaranteed the funds that would secure their secure housing?
That is an important point, and I hope that the Minister will take it on board. The issue needs to be dealt with on a cross-Government basis. The Minister has given repeated assurances that she is engaged in conversation with representatives of other Departments, but there certainly should not be any Government policies that discourage victims of domestic violence from leaving the perpetrators of that violence.
Two thirds of all domestic abuse victims who present themselves at refuges come from outside the local area. We know that housing insecurity is a major reason for the fact that too many victims stay with their partners. The amendment is important, because this issue affects far too many of the domestic abuse victims whom we are trying to help today for us to leave things to chance. For the sake of absolute clarity, I ask the Minister again to accept it. I assure Conservative Members that this is not a matter of policy or politics, but a matter of good practice.
Amendment 2 would ensure that victims of domestic abuse do not have to pay extra charges as a result of the bedroom tax if they are provided with a secure tenancy that incorporates a spare room. There are particularly good reasons why the Government must see sense when considering whether to apply the tax to victims of domestic violence. Victims face all sorts of barriers to leaving abusive partners, and the sad impact is that one in five spends more than 10 years living with an abusive partner. That statistic applies only to women who are able to leave: as we all know, countless women never manage to leave their abusive partners, and every week two women are killed by a partner or ex-partner. That is why we need to knock down as many of the barriers as possible.
The amendment would help to remove some of the financial pressure on people fleeing domestic violence, and will ensure that no one who is considering leaving an abusive relationship has to worry about the extra burden that the bedroom tax could add to their costs. It is a vital amendment, because domestic violence victims often have limited means, and may not be able to take jobs that would enable them to provide for themselves and their families. Many domestic violence victims have been subject to financial abuse, being forced to quit their jobs and give their money to their abusive partners, and having little control over their own finances. Domestic abuse victims need help, not a cruel and unnecessary tax over which they have no control. I plead with the Government to make an exception to their bedroom tax, and provide the help and support that domestic abuse victims desperately need.
Amendment 3 would ensure that those in housing association properties are given the same rights to secure tenancies as those in council housing. In Committee, I was concerned about the Minister’s seeming lack of appreciation of the variety of council housing available. While I accept that some housing associations fulfil different functions in society from councils providing housing, a number of them represent the sole social housing provision in a local authority. In Committee, the Minister said that
“local authorities and housing associations are very different entities, which are subject to different drivers and challenges.”––[Official Report, Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) [Lords] Public Bill Committee, 27 March 2018; c. 30.]
If someone is a resident of Wakefield, their social housing is managed by the Wakefield and District housing association, which exists to manage the local authority’s housing needs and assets, whereas my own local authority underwent a full stock transfer, with tenancies transferring as per council tenancies. Many housing associations in this country have extremely similar drivers and challenges to council-managed housing, and many people in areas such as Wakefield still think of their housing association house as a council house. This amendment seeks to ensure that such victims of domestic abuse in areas such as Wakefield and North East Lincolnshire are given the same rights and protections as those in council housing.
The minimisation of the issue around the bedroom tax seems to be due to the fact that the Bill is predicated on an example of someone with a stable and consistent life. But at the point that these people present at a housing office, their life will not be consistent or stable at all, which is why we need to amend the Bill.
I absolutely agree. If we could get our housing and welfare systems, which have become fragmented—and were never perfect, don’t get me wrong —to work better together, at least people would have a fighting chance of understanding what the hell they were meant to be doing, because it is a bit confusing at the moment. My hon. Friend is completely right that we are talking about people in chaos.
A tiny fraction of victims of domestic violence present as homeless. The vast majority either stay or end up in refuge, and they will likely have help in those circumstances to get them through the process. But we have to do better for those who turn up the housing office. We have to ensure that local authority staff have a much clearer understanding of this cross-border issue, because the triumph of hope over experience has left many people unhoused.
I rise to speak to new clause 1, which would have a specific impact on local authorities in Scotland, including in my constituency. I would say at the outset, in relation to the thrust of what was said by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), that I agree about the need for more co-operation across the United Kingdom, and I will come on to that shortly. The difficulty, as shown by the fact that I am the only Scottish MP in the Chamber, is that the Bill is not necessarily the right vehicle to do so, because it cuts across some devolved areas, and I want to go into that in a little more detail.
The Government have a strong record on domestic abuse, and the Bill is a further example of that. We have criminalised coercive and bullying behaviour, and we have made sure that we have domestic violence orders. We currently have an open consultation, which provides the potential for more powers and a greater understanding of other types of crimes, such as economic abuse, that are often unseen. That is certainly the experience of many of my constituents, as many people in public authority have seen.
My knowledge of this matter has largely come from my constituents, as well as from some of my own family experience. Many of my constituents have relationships that span the United Kingdom. Men and women who have had such relationships may have some children in England and some in Scotland, so there is a real need for co-ordination and for a UK minimum standard. I have seen at first hand, in refuges and in my constituency office, the bravery of these women as well as the hardship that they have endured. I know how much of an impact there can be on individual lives, and how much need there is for them to move from one local authority to another, which may not be an adjacent one but a local authority far up the country in Scotland or somewhere in England.
Members have talked a lot about the terrible abuse that women have endured, and we know that domestic abuse has a disproportionate impact on women. It is also important to say, however, that 700,000 men were victims of domestic abuse in 2015-16, and that young people are also victims. When we talk about giving people opportunities in secure tenancies in other local authorities around the country, we need to ensure that we capture everyone, because domestic abuse affects many different types of individual at many different ages.
As I have said, and I will keep my remarks brief, a national minimum is desirable. I very much feel that there are times when we are four nations and many regions, but there are also times when we are one country. On this issue, I believe that having a national minimum would be incredibly desirable. I am very keen to work with Opposition Members, certainly as we examine other pieces of legislation in this place, on having UK-wide frameworks, especially in new policy areas, to make sure that there are UK-wide minimums, even if the services are delivered through devolved Administrations, local authorities or other devolved agencies. I am very willing to help in such a way. Unfortunately, however, as the Bill is targeted at England, making an amendment to loop in what is a devolved area in Scotland—it would have an impact in my local authority and others—this is not the best place to do so. I hope to work with Opposition Members in future to try to develop policies on such minimums.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will continue in the spirit of consultation that she always shows in relation to the devolved Administrations, and perhaps she will consider extending her audit of services elsewhere in the United Kingdom—beyond England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I want to assure the Minister that at every stage of the Bill, since I have been involved, I have sought to be constructive in my approach. Having heard the arguments and the Minister’s response, let me say that I do not intend to push new clause 1 or amendments 1 and 3 to a vote. We have made our points as fully as we can—sadly, to no avail—but I do not want to cause any unnecessary delay to the Bill.
On the bedroom tax, however, the Minister’s response was not wholly sufficient to ease the Opposition’s concern about the potential for a damaging loophole to be created, which would be to the detriment of domestic abuse victims. As the hon. Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) said, we want a fit-for-purpose policy, and that is what we are all aiming for. I therefore request that the House be permitted to divide on amendment 2, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw new clause 1.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1
Duty to grant old-style secure tenancies: victims of domestic abuse
Amendment proposed: 2, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
“(2BA) A local housing authority which grants an old-style secure tenancy under subsection (2A) or (2B) has discretion to decide whether or not the maximum rent for the old-style secure tenancy should be determined according to regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/213) as amended by the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/ 3040).”—(Melanie Onn.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
I would like to start by thanking my colleagues in this House, in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), and, for her contributions this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George). I also thank Members in the other place for scrutinising this proposed legislation and ensuring that it leaves in a marginally better state than when it arrived. I would particularly like to pay tribute to my colleague Baroness Lister, as her amendment to the original Housing and Planning Act 2016 is the reason the Bill is before us today.
I am disappointed that the Minister has been so reluctant to support any of our amendments, as they would have strengthened the Bill by helping to equalise the quality of care across the country and guaranteeing that domestic abuse victims who move authorities still have a secure tenancy in their new authority. I had hoped that, given that mistakes had been made in this area in the past and such provision had not been included in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the Government might have listened to some of the concerns from the sector about the ambiguity of the Bill. However, given that we have just divided on the matter, we will support the Bill as drafted.
Despite that, the Bill leaves the House today and it will do a large amount of good for many domestic abuse victims across the country. By guaranteeing a secure tenancy to victims of domestic abuse moving from a secure tenancy, the Bill will remove a key barrier that prevents domestic abuse victims from leaving their perpetrator. There is a clear need for a new radical and credible approach to housing and refuges, but the Bill will provide more security to many domestic abuse victims who are in secure tenancies. We therefore support the Bill.
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments about my father and his sense of focus and dedication as a public servant. My hon. Friend makes a point about the private sector and about landlords and those who own buildings seeking to pass on those costs. I would say clearly that the costs should not be passed on to leaseholders. They should be borne by the owners in the same way that local authorities and public sector buildings are maintaining that approach. I welcome the decision from one property developer, Barratt, to pay for remediation costs, and I hope that others will follow its lead.
On 17 June last year, the Prime Minister said:
“My Government will do whatever it takes to…keep our people safe.”
Plymouth Community Homes says that its request for funding to replace cladding has been turned down, and it is not alone. We have heard the same thing from local authorities up and down the country. Will the Secretary of State update the House today on how many funding applications to replace cladding have been approved by his Department, to demonstrate that it is doing all it takes?
As the hon. Lady will know, I am relatively new in post, but I will investigate the specific question that she has raised and respond to her. Obviously, our commitment remains to working with local councils on this important issue.
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I have not come across the Cyrenians, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that across the road is an excellent sleep spot.
The No Second Night Out programme is a good example of an early intervention service. It was launched in 2011 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), now the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and it aims to ensure that no one, once identified, spends a second night sleeping rough in central London. More recently, Sadiq Khan has gone further and set up the No Nights Sleeping Rough Taskforce, trying to come up with new solutions. The taskforce brings together boroughs, voluntary organisations and central Government.
Apart from the proactiveness of the agencies that are helping, I noticed some other differences. In February 2018 the majority of the people I came across living on the streets were foreign nationals. One evening, at a soup kitchen on the Strand, there were—I will not exaggerate this—certainly 200 people. Various church groups—from Maidenhead, I think—and some Ahmadiyya Muslims, a Sikh group and an evangelical group were helping out. I wandered about while shawls and brand-new trainers were handed out, and I honestly did not hear English being spoken by anyone. I heard east European languages, Arabic and Italian.
The statistics seem to bear out my anecdotal evidence. Information collected by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network—the joint agency of people working with rough sleepers that is run by the excellent charity St Mungo’s—records that, in 2016-17, of the rough sleepers in London for whom nationality information was available, 30% were from central and eastern Europe. The figure for non-UK nationals overall was 52.6%; that does not include those who do not wish to give a nationality, and other sources put the figure nearer 60%, which was certainly my experience.
I note that the hon. Gentleman mentioned that those figures relate to London. Does he accept that, UK-wide, only 4% of rough sleepers in England are non-European Union nationals and 16% are EU non-UK nationals? Will he join me in thanking those faith groups who go out to serve all communities, regardless of background, and to help people who are in the direst of straits if they are rough sleeping?
Well, of course—the hon. Lady need not even have bothered asking the latter question, because it is a no-brainer, isn’t it? As for the numbers for the rest of the country, I do not know—I have not looked at them—but they are very interesting. There are many different people with different sets of figures, and I am sure that hers are correct. With the example of the numbers of foreign nationals living homeless in London, we can take our pick, but the CHAIN figure is the most reliable—I do not think that the figure is much more than 60%, but nor do I think it is much less.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) for securing this very important debate. The turnout of colleagues goes some way to demonstrating how important this issue is to so many representatives throughout the country. I am only sorry that more colleagues have not had more time in which to share their views and discuss issues affecting their constituents.
Street homelessness is just one part of the ever increasing problem of homelessness, but it is one that shames the country, so we must welcome the Government strategies to tackle it. I am referring to piloting the Housing First schemes in mayoral areas and bringing in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. However, I must enter a small caveat. Housing First has worked incredibly well in Finland and areas of Canada, and St Mungo’s, which the hon. Gentleman has spoken to and worked with closely, has also been undertaking this work for quite some time outside the pilots, so we should take this opportunity to congratulate those organisations that have already been undertaking this good work for some time. I also need to raise my concerns about local authorities’ ability fully to implement the range of facilities in the Homelessness Reduction Act without the funding properly to support the requirements of that Act.
I, too, feel that those are exactly the problems, so does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities up and down the country face these difficulties? In my own city of Manchester in 2010, we had only seven people in this situation, but in 2017 the number was 94. Manchester City Council is giving £3 million to tackle homelessness, but it is also fighting the tide of crippling cuts to local authority budgets, an historical housing crisis and punitive welfare reform—
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) is absolutely right, and I could not support him more. I congratulate Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, on the action that he has taken to ensure that homelessness is at the top of his agenda and to tackle this issue for his city, including by putting some of his own funds into the task group. The rise in homelessness in Manchester and other areas has not simply happened by chance; it is a result of Government choices.
The figures show that almost 5,000 individuals are now sleeping rough on our streets. That is a 15% increase on 2017 and a 169% increase since 2010—a massive increase. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot help the homeless if we do not provide the homes that they require?
Absolutely, and I will come on to that issue shortly. This problem is not insurmountable. When Labour was in government, there was an unprecedented drop in homelessness, but since 2010 it has worsened by every measure. As the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) made clear, the doubling of rough sleepers since 2010 is a problem of the Government’s own making. Home ownership is at a 30-year low. The average home costs eight times the average salary. Today in England there are 120,000 homeless children. The building of social rent homes has plummeted, with fewer than 1,000 last year—the lowest level on record.
The Minister, who has responsibility for homelessness, recently said that she did not know why homelessness had risen. I find it very hard to believe that anyone in this place cannot immediately see some of the main reasons for homelessness increasing. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly recognised some of them: a lack of social and council homes; disproportionately high rental increases making homes unaffordable for those on lower incomes; reductions in council funding meaning less for drug and alcohol services; crippling welfare reforms that have cut too fast and too far for those who were genuinely just about managing; and difficulty in accessing mental health services as the thresholds for those services get ever higher.
I shall take the opportunity to highlight some of the innovative work that NAViGO mental health services is undertaking in my constituency. It has worked closely with the local housing association to purchase properties and then uses them as step-down accommodation to support the service users who come to it for help, to ensure that they have wraparound care. That is the principle of Housing First in action in measures being taken by innovative organisations around the country.
My hon. Friend gives very good examples of people who are homeless being given assistance. I wonder whether she will share my dismay at a letter that I received from Eleanor Wilson, a medical student in Glasgow, last night. She said that she witnessed, in a branch of Starbucks in Glasgow, a homeless man who was just queuing for a cup of coffee being told to get out of the premises. That is one of a litany of issues with Starbucks in the city of Glasgow. Starbucks cannot pay its taxes—does not contribute to helping the public realm—and is also ostracising homeless people on our streets who need help. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is totally unacceptable for a corporate citizen of the UK?
Absolutely. I think that we all have a responsibility. The hon. Member for Gravesham talked about a society that is enabling homelessness, but I think that there is room for compassion when dealing with people who have myriad social, economic and personal issues driving them to be in this situation.
A sensible welfare state provides security to those in society who need it. That has been eroded over the last eight years, creating an underclass to the extent that the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has stepped into the Government’s shoes with its report published yesterday in the New Statesman and identified 78 homeless people who have died this winter. That is 78 human lives lost, 78 people without a place that they could call home, 78 lost people. Why do I call them “lost people”? Because the Government do not collect those figures centrally. Because in response to my written questions and those from colleagues about deaths associated with rough sleeping, the Minister has repeatedly brushed that question off. There was no acknowledgement that the central collection of data would prove to be of discernible use—that it would better inform the Government of the scale of the issue at hand and provide some evidence and a means by which Government initiatives could be measured.
The Minister’s Department seems similarly unaware of which local authorities have commissioned adult safeguarding reviews in the event of homelessness-related deaths in their area, so we cannot know which local authorities have good practices and which need improvement. Will she agree today to start collecting centrally data in relation to deaths from homelessness? For everyone’s information, at least 59 men and 16 women have died. Their ages ranged from 19 to 68, and 14 of those who died were under the age of 35.
I congratulate them on their assiduousness, but it should not take investigative journalists calling round councils, charities, coroners’ offices and police forces to establish a full picture of how many people are dying on the streets of our country. And it is not just those figures that matter. The Government should be doing better in collating general information about people who are rough sleeping, because the accuracy of those figures is wholly insufficient. In the official figures, the estimated figure for rough sleepers in my constituency sits at around 22, but the list that I get every single month from my local outreach services shows more than double that number.
My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution to the debate. Does she agree that there is a case for reviewing the nonsensical, arbitrary headcount that takes place once a year, in November, and leads to completely misleading statistics? We actually need a personal profile of each individual so that we know what their needs are and how to address them. The headcount once a year is completely misleading and unhelpful.
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly valid point, and I hope that the Minister is listening. I see that the hon. Member for Gravesham, who initiated the debate, is nodding: he thinks that what has been referred to would be of great use.
It is shameful that in 2018 we have experienced such a rise in homelessness in all its guises, from families left in supposedly temporary accommodation for up to two years, to those without even a roof over their heads. There must be action. Now is not soon enough, let alone 2027, especially for those who have lost their lives without the security of their own home.
(7 years, 2 months ago)
General CommitteesIt is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and to discuss these important HMO regulations. I will hazard a guess that I am one of the very rare parliamentarians to have lived in an HMO as a young homeless person and later as a between-homes, slightly older young person. I know how it feels to live in a property that was originally built for a single family, but that has been carved up in weird and wonderful ways to accommodate as many people as possible to maximise rental and housing benefit income. With the charity and housing association I was placed with, I was in the fortunate position of not having to suffer sharing a room or a house with multiple families, but that is the situation that many people across the country find themselves in. It is for them that we should not hesitate in improving the standards of the accommodation available.
The Government have made welcome steps in improving the deal for those living in HMOs, as the Minister outlined in her opening remarks. Labour has long argued for stronger rights and protections for renters, and the regulations will go some way to improving the rights of many of the most poor and vulnerable tenants, who are often the ones occupying such overcrowded houses. I take this opportunity to echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North about the impact of HMOs on local communities. The number of HMOs impacts not only on immediate neighbours, but the whole community. With more people residing in individual rooms, people become less and less connected with their local community.
I have the great privilege of being the neighbour of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North. The situation in his constituency that he so ably describes also affects mine. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby believe that the Minister’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North would have been improved had she said that her Department was willing to support local authorities that want to go down the path of addressing that with additional resources? That would certainly speed up the introduction of such schemes.
Would that we were all so lucky to have my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North as a neighbour. I am sure the Minister listened intently to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West and hopefully will take them on board. I am sure they are offered with a generous and genuine sentiment.
I am pleased the Government are bringing forward the regulations and supporting the Bill of my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), to ensure that all rental properties are fit for human habitation. Nearly 170 years after the industrial revolution, and a generation on from slum clearances and rife Rachmanism, it is none too soon that we have in one place clear definitions of what is acceptable as a minimum space for a human being to sleep.
However, it would be welcome if the Minister expands on the details of the regulations, of which we are broadly supportive. One concern is the impact of setting a small national minimum room size. I raise that in full recognition of the consultations, but remind the Minister that, in HMOs, the room allocated to someone is not just a bedroom. There are ordinarily shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. Individual rooms provide not only a sleeping location, but everything else—study, hobby, exercise and leisure, and all of that person’s belongings, are within that space. It is not simply a case of considering that there should be enough space for a bed and a chest of drawers. There may be no other space to store, for example, a bicycle by which people might transport themselves, or space for shelving for books, or space for a chair on which to sit rather sitting than on the edge of a bed, or a table at which to study or to eat.
The Minister must take those things into consideration when concluding that the proposed minimum standard for a single occupier should be 6.51 square metres or 10.22 square metres for two people. Those sizes will be further compromised if young children requiring a cot share the space. Would the Minister be happy to live in such a restrictive space?
Local authorities are well aware of the conditions in which some of their residents live and may seek to provide alternative room sizes in their licensing schemes. I note that the regulations do not seek to limit local authorities from setting more generous room size allowances than the national minimum, as the Minister said in her opening remarks, but can she confirm whether she believes that local authorities are protected from legal challenge in the residential property tribunal by landlords who wish to test specific local circumstances? Will she confirm that she has taken steps to allow local authorities to set room sizes freely without fear of a residential property tribunal?
The Minister mentioned fines for anybody letting out rooms that are smaller than the minimum size in the regulations. That requires enforcement and goes to comments made in interventions. Will any additional resources be made available for local authorities? There is no point in having these regulations unless we can properly enforce them and check that they are being adhered to. Local authorities will struggle to do that without resources—officers should be available to go and check on properties.
If the Government are prepared to intervene to set minimum room sizes in private rental HMOs, will they consider doing the same for new build private properties? On a recent visit to a development in Doncaster with Keepmoat Homes, which is working in partnership with the local Labour council, I was shown new builds, some of which will be handed to the council for social housing. They are being built with a 30% greater footprint to avoid the problems that have so often been experienced by people buying new houses—that the rooms are too small for regular furniture and do not have any storage space for things such as cleaning materials.
A number of issues arise when living space is unsuitably small. That applies to all properties, whether they are privately owned or rented HMOs. First, in HMOs there is the obvious danger that overcrowding and over-cluttered space could create a much greater fire risk. Usually there is only one way out, and residents should not be hindered in getting to the exit easily because of insufficient space. Secondly, one of the biggest issues connected with limited space, especially in HMOs, is the impact on mental health. Once someone is in the room, it is usually locked. There is often limited socialising between tenants, and a lack of shared social space can lead to isolation. If children are living in and sharing such a room, the ability to play, develop, be creative and learn is hampered. The likelihood of serious decline in mental health is all too real.
Of course that all fits into the wider problem of a housing market in crisis. It is fair to say that part of the reason for such shocking standards of accommodation is that many of those affected simply have no other option. There is a serious lack of council and social homes, and private rents for sole occupiers are too often unaffordable.
I hope my hon. Friend will not think me churlish when I say that, if we are talking about becoming neighbours, I should prefer it if she moved to Ealing—although I am happy to move to Grimsby should that be required.
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case and is speaking up for those whose voices are seldom heard—those who occupy houses in multiple occupation. Does she agree that in such cases we should consider a community infrastructure levy or some other sort of payment because of the impact on local facilities? I do not just mean community centres—I mean places such as libraries. HMOs put an extraordinary strain on the community in terms not only of social cohesion but of demand for facilities, for precisely the reasons she has so eloquently explained.
Thank you for your guidance, Mrs Moon. I shall not talk about libraries, but I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which relates to the point made earlier about the impact of HMOs on communities and the resources that local authorities require to meet the needs of all their residents properly.
Many of the vulnerable people who live in HMOs have to wait far too long to be provided with the council homes that they desperately need. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 offered little respite for many of those people, who are facing the sharp end of the crisis. Unfortunately, rather than providing enough council houses for the many who are on waiting lists, the Government decided to continue a sell-off of what council house stock we have left.
The regulations before the Committee show that the Government are aware of some of the problems facing the housing sector today, so will they back some of the steps that will help solve the crisis? Will they back a moratorium on the right to buy, under which more than 80,000 council houses have been sold since 2012?
Order. I again remind the hon. Lady to stay within the scope of the regulations. The purchasing of council housing is not in the provisions that we are here to look at.
Thank you, Mrs Moon.
I shall move on to an issue that is dealt with in the regulations—landlords’ responsibility for waste, and the additional waste generated in HMOs. The Government are right to require HMO landlords to take more responsibility for waste and its disposal. Often residence in HMO properties is transient, and the provisions should hold no fear for good, responsible landlords who take an interest in their property and tenants and the wider community.
A number of issues have been raised in the debate, and I hope the Minister will take as many steps as possible to answer those queries, but on the whole we believe that this statutory instrument represents a clear step forward for many poor and vulnerable people who have ended up in terrible conditions due to overcrowding of room space, and the Opposition are happy to support it.
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesI beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. The most common scenario in domestic violence cases is that of a woman fleeing her abuser. She escapes a harmful and dangerous situation and tries to find a place of safety—often a refuge. As we said this morning, for 68% of those women that is in another local authority area. The Minister said she does not think there is a problem with that in the Bill and decided not to accept amendment 5, which we withdrew following our discussion this morning, but we still hold that there may be a problem if the cross-boundary duty is not made explicit. The situations becomes even clearer if we think of people fleeing from another country in the UK—from Northern Ireland to England, from Scotland to Wales, from England to Wales, or from Scotland to Northern Ireland.
There are significantly fewer resources in towns than in cities. For those living in the more far-flung reaches of our country, access to support services, including housing, may be much more limited. The homelessness services provided by, for example, Crisis, are well known, but Crisis clearly operates somewhere where a significant amount of rough sleeping occurs—London. The excellent services it provides at its Crisis Skylight centre in central London are much harder to come by in, say, Norfolk or Wiltshire, although it now has an excellent service in South Yorkshire. The groundbreaking work and the centrepiece services tend to be in cities, and the same is true for domestic violence services. It stands to reason that the more people there are, the broader the range of support services catered for, and the greater the experience and knowledge base that is built up.
The anonymity of cities can be a draw for victims. If there are services to support those experiencing domestic violence, or if that is the nearest place where spaces are available, that is where victims will go. Complications may arise if someone who lives in a border town—for example, Wrexham—is directed to or heads to Manchester to seek sanctuary. Similarly, people from Northern Ireland may head to Birmingham, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley tells me contains the largest diaspora of Irish people in the country, to be supported by extended family members. Will the rights conferred by the Bill travel with them? Will the rights follow the victim? When the system differs among our devolved nations, will victims find that they do not receive the same treatment and housing opportunities as someone who straightforwardly moves from one council house in their local authority area to another in that same local authority area? I fear that the Government are looking at this matter far too simplistically and that down the line they will come a cropper as they realise that the Bill has not worked as intended.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth recognised the issue presented by the Bill and has committed to taking this particular matter to the Ministry’s devolved Administration roundtable, which I believe is due to convene in Cardiff in April. He has also committed to provide the Library with a copy of the letter that follows the outcome of that roundtable. I am unclear about what that might mean for the Bill, because the outcome of that roundtable will surely serve as some form of response to some of the issues that have been flagged up in debates so far.
I very much accept the difficulties and sensitivities involved, so the new clause will not force England-only duties on to the devolved nations. It strives to ensure that full collaboration is exercised and provided for to enable all victims to be treated fairly and equally, wherever in the country they come from and wherever they end up. To do that, there must be some method of reviewing the issue, and I personally prefer to understand the issue that we are trying to fix with the import of new legislation.
The new clause would recognise that there should be no detriment to anyone travelling between Northern Ireland, Scotland, England or Wales who requires security of tenure. At the moment, the Bill does not do that, despite the recognition of the problem. The new clause therefore proposes a review period of six months to establish where the problems lie in the legislation and to enable the Government to take steps to resolve them.
We do not want to see anyone dissuaded from getting themselves to a place of safety if that place is in one of the devolved nations. The matter was recognised in debate in the Lords. Rather than having to reflect on a missed opportunity, and in full understanding that this is an issue of a premise accepted by Lord Bourne, I urge the Minister to take the necessary steps to future-proof this Bill.
I want to speak in support of new clause 1 and the principle of co-operation, and to give a couple of examples. I used to work for Shelter, and I lobbied successfully for the Homelessness Act 2002. It was a groundbreaking piece of legislation because, for the first time, local authorities had to have a strategy in place to tackle homelessness. It also extended the definition of priority need to many different groups who had not fallen into that category before, including people fleeing domestic violence, as well as 16 and 17-year-olds and people leaving care, prison or the armed forces.
Shelter put a huge amount of resource into lobbying for the legislation. We worked during the passage of the Bill and lobbied civil servants on the guidance that followed. It was a good Bill and there was good guidance, but we knew that we could not necessarily guarantee that it would be implemented in the way that legislators had intended. As a charity, we funded about 15 full-time members of staff to work with every single local authority to help them understand the legislation and implement it.
My point is that even though we had a good Bill, good guidance and all this extra resource from Shelter, which was used widely by all local authorities, there were still differences in implementation, with pockets of good practice and pockets of bad practice. For example, the good practice was that a local authority should have a safe place—a safe room or a safe opportunity—for people once they came to the local authority and said that they were fleeing domestic violence. Not every local authority does that; there are differences in implementation. The implementation and what is written in the Bill are absolutely crucial.
We know that there are different definitions of priority need in different nations. If someone is fleeing domestic violence in England, the category of priority need is stronger than it would be for someone fleeing in Wales. If someone is fleeing in Wales, they have to have been the victim of domestic violence. In England, they have to be the victim or at risk of domestic violence. There is a slightly different way of interpreting that legislation, because it is different in the two nations. I would hate, as I am sure the Minister would, for us to introduce legislation that does not enable every single person we can possibly help to get the support that they need.
The new clause is a sensible addition to the legislation. Giving six months to look at this before anything has to be introduced is sensible. We can support those victims of domestic violence who need our support. Croydon, which I represent, has the highest number of applications by people fleeing domestic violence of any London borough. We have a fantastic service in Croydon. We have the only family justice centre in Europe, which brings together all the agencies that help to support people who are fleeing domestic violence, including housing and the police. We provide brilliant support, which I would like to see across the country and across the nations, but sadly that is not the case. I am supportive of co-operation and new clause 1.
The new clause calls for a review of the potential for future co-operation between local authorities in England and those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with consideration of how it may be possible to extend the provisions in the Bill to apply across the UK. The issue was raised during passage of the Bill through the Lords and, indeed, an amendment was tabled and subsequently withdrawn.
As hon. Members are aware, housing is a devolved matter, so it is for local authorities, or the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland, and social landlords to decide whether to allow access to social housing under the law that operates in that particular country. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have their own homelessness legislation. There may of course be differences of approach, according to the requirements of the devolved area and the pressures on their housing stock. As I understand it, for example, in Wales, where social housing stock is in highest demand, the local authorities can and do discharge their duty to rehouse using the private rented sector.
The Minister for faith, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, wrote to peers on this issue following Second Reading, setting out how each devolved Administration would deal with the situation if a person, as a result of domestic abuse, were to flee from their home in England to a devolved Administration. I am more than happy to share that with the Committee.
I agree that there should be increased co-operation between England and the devolved Administrations on the question of victims of domestic abuse, including where a victim needs to move from one country to another to escape the abuse and to feel safe. Furthermore, I understand that the Minister, Lord Bourne, gave the commitment that he would raise the issue at the roundtable with the devolved Administrations, which I understand is next due to take place on 19 April in Cardiff. In fact, the noble Lord has written to ask whether the issue could be put on the agenda of that meeting. He has made it clear that he would like to explore whether we can develop a concordat or joint memorandum of understanding between the four countries on our approach to social housing and cases of domestic abuse.
I remind hon. Members that the purpose of the Bill is to remove an impediment that might prevent someone who suffers domestic abuse from leaving their abusive situation in England when the provisions under the Housing and Planning Act 2016 come into force. The Housing and Planning Act applies only to England.
In the current situation, a victim of abuse in another part of the UK, such as in Scotland, will not have an impediment to fleeing their situation from fear of losing their lifetime tenancy, as another council in Scotland will grant them a lifetime tenancy when they are rehoused. The commencement of the Housing and Planning Act does not change that.
I do not believe it would be appropriate to include a duty in the Bill, which applies to England only, to consider the potential for amending legislation in other parts of the UK. In this instance, I firmly believe that addressing the question at the devolved Administration roundtable is the correct approach, with a view to securing a memorandum of understanding or concordat. This is a common issue in which all parts of the UK have an interest, but, as I have said, the differences in housing legislation across the devolved Administrations mean that I do not believe a UK-wide provision in a Bill based on an Act that applies only to England is the correct approach. For all those reasons, I do not consider the amendment to be appropriate or necessary and I ask for it to be withdrawn.
Yes—yes please to the sharing of information that has been distributed by Lord Bourne. I very much welcome that, as I would a notification to confirm that the meeting of 19 April has taken place and the detail of the conversations that took place within it. I am slightly concerned that the legislation is almost being drafted with eyes shut to the reality of people’s lives. I would urge every consideration to ensure that that is not the reality.
For example, I do not know whether the concordat or memorandum of understanding would be legally binding, how it would operate in an enforceable way and how, if an individual felt that they were being treated differently because they happened to cross a nation’s border, they would go about challenging that, what the normal process would be, whether legal aid would be available, and so on.
There are still concerns that the legislation will not fully do what is necessary to meet the intention that has been set out, but I await the outcome of the meeting on 19 April. I agree that there should be a pause to establish whether that meeting can resolve this issue in an amicable fashion, rather that something that seems to have a UK parliamentary overbearing overtone, which may not be well received by the devolved nations, and I mentioned the sensitivities of the issue in my speech. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.
Ever so briefly, I thank everybody for the lively debate. It has been a very well-informed discussion. I think there will be some issues on which we will be able to give greater clarity and comfort to those who have asked questions. Ms Ryan, I thank you, and all the Clerks and staff who have helped us get through this Bill.
I thank the Minister for listening in an open and honest fashion to the points that have been put genuinely to try to improve the Bill. I also extend my thanks to the staff of the House authorities and the civil servants [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]. I thank all of those who have participated in the debate for their contributions.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesCopies of the written evidence received by the Committee will be made available soon.
The selection list for today is available in the room and on the Bill website. None of the amendments have been grouped for debate. The Member who has put their name to the amendment being debated is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on that amendment. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate. At the end of a debate, I shall call the Member who has moved the amendment again and before they sit down, they will need to indicate if they wish to withdraw the amendment or to seek a decision. I shall use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses following the debate on the relevant amendments. I hope that explanation is helpful to the Committee. We start with amendment 5 to clause 1. I have selected this amendment, although it is starred, as it was provided to the Public Bill Office before the deadline but was not processed until Friday.
Clause 1
Duty to grant old-style secure tenancies: victims of domestic abuse
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “tenant)” insert
“and regardless of whether the qualifying tenancy is in the jurisdiction of another local authority”.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. The amendment stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), the former shadow Minister, who is now the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary—we are in a fast-moving world at the moment.
Let me start by saying that the amendments to the Bill in the other place are very welcome. They recognise that the Government have listened to the very real concerns expressed by Members from both sides of the House and members of the other place on this important issue. I have read the transcripts of the debate in the Lords, where my amendment originated—I should take the opportunity again to thank Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Kennedy of Southwark for their work on the Labour Benches in introducing the amendment— and it is clear that there is a great deal of concern about the situation for victims of domestic violence.
Lord Farmer noted in his contribution that
“we are still…stuck on the question, ‘Why doesn’t she…leave?’, when someone is the victim of abuse, rather than…asking, with regard to the perpetrator, ‘Why doesn’t he…stop?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 147.]
He commented on the research about victims who return to lives of domestic abuse, saying that “a high proportion” go back to their abusive partner. He later qualifies that with the figure of 66%—that is, 66% of women who have tried and failed to leave an abusive partner. Two thirds of women decide, for whatever reason, that it is preferable to stay in the same property, their home—a really important part of this is that it is their home—with someone who abuses them. Nearly all those women—97%—have returned repeatedly. They have tried to flee, to leave, and to establish a new life, but for myriad reasons have then returned. That is why it is so important that the Government ensure that the security of a home, a safe place for children and the support of agencies such as Refuge and Women’s Aid are dealt with in legislation.
This small but, I would say, mighty amendment would ensure that the legislation met in practice the intentions that we set out in this room. That is the purpose of our amendments—to ensure that in practice, out there in the real world, in the real lives of people living in the circumstances that we are discussing, what we decide in this room and what the Government decide to set down in black and white as the law of the land works in practice on the ground, meets the needs of those people and meets the Government’s intentions. I have listened carefully to the Minister, and the intentions are there. They are clear. I believe that there is a strong commitment, going all the way to the top of the Government, to ensure that women’s lives are improved—I am referring to women, as they make up the majority of victims of domestic violence; I accept that there are also male victims, but I am using “women” as the more general term—and are not hindered in any way by policy. We must ensure that the policy that we agree is the best that it can be.
Our amendments and the amendment of the Bill in the Lords will, I believe, greatly reduce the risk of return to abusive partners and will, I hope, go a great distance towards reducing the absolutely terrible statistic of two women dying every week at the hands of the person who is supposed to love and care for them the most. One cannot help but think about that and the reality of the situation for these women. We know that women sometimes remain in abusive relationships for years before summoning the courage to leave. Children are often the reason for staying: the women do not want the kids to be without their dad because he is a good dad; he loves them and would do anything for them. However, there is also fear of the alternative: what else awaits women if they go? They leave the comfort of their surroundings and the place that they know. They leave their friends, their social networks, family perhaps, their children’s schools, their work—everything is thrown up in the air. It is a period of great upheaval and uncertainty.
The Minister will know that I have previously expressed frustration that it is always the victim who is expected to leave, to seek refuge and to start again. That will remain the case until we see a significant change in the judicial system and the education system, as well as the embedding of the principles of early intervention and healthy relationships across the country. I look forward to the domestic violence Bill that will be introduced later this year, so that we can see what the Government’s plans are in this area.
After women have taken the step of leaving, the process of rebuilding a life for them and their family can be a tough road. There must be certainty of housing support. In Baroness Lister’s contribution on the Lords amendments she noted that Women’s Aid had reports of women being
“reluctant to leave a secure tenancy and that some would take massive risks rather than give it up.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 1042.]
The amendment that the Government have supported was tabled with every intention of tackling that fear, and of laying to rest the concern of victims of domestic violence about being left—because of being a victim—in a worse housing position with their council tenancy.
That great intention—that purposeful move towards supporting the victims of domestic violence—could, however, be undermined if the Government do not make the meaning of the Bill clearer. In debate after debate—about housing, on International Women’s Day, about the justice system and about domestic violence specifically—there has been discussion of the fact that women often have to go out of the area when they are in the situation we are considering, as well as of the resulting funding issues and the wider issue of the problematic review of supported housing funding. The reasons are various, and include, sometimes, a lack of refuge places or finance, people returning to homes in the wider family, and issues of individual or family safety. If the abuser is a persistent harasser, in particular, there will be a need to keep the location discreet.
Lord Lipsey noted that three quarters of the women in a refuge would not be from the area where it was situated, and commented that it was natural for victims to want to
“fly as far away as possible”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 145.]
from the source of the abuse. Women’s Aid put the figure at about 68%, just shy of three quarters. It has also provided us with the outcome of its No Woman Turned Away project, which shows that nearly a fifth of women were prevented from making valid homelessness claims on the grounds of domestic abuse for reasons that included having no connection to the area.
That is important and goes to the heart of the purpose of amendment 5. We are talking about women’s situation and their need for support. When we see what really happens when people cross local authority boundaries—how many people are being refused, and the fact that the Women’s Aid report mentions refusals being made specifically because of a lack of local connection—we must do all we can to ensure, through the Bill, that that situation does not continue. If the Bill is allowed to go forward without amendment, we shall have failed to deliver what the Government intend by it.
Local housing teams make the decisions. The systems that they develop are based on legislation that comes from this place. That leads me to the point that when a right to housing and a secure tenancy is specified, that should follow the individual. It should not matter whether they are within or outside their local authority; it should follow the victim. Whether it is through fate or design that victims leave their areas and relocate—and for some of them the relocation must be long-term and discreet—legislation must reflect the reality.
The measure will be something of a legacy for the Minister, and there is no point in failing to sew up the least thread of the seam. It is not inconceivable, given the reaction of some local authorities when asked to contribute to refuge support services, that with all the constraints and pulls upon their resources, they will find enough of a hole in the Bill to wriggle out of the duties that it is intended to place on them. I call on the Minister to do all in her considerable power to see that that that possibility—however small she may consider it—is addressed today, and that the amendment is accepted.
It would be a tragedy if the Government’s well-intentioned measure were to be undermined later through limited implementation in cases where victims tried to re-establish their lives outside their original local authority area. Is there is a reason why it is not possible to make the provision explicit?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, I believe for the first time.
The amendment aims to ensure that where a victim of domestic abuse applies to another local authority to be rehoused, the requirement to offer a lifetime tenancy still applies if a new tenancy is offered. The Bill is intended to protect people who need to move from their current home, and those who have already fled, to escape domestic abuse. It is clearly understandable why a victim of domestic abuse may want or need to move themselves and their family to an area far from the perpetrator. It is therefore important that the Bill protects victims who apply for housing assistance in another local authority district. However, it already does that, so the amendment is technically ineffective.
The Bill applies to any local authority in England, and to any tenant who has a lifetime local authority or housing association tenancy for a dwelling house anywhere in England and needs to move from that house to escape domestic abuse. I therefore believe that the amendment is unnecessary and ask for it to be withdrawn.
I have listened carefully to what everybody has said, and there is a genuine misunderstanding about what is currently in the Bill, and what that means going forward. Under the Bill, any local authority in England that has somebody presenting with domestic abuse issues must take on a secure tenancy if that person had a secure tenancy before. It cannot be plainer than that, and that why the amendment is ineffective: the measure is in the Bill. The courts have said that local authorities must not apply the local connection test to victims of domestic abuse who apply for social housing, which is again in line with guidance issued in 2013. The amendment does not change anything and is therefore unnecessary.
The Department collects data on all social housing lettings through CORE, the continuous recording of social housing lettings and sales system. That information includes the type of tenancy granted, the nature of the landlord—local authority or housing association—whether the new tenant has moved from another social home or local authority district, and the main reason why the tenant left their last settled home, including whether that was in relation to domestic abuse. Taken together, those data will enable us to monitor the impact of the Bill. The amendment is therefore technically ineffective because the measure is in the Bill, and I ask the hon. Member for Great Grimsby to withdraw it.
I find the Minister’s response disappointing. The amendment has been tabled in good faith, and I cannot see this measure in the Bill. The Minister said that “any local authority” must grant a tenancy, but the Bill does not say that.
The Minister speaks repeatedly from a sedentary position throughout every proceeding. Perhaps I may continue. The Bill does not say “any” local authority—the Minister’s words are important, as are those in the Bill. As I was trying to explain, the amendment has been tabled to try to ensure that there can be no mistake when it comes to the practical implementation of the Minister’s good intentions.
Let me return to the comments from Women’s Aid, which spoke about the very inconsistent approach taken by local authorities across England in discharging their current obligations to house women who are fleeing domestic abuse in another area. It states that on one day in 2017, 68.4% of women resident in refuge services had come from a different local authority area. That number is so significant that we cannot dismiss it. The danger is that when we draft legislation, we assume that what we think, believe and discuss in this room will automatically be understood by people out there who have to work within our words. Too often we find that that is not the case, that the situation is confusing and oblique, and the holes that I was talking about become ever wider.
Local housing teams have prevented nearly a fifth of women who are supported by the No Woman Turned Away project from remaining because they had no local connection, and we can consider the evidential base behind that. I also support the comments that the hon. Member for Poole made about ensuring that the implementation of the Bill is robustly monitored and reviewed. I disagree fundamentally that this measure is in the Bill. I am not inclined to push the matter to a vote today. However, I put the Minister on notice that we will not shy away from pursuing further amendments on Report, whereupon votes may indeed be pursued, to try to tackle this. If we cannot protect nearly 17% of women who are going out of area with their housing needs, we will all have failed in our duties and responsibilities.
I remind the Minister that this is an incredibly sensitive subject and the approach to it matters. We would not be in this situation—we would not even have to discuss it—if we had continued security of tenure within council housing, and if we had not removed the fixed-term tenures and applied limits to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley made it clear that this has been pulled and yanked to this stage, even to get the amendment that the Government are supporting. I will leave it there, but we may well come back to this. I hope the Minister will take time to consider this before the Bill is complete. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
‘(2BA) The Secretary of State must by regulations issue guidance as to—
(a) the identification of persons entitled to be offered a tenancy under subsection (2A) or (2B) including the evidence required of domestic abuse; and
(b) the training of local authority officials in matters relevant to the exercise of the duties of local authorities under subsection (2A) or (2B).
(2BB) Before issuing the guidance the Secretary of State must consult such persons and the representatives of such persons as he or she considers appropriate.
(2BC) Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument and may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.’
I will begin by returning to the point that has just been made about a fifth of women being turned away by housing teams due to their not having a local connection. That leads to the issue of training. I have been discussing consistency across the country, which puts into sharp focus the training of local government staff, who will be charged with executing the new duty. I have worked alongside staff in local government and recognise the funding challenges that local government is facing—I say that in the kindest terms, in the hope that the Minister will have open ears to my arguments. Unfortunately, as in any industry, training is usually the first budget to be trimmed.
We are fortunate to have good connections across the House with experts from the refuge sector, whether that is Women’s Aid, Solace, Refuge or SafeLives—all those organisations work day in, day out, on this. Some hon. Members have personal experience of dealing with domestic violence on a day-to-day basis, so will have been deeply immersed in the realities and the struggles of women who present themselves at a refuge, then require additional support going forward. Those organisations have great depth of knowledge, understanding and personal connections with those victims. They approach the issue from a very different perspective from a local housing officer. It is fair to say that the housing officers in the local authority, with the best will in the world, simply do not have access to the same depth of knowledge and resource of experienced colleagues to be able to properly support the women who are presenting.
There are a multitude of pressures on local authorities. It is not just individuals who have suffered domestic violence who present themselves to a housing officer. There are people who feel like they have been on a housing waiting list since time immemorial. The council house waiting list in Southwark stands at 20,000, I think. There will be people there who are in extreme need—new babies coming along. [Interruption.] I am not sure why the Minister shakes her head on that point.
I have had the great pleasure of going to Southwark to talk about housing arrangements. Southwark’s statistics for getting people into homes and moving people out of B&Bs are stunningly brilliant. It has nobody in B&Bs now, and it has amazing statistics on temporary accommodation as well. Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to talk about a different council.
Well, I will talk about my local council, which has 2,000 people on its waiting list. It is a small local authority covering one and three-quarter constituencies. We have about 180,000 people residing in the area, and 2,000 people on a housing waiting list is a significant proportion of that.
Hon. Members may wish to intervene and discuss their areas. There is no point denying that there are councils that are under strain or that there are excessive waiting lists. That is the whole point: we have a crisis. We do not have enough social housing in the country; private rents are far too expensive for many people to afford.
I want to mention Birmingham which, being the largest council, probably has the longest waiting list. Currently, for temporary accommodation in Birmingham, those moving house can expect to be sent to Burton upon Trent. I believe we have some people in Manchester. There is no available temporary accommodation in Birmingham today.
My hon. Friend makes the point perfectly. I applaud Southwark. I understand that it is operating some Government pilot schemes and I commend it for its proactive approach. Having met with the portfolio holder responsible for housing, I know how seriously she takes it. She is very committed to making sure that Southwark residents have the best housing opportunities, but we know that there is significant pressure in the housing sector. People are being moved around the country. I have often knocked on doors and found that suddenly there is somebody from London living in a street in Grimsby—as unexpected for them as it is for me.
The Minister is being quite disrespectful. She wanted me to talk about another council, so I have done so. This is important. We are talking about the pressure on local authorities and the struggles and strains that they face. The Minister expects local authorities to implement this legislation and they are under significant pressure. I began by making a point about housing officers, who are under great strain in trying to meet the needs of many different people.
In my area, one of biggest housing needs is for adapted housing: there is a real shortage of adapted properties. One of my colleagues was saying that if thousands of bungalows were suddenly built in his constituency, he would absolutely have enough people to fill them, such are the demographics. That is the reality of the different challenges that housing officers are facing.
When it comes to dealing with a specialised issue, and we have heard testimony from hon. Members about individuals coming forward who have had some dreadful experiences. I understand that the Minister has had some contact and association with the domestic violence sector. Some of the stories we have heard are quite shocking. The level of abuse and degradation that individuals are subject to can often leave them without any self-worth or sense of identity. They often struggle to know how they will get through the next day, let alone plan their housing future and support their children—children are often involved.
That sensitivity is critical, whether people have gone through a court case, are trying to report a matter to the police, seek legal support or avoid the far-reaching tentacles of an abusive relationship and the abuser. It does not matter if someone changes their phone or goes into hiding, because in reality, persistent abusers can still find their victims. They will often use their children, through school routes, to try to undermine victims and leave them feeling unnerved.
I thank the Minister for that response. I challenge her statements that housing officers are not required to make decisions around incidents of domestic violence. They are required to make such decisions. She talked about consistency of approach between local authorities across the country, which is one of the problems, and she went some way towards solving that in the later part of her comments. We will discuss later cross-border working and how we achieve consistency on that basis, but she does not seem to have a plan for monitoring and checking to ensure consistency among local authorities, within a certain tolerance—I accept that there will not be an identikit model—when people present in that situation.
I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about the NHAS and the Government’s funding and support for it, and her commitment to continue that support and to roll out further training. It is right that some training for housing officers comes from the likes of Women’s Aid and Refuge, because they are the experts. She says that 232 frontline housing staff were given that training. I do not know what that is as a proportion of housing officers around the country, but it does not seem very many given how many people are in housing need. How far has that programme gone, and have steps been taken to expand it? How many of the 232 are still in post, given that there has been significant restructuring in local authorities as they seek to manage their financial situations? On the basis of the training support in place at the moment, I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
“(2BA) A local housing authority which grants an old-style secure tenancy under subsection (2A) or (2B) has discretion to decide whether or not the maximum rent for the old-style secure tenancy should be determined according to regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/213) as amended by the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/3040).”
This amendment will probably not find favour with the Minister as it relates to under-occupancy and the charges applied during the last three years, or even longer, that the bedroom tax has been in place. We know that that has caused significant difficulties for people not in a domestic violence situation. The purpose behind this amendment is to ensure that domestic violence victims are not penalised when they leave a secure tenancy and are then provided with a secure tenancy in another property with a spare room incorporated. The Minister will be relieved to hear that I will not speak ad infinitum on this. The principle behind the bedroom tax and its effectiveness will presumably be assessed over time.
We have to look at the Prime Minister’s intentions when she talks about her commitment to supporting victims of domestic violence, and we have to look at the circumstances. We should remember that every week two women die in domestic violence circumstances, ask ourselves why they do not leave their properties, and try to remove all the barriers to their doing so. I try to place myself in the situation that may befall some victims, and think about the significant barriers that would stop me leaving and trying to start again—not having a family network to rely on, not having the financial resources to fully support myself, the emotional difficulties that my children may be experiencing, and wanting to continue to support them and give them as normal a life as possible during a very challenging time. Given those burdens and blocks, had I been told that I was leaving a secure tenancy with the option of another tenancy that involved additional financial costs put upon me as an individual, it would worry me a great deal if I were on a low income or had limited means.
We must do everything we can to reduce the likelihood of victims returning to their abusers or ending up in an even worse situation through not having the security of a home. Removing those barriers is essential. We know that there are already exemptions to the bedroom tax, and victims of domestic violence should be included in that.
I thank the hon. Lady for being succinct and for indicating that she will not push the amendment to a vote. I will also be brief, and try to give her some succour.
Under the Bill, we expect that a local authority offering a tenancy will ensure, wherever possible, that that does not result in a tenant under-occupying the property. Allocating a property that is too big for the tenant’s needs would not be in the interests of the tenant or the landlord. The tenant, if eligible for housing benefit, would be subject to the adjustment to remove the spare room subsidy, and under-occupancy would not be the best use of scarce social housing.
Statutory allocation guidance issued in 2012 clearly recognises that when framing the rules to determine what size property to allocate to different households and in different circumstances, local authorities should take into account the removal of the spare room subsidy. Where the victim wishes to remain in her own property after the perpetrator has left, or been removed, we would expect in most cases that that would not result in an under-occupation charge. Domestic abuse will normally occur between partners, and in this case between joint tenants, and in such instances the property is typically let on the basis that both tenants share a bedroom. Removing the perpetrator would generally therefore not result in under-occupation.
When deciding whether to grant a further tenancy to victims who remain in their home, local authorities must take into account a number of factors, including the particular circumstances of the victim and her household. In some cases it may be more appropriate to offer a new tenancy in another smaller property—but only where appropriate. There may be a small number of cases where, for whatever reason, the local authority allocates a new property, or grants a new tenancy in the same property, and that property has more bedrooms than the tenant needs, but I expect that number to be very, very small. Furthermore, in such cases it would be open to the tenant to apply for discretionary housing payment to cover any rental shortfall.
The Government’s policy is not to deal with personal circumstances unrelated to the size of the property by the inclusion of general exemptions to the regulations, but rather to take into account a person’s individual circumstances separately, through the process of discretionary housing payments. In 2016 the Supreme Court upheld that policy, and dismissed a challenge for the removal of the spare room subsidy brought by a victim of domestic abuse on the grounds that it amounted to unlawful sex discrimination. That case involved a victim who was being provided with protection under a sanctuary scheme. Since 2011, £900 million has been provided to local authorities for discretionary housing payments to support vulnerable claimants, including victims of domestic abuse. Funding for 2018-21 was set out in the summer Budget in 2015, and for 2018 there will be £153 million for England and Wales.
The spare room subsidy was introduced to bring parity in treatment between the social and private rented sectors, and to encourage mobility, strengthen work incentives, and make better use of available social housing. Rules on the removal of the spare room subsidy already exist, and include an exception for victims of domestic abuse in refuges. We do not intend to provide any further exceptions. Where local authorities grant tenancies to victims of domestic abuse, they have a choice: they can either ensure that they offer a property that meets the tenant’s needs, or they can consider providing a discretionary housing payment. For all those reasons, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary, and I hope that the hon. Lady and her colleagues will agree to withdraw it.
I naturally find the Minister’s view disappointing, but if she is confident that the current provisions will not result in any hardship—I accept that Women’s Aid say that the measure would impact on a relatively small number of people—I will therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
‘(2BA) The person making the application for an old-style secure tenancy under subsection (2A) or (2B) must not be charged for obtaining any evidence of domestic abuse if this evidence is required to make the application.’
For local authorities to certify the reason for someone’s housing need—we have heard about occasional dishonesty when people present, but I certainly do not think that that is the norm—they should be in a position to check and have rigour behind their processes, establish that people are given, correctly and accurately, the housing they need and that their circumstances are taken fully into account. When a new duty is placed on local authorities to establish a prescribed reason for housing need, such as domestic violence, there is a requirement for evidence.
To my mind, that evidence is not a medical note, so that people can fly abroad on their summer holidays while they are taking prescribed pills, or go potholing or canoeing, nor is it a legal affirmation or warning letter for which one might reasonably expect to be charged a fee. It is a piece of essential documentation that supports the person presenting at the housing office, confirming that the information they provide—however scant that information is—can be backed by an official in a position of authority who has knowledge and experience of that individual and the circumstances that have led to them presenting at the local authority.
Notes from doctors or lawyers can cost significant amounts of money. Women’s Aid tells us of occasions where people have been charged £100 for this sort of evidence. I do not understand how that can be justified, in any sense of the word. For example, we might expect a £10 charge in support of a passport application, but £100 seems excessive. Perhaps that is because it is outside the norms, because it is outside GP contracts, or because it is not prescribed, so there is a freedom at these offices, to which women might ordinarily go, to charge whatever the professional chooses. I am sure that GPs will say that their surgeries are in need of additional funding—perhaps not lawyers’ offices. It seems to me a crass and opportunistic charge, and somewhat of a money-making exercise on the back of quite vulnerable people. Should we not just say that, particularly with GPs, there should be no charges?
GP contract negotiations are ongoing. I wonder whether the Minister has approached, or intends to approach, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to determine an exclusion for this advisory note. I wonder whether there is already provision or whether provision could be made to say that other services are suitable in providing that evidence—that there are no statutorily prescribed individuals who must give the supportive evidence for an individual. For example, that could be a refuge support worker, social worker, police officer, children’s schoolteacher or headteacher, or even someone’s boss if their boss is in a position of relative importance or responsibility in their local area, in the same way that they might support a passport application. There should be somebody in a position of authority, who can be taken as trustworthy, to easily support the victim.
Again, it is about avoiding those unnecessary barriers to accessing a property. If there is an excessive charge, it will prevent people from obtaining that information, which will in turn prevent somebody from accessing the property, moving on with their life and setting up afresh. Anything that can be done to remove those barriers must be seen as a positive step that the Government can take to make the path as easy as possible. I will leave it there and hope the Minister will consider that carefully.
Many of us who were part of the change in how legal aid was divvied up, certainly in civil and family cases, are all too aware of exactly how it has become par for the course for someone to prove that they are a victim of domestic abuse. There was a time when believing was just a thing that most people did. I have had lots of experience. I continue to help victims of domestic abuse almost weekly to seek legal aid clarifications in the family courts, where they have been turned down because they are not believed to be a victim of domestic abuse.
The timescale for proving that has been extended once again by judicial review—from three years to five years, if my memory serves—and the Government have recently widened the group of those who can give evidence that a woman is a victim of domestic abuse, recognising that the freest piece of evidence they can have is something from the police. The police do not charge for any evidence, supplying a crime reference number or writing a letter to say that someone has been a victim. However, we all know that the vast majority of women will never report to the police, so we must recognise refuge providers, charities and even Members of Parliament as those who can provide evidence for free.
However, a lot of women seek out help from their GP. A lot of people seek support from a solicitor, especially those who are migrants to this country, as they are more used to working with solicitors through our immigration systems. I watch every day as women are completely and utterly swindled and asked for money. It fills me with no pleasure to say this about where I live, but I once had to put on Twitter that a GP in my area was charging a woman who needed evidence £100 for that service. A woman from Norwich—God love the people of Norwich—sent me a cheque for £100. Twitter is not the answer.
Were any explanations given about what the £100 charge was for? Were there administration fees, or excessive delving into records and so on?
I was about to say something really rude and ask why a dog does something: because it can. It is a bit like anything, just putting stamps on letters—it seems stamps are really expensive in certain GPs’ surgeries. That is happening not just in cases of domestic violence, but in cases of disability. There are a lot of agencies that are potentially under reasonable strain and kicking back against that reasonable strain, because they are in a culture where belief, proof and evidence matter so much. There is an awful lot of call on GP surgeries and hospitals—primary care and secondary care—and all sorts of agencies to help individuals to prove that they are not lying about the fits that they have or about their husband bashing them about, so there is strain in the system.
We are calling on the Government to make it very clear that what is happening is totally unacceptable, whether in cases of this type or in cases involving legal aid. As I said, I still have to write to the Legal Aid Agency every single week to say, “Why have you not helped this woman? She has given you proof. Why have you not listened to her?” That must not be the case under a Government who I know really care about this issue and would not want women to be disbelieved. Unfortunately, our bureaucracy is not currently on side.
I thank the hon. Lady. Forgive me; I was not quite clear. From 25 May, the general data protection regulation becomes directly applicable and a data subject cannot be charged a fee except where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where requests are made for further copies of the same information. In that case, the fee must be reasonable and based on the administrative cost of providing the information. In the first instance, a person will be able to ask for their medical records from 25 May.
In addition, the British Medical Association advises GPs that where they intend to make a charge for providing a letter as evidence, they should inform the patient before doing so. The amendment has been introduced to deal specifically with GP charges, but it is widely drawn and, as a blanket prohibition, would apply across the public and private sector. I do not believe that regulating parts of the private sector is appropriate in the circumstances in question, or that it is a matter for the Bill.
For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Great Grimsby to withdraw the amendment.
I trust that the new measure due to be enacted at the end of April will go some way to removing some barriers that women face, although it will not go all the way. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 1, page 1, line 25, at end insert—
“(2BA) A private registered provider of social housing or a housing trust which is a charity that grants a tenancy of a dwelling house in England must grant an old-style secure tenancy if—
(a) the tenancy is offered to a person who is or was a tenant of some other dwelling-house under a qualifying tenancy (whether as the sole tenant or as a joint tenant); and
(b) the provider is satisfied that—
(i) the person or a member of the person’s household is or has been a victim of the domestic abuse carried out by another person; and
(ii) the new tenancy is granted for reasons connected with that abuse
and such a private registered provider of social housing or housing trust which is a charity shall be considered a person who satisfies the landlord condition under section 80 for the purpose of granting an old-style secure tenancy in accordance with this subsection.”
I was struck on Second Reading, and I have been struck more broadly within the housing sector, by how certain phrases are used interchangeably, particularly around social housing. When winding-up on Second Reading, the Minister mentioned council housing and housing associations. I am concerned—that is the best way to term it—about how the duty, which is conveyed on local authorities, can possibly be enacted in areas where there is no council housing and where social housing sits entirely within housing associations under the provisions in the Bill. Has the Minister given that any consideration, or does the broad term “social housing” mean that the duty conveyed on councils is also a duty conveyed on housing associations?
I know that some housing associations have a strong record of dealing with victims of domestic violence and other people in positions of vulnerability. During the Lords debate there was a conversation about Peabody and Gentoo, which set up the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance with Standing Together Against Domestic Violence. It is an admirable feat to go into that area independently. They have a mission to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through the introduction and adoption of an established set of standards and an accreditation process. There was a strong recognition during that debate that housing associations play a critical role in delivering the homes that we need up and down the country. They can only help to provide a home in these circumstances if they have the homes to put people in.
There is an obvious disconnect between a local authority duty and the liaison with a housing association. Is that the Government’s intention? I believe that the duty should be applied equally to whoever provides the broadest context of social housing in a local authority area. My local authority area only has a housing association, which provides all its housing stock. The local authority did not retain any of its housing stock. There are some that are mixed, so they will have different, more complicated issues, and London obviously has many different housing associations operating. How can a local authority ensure that the duty can be provided through those housing associations?
Has there been any consideration of the disclosure of private, sensitive information on the part of the individual—the victim? They may disclose information to the council, but may not be aware of how housing works and of that further disclosure to the housing provider, if it is not the local authority. The Bill does not specifically mention housing associations. It mentions local housing authorities, but people may well have had their lifetime tenancies with a housing association. If they then move from a housing association to an area that has retained all its local authority stock, will that be an issue in the interpretation of the legislation? Will housing association tenancies be recognised by a local authority, particularly if they are out of area? Those are questions aimed at providing additional certainty and comfort to people who might find themselves in this situation.
I am mindful that we break at 11.25, so I will be as brief as I can. Amendment 4 would extend the Bill so that it applied to housing associations. Generally, tenancies granted before 15 January 1989, the date the Housing Act 1988 came into force, were secure tenancies, even though they might have been granted by housing associations. With very limited exceptions—for example, in relation to their own tenants who already had a pre-’89 secure tenancy—tenancies granted by housing associations on or after that date have been assured tenancies under the Housing Act 1988 and not secure tenancies under the Housing Act 1985.
The amendment would ensure that, where a housing association decides to rehouse an existing lifetime tenant who needs to move to escape domestic abuse, it must grant a lifetime tenancy under the Housing Act within—
I want to be sure I understand correctly what the Minister is saying. Is that the housing association within its own organisation or is that between housing associations, perhaps in different local authority areas?
I am responding to the hon. Lady’s amendment, so I suppose that is a question for her. I do appreciate the motivation behind the amendment, which is to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are treated on the same basis, whether the landlord of the new property is a local authority or a housing association. However, I cannot accept the amendment for a number of reasons.
In the first place, local authorities and housing associations are very different entities, which are subject to different drivers and challenges. Local authorities are public sector organisations. When schedule 7 to the Housing and Planning Act 2016 comes into force, local authorities will generally be required to give fixed-term tenancies and will be able to grant lifetime tenancies only in limited circumstances specified in legislation or regulations.
Housing associations are private not-for-profit bodies. They will continue to have the freedom, as now, to offer lifetime tenancies wherever they consider them appropriate. The purpose of housing associations is to provide and manage homes for people in housing need. The vast majority are charities with charitable objectives that require them to put tenants at the heart of everything they do.
We would expect housing associations to take their responsibilities for people fleeing domestic violence very seriously. As some hon. Members may know, the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance was set up, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said, by two leading housing associations, Peabody and Gentoo, together with Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, a UK charity bringing communities together to end domestic abuse. The alliance’s stated mission is to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through the introduction and adoption of an established set of standards and an accreditation process.
I am sure hon. Members will agree that housing associations play a critical role in delivering the affordable homes that we need. That includes providing a home for people fleeing domestic abuse.
I am sorry about that. For the reasons I have given, I invite the hon. Member for Great Grimsby to withdraw the amendment.
It is with some disappointment that I will withdraw the amendment. I reserve the right to bring something back on Report and explore this matter a little further. I am sorry that we are running short of time; this is something that warrants a bit more investigation, because it will impact on thousands of people. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Kelly Tolhurst.)
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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I beg to move,
That this House has considered the provision of children's playgrounds.
Looking at the weather outside, I am sure hon. Members will have noticed that spring has now arrived, or is at least a little closer. Parents across the country are now hoping that they can finally get their children outdoors to run around and go to parks with friends, and to burn off some energy on the weekends and in the fantastic lighter evenings, in their local playgrounds, which is the topic of this debate. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to talk about this subject today.
Times are quite tough, as we know, and resources are squeezed. I want to raise in the debate today the pressures on the availability of local outdoor spaces and playground areas, which are declining at an alarming rate.
On that point, I want to raise the issue of the playground near Strand Street School in the East Marsh area of my constituency. It has fallen into significant disrepair, and a group of local mums, the East Marsh mums, is now pulling together and trying to raise the funds to establish a brand new playground. Seeking those funds is incredibly difficult; they are looking to lots of different community funding pots to try to raise that money. It will take a significant amount of money. Does my hon. Friend agree that the loss of the playground is an enormous loss to the children of the East Marsh area?
Yes. I know that my hon. Friend is a real campaigner for grassroots neighbourhood issues, and she will know the programme in question more than I do. I will come on to talk about what parents can do when faced with the retreat of the traditions of municipal provision, when they have little choice but to somehow find a voluntary alternative. It is very difficult and resources are quite scarce.
Indeed I am. One of the great things that we are all very nostalgic about from our own childhoods is communal open spaces, and facilities that are largely taken for granted and rarely discussed. Not just children gain enormously from the opportunity for outdoor exercise and socialisation; new parents get to meet other parents, and playgrounds help reduce isolation. They build new friendship networks for new mums and dads. It is a great watering hole for people to come together, meet and form new bonds in the community, particularly at a big life-changing moment.
Playgrounds are a great British tradition, mostly developed in the 20th century. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Charles Wicksteed’s playground equipment company near Kettering. When I mentioned to my eight-year-old daughter that I was leading this debate today, she encouraged me to call for more bars, because she is such a gymnastics enthusiastic who would go round and round on them all day long if she could, but playgrounds are also about sandboxes, swings, slides, climbing frames and roundabouts, and there are many other fantastic municipal facilities with even more exciting innovations—trampolines, paddling pools and all sorts of fantastic amenities.
Will my hon. Friend congratulate North East Lincolnshire’s Labour council on introducing a parkour facility at the Duke of York playground area, which introduced playgrounds to a whole new generation of young people? Unfortunately, we have seen that falling into disrepair, even though it was brought in only about four years ago. It was a really exciting initiative and my ten-year-old son absolutely loves playing there.
There are different fashions and trends in play, particularly in the younger teenage years. Skateboard parks were a particular thing a decade ago and trends change. In Nottingham, in my constituency, a new play area has just been installed in Shipstone Street, and Nottingham is trying its best to roll out more facilities. It has improved 75 play areas, with three more set for improvement works shortly, and the city has 54 Green Flag Awards, the greatest number in the country.
Resources are still an underlying problem. Since 2009, Nottingham has had to cut its parks and open spaces budget by £3 million, with a further £300,000 to be cut in the next financial year. Like a lot of local authorities, it has had to start looking elsewhere to plug that gap, looking for grants from other charities and funding bodies over the past 10 years. That is a story repeated across the country. For example, Knowsley Borough Council has had to make a decision to sell off some parks and green spaces, which is a real shame, as childhood obesity levels are very high in that part of the world. Other local authorities are being forced into similar choices—half of the councils in north-west England, according to a BBC report, are considering selling off parks or finding other organisations to maintain them over the next three years.
Nationally, we are just not replacing playgrounds at the same rate as they are disappearing. Some 92% of park managers report cuts to their budgets over the last three years, and research undertaken by the Association of Play Industries has uncovered a sharp decline in playgrounds across England: 214 playgrounds have been closed, with a further 234 playgrounds earmarked for closure by local authorities. That is 448 playgrounds closed or closing, which is an alarming downward trend in play provision. There is no longer dedicated funding for playgrounds from central Government, or grants from the third sector, so playground provision falls to local authorities, whose budgets are of course squeezed.
Play really does matter and it is worth underlining what to many of us might seem obvious. Playgrounds are one of the best ways of encouraging children to do physical activity. Childhood obesity is at epidemic levels. More than one fifth of reception children are overweight or obese; by year 6 that rises to over a third. Children living in deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be obese than those in more affluent areas. For many children, playgrounds represent the only chance to play outdoors. Children living within 1 km of a playground are five times more likely to be of a healthy weight than children who are not near a playground.
Play is fundamental to the wider wellbeing of children. If play is restricted, that is likely to have a profound effect on physical and mental health, now and into the future. There is a crisis in children’s mental health, with some reports saying that as many as 20% of children have some degree of mental illness and that problem might be rising. Without adequate access to play, children cannot develop the important emotional skills needed to protect them from anxiety and depression. Research from the charity Fields in Trust shows, for the first time at national level, a direct and statistically significant link between the availability of public parks and green spaces and health and wellbeing.
That is why I called this debate today. We must not take playgrounds and play facilities for granted. We have to talk about them. This is an area of policy that could fall between the gaps. It was difficult even to decide whether I should target this debate at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education, or the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, so this is not owned as much as it should be.
I have four requests of the Minister, and I will be as specific as I can. The first is about resources. I do not like to bang on about money constantly because I know the situation is tight, but we should invest to save. Investing a pound in good play facilities now will yield better returns and savings for the health service and the education system in the long run. We cannot rely on developers’ section 106 contributions for new play facilities. They make a bit of a difference, but only in areas in which development is taking place.
I would be delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend’s council. That is an example of communities working with their local authority, despite the difficult overall climate, to find creative solutions that will benefit the community. There are examples of that happening all over the country. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that example, and I congratulate all those involved in that positive outcome.
On resources for the sector overall, the recent local government finance settlement ensures that the sector will have £45.6 billion in the next financial year, rising from £44.3 billion in the financial year we are just finishing. Nottingham will have more than £500 million in core spending power over that spending review period, the last two years of which we are about to enter, and it will be for the council—whether in Nottingham or elsewhere—to decide how best to prioritise its resources among all the competing claims.
The settlement is the third year of a four-year deal, as I mentioned, and it was accepted by 97% of councils, including that of the hon. Member for Nottingham East. I am glad that they have benefited from the certainty and stability brought by knowledge of income over the medium term. That is something that local authorities have asked for. It allows them to think strategically. Indeed, in the hon. Gentleman’s area the Nottingham Open Space Forum, of which I know he is aware, is one such example of that longer term strategic thinking, and it highlights the point that local areas are best placed to decide how to use resources to promote the causes that their constituents care most about.
Is the Minister aware of the inquiry by the previous Communities and Local Government Committee, which I was part of? The public response in that inquiry was overwhelming—one of the biggest the Committee received for any inquiry it had undertaken. Is that a sign that parks should be much higher up the Government’s agenda?
I thank the hon. Lady for her work on that Committee. I read that report when I first got this job a few weeks ago. It was a very good report, and I hope that she is pleased to see that the Government responded very positively to its recommendations, through my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones). I shall come on to those shortly, especially with regard to the parks action group and how we take forward the work recommended in the report.
The hon. Member for Nottingham East spoke a lot about children’s needs, and he is absolutely right to do so. There is more to do on tackling rising obesity levels and mental illness among our young people, but I am pleased that a great deal of activity is going on across Government in this area. We all want our children to be healthy and active, no matter their background, which is why it is important that we focus as a priority on what is happening in schools.
Having spoken to colleagues in the Department for Education, I am delighted to tell the Chamber that funding for the primary school PE and sport premium has doubled to £320 million a year from 2017. That will be a huge help in enabling schools to drive further improvements to sport provision. Furthermore, an extra £100 million has been promised to schools through the healthy pupils capital fund, which is a one-off fund provided from the soft drinks industry levy. That money will go to improving playgrounds and sports facilities across the school estate. Last week the Department for Education also announced the allocation of almost £1.5 billion in the forthcoming financial year to maintain and improve the condition of the education estate, including outdoor spaces.
As the hon. Gentleman noted, however, this is about much more than just funding. By making physical education a compulsory subject at all four key stages in the new national curriculum, the Government are helping to prioritise exercise and wellbeing. The positive experience of sport at a young age can create a lifelong habit of participation. It is important to foster that in young children. It is also important for our children to have role models whom they can look up to and who can inspire them to get fit and keep active. Darcy Bussell has spoken about that recently, and my constituent Sir Ian Botham has been a long-time advocate of children’s exercise, health and fitness.
The hon. Gentleman made the important point that there should be a voice for the parks and green spaces sector, a dedicated national voice to champion and advocate for it. He is aware of the parks action group established by my predecessor last year, and I would like to think that it is exactly that voice that the hon. Gentleman has called for. One of the points that I will take away from today is that we might need to shout a little louder about the important work of the parks action group. As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) knows, that is one of the Select Committee recommendations that the Government acted on swiftly.
The action group draws on the expertise of a range of partners from the parks sector and a range of Departments. I will list some of those involved: the Association for Public Service Excellence, the Parks Alliance, Fields in Trust, the National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces, Keep Britain Tidy, Natural England, Groundwork, the National Trust, the Heritage Lottery Fund and bodies representing local and parish councils. I list them because I am especially pleased that such a wide range of organisations have committed their time and energy to work in partnership with the Government to raise the profile of the parks agenda.
I say to hon. Members present that I do not intend for the parks action group just to be a talking shop. It aims not only to take forward the recommendations of the Communities and Local Government Committee report from last year but to deal with wider issues facing the parks sector. The members represent the views of the local communities with whom they work and, through their contribution, we will ensure that all the issues that have surfaced today and many others are properly raised, represented and actioned.
The group will in the first instance identify effective and deliverable activities that can be undertaken to secure a better future for our green spaces for generations to come. It will focus on six immediate priorities for parks: standards, funding, vision and value of parks, empowering communities, knowledge and skills, and increasing usage. Those priorities pick up a number of the very pertinent points made by the hon. Gentleman.
I can absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance. I was about to come on to that, but he is right to raise it. I will ensure that a transcript of the debate, including his particular point about playgrounds and play, is given to all the members of the parks action group so that that is uppermost in their minds as they develop their work.
The action group will also explore how to improve equality of access across all ages and social groups. We all recognise that parks can play an important role in strengthening community cohesion, combating loneliness —my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) made an important point there—and promoting integration between diverse groups. The hon. Member for Nottingham East made reference to the integrated communities strategy published last week, and that highlights how the use of shared areas, especially by young people, helps to bring communities and neighbourhoods together. As a Department, we will welcome views on the proposals in that Green Paper and we will engage with individuals, communities, businesses and faith groups to help deliver those specific proposals.
With regard to loneliness, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley, I am a member of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, which was set up in memory of Jo. The Prime Minister has championed this as a priority for her—there was a meeting only last week, in which we talked about the value of green spaces in combatting loneliness and about ensuring that open spaces feature heavily in the commission’s strategy.
The parks action group will also consider the various funding models that exist to support parks and green spaces, and it will share that information with the sector to support future sustainability. There are examples of innovation, particularly up in Newcastle and the north-east, which I am keen to visit reasonably soon to explore what is being done. I look forward to presenting an update to Parliament on the progress of the parks action group in due course. I encourage all Members to support its work.
When is the strategy group due to produce a report? I wonder how the parents of the Sixhills area of Great Grimsby will feel about the outcomes of that and how quickly they will start to see the results in their play area.
The parks action group has met recently, this year, and I am due to attend the next meeting. I cannot give the hon. Lady a specific timeline, but the Government have committed to report regularly to Parliament with updates. I hope we will give an update before the summer recess, but I have not yet had my first meeting so I am loth to make a firm commitment until I know about the work streams and plans of the action group. The Government have funded the group with £500,000, which I hope will leverage in extra funding from the various partners involved to promote the agenda that the group is keen to embrace.
The hon. Member for Nottingham East made another point about social deprivation. He is aware of the pocket parks programme, which the Department has run in the past, where £1 million helped in cases such as the one the hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned. The programme helped to fund 87 small green spaces, including two in the constituency of the hon. Member for Nottingham East, such as Frinton pocket park. That was a fantastic programme and I am looking to see what lessons we can learn from it, such as whether there is the possibility of replicating something similar in the future. It was brilliant at targeting money on areas with high social deprivation, removing those barriers to access.
I am conscious of time, but I hope that in the debate I have been able to demonstrate to the Chamber that the Government—not least me—are taking the subject seriously. With the parks action group, work is happening. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to put the issues front and forward on the agenda. I look forward to working with him and other Members to develop the green spaces that we all want our children to enjoy, not just today but for years to come.
Question put and agreed to.
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberI pay tribute to colleagues in the other place for their work on this Bill, particularly my party colleagues Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who tabled amendments that helped to bring a Bill to this place that is fit for purpose.
The Bill arises from a legislative error in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. During the passage of the Bill that became that Act, the Conservative Government succumbed to Labour pressure on the issue of secure tenancies for victims of domestic abuse by offering assurances that the legislation would provide a guarantee that victims of domestic abuse would be granted an old-style secure tenancy, if they had one in their old residence.
Does my hon. Friend agree that since 2010 the situation for women and others escaping violent situations in the home has become much tougher due to a variety of factors, including the high cost of privately rented homes, the inaccessibility of social homes, the lack of resources for the police and the courts to deal with matters quickly, and cuts to legal aid? There has been a cocktail of difficulties facing women and others escaping violence.
My hon. Friend makes the important point that it is not a single issue but a variety of factors that has culminated in a very difficult situation for women and domestic abuse victims, who are in incredibly vulnerable positions.
Despite the intentions for the 2016 Act, it became clear that they had not been implemented. Ministers have acted quickly to rectify that situation by bringing this Bill to the House. I am pleased that the Bill is before us today and that dealing with the matter was not delayed until the introduction of the domestic violence and abuse Bill, as this is a matter of critical importance.
Housing insecurity has a massive effect on women’s ability to leave abusive relationships and to start rebuilding their lives after managing to leave. A Women’s Aid study showed that 63% of women in its refuges had spent over two years in their abusive relationship, with 17% spending over 10 years in it. Women’s Aid also says that housing concerns are a major barrier for many women who are trying to escape domestic abuse, and that housing insecurity interferes with the processes that enable them to begin undoing the harms of domestic violence. The reality is that far too many women are put in a position where their only choice is between staying in an abusive relationship and ending up in a temporary accommodation system that is increasingly unfit for purpose. That is truly horrific.
Many women in abusive relationships also have children and other dependants whom they must consider when making their dreadful choice. That is why this Bill is so important. By providing security of tenure to those who previously held old-style secure tenancies, the Bill will remove a key barrier that prevents victims of domestic violence from leaving an abusive relationship and rebuilding their lives.
The Bill helps only a fraction of victims of domestic violence, however, and in one way. Such victims are the people who are forced out of their properties, abandoning friendships, communities, their children’s schools and other family members. Rarely in our justice system do we see the perpetrator rather than the victim being forced to give up so much of their life. It is not right that victims of domestic violence should be forced to do just that in such a sudden and immediate way. They often have to leave with little notice and have no opportunity to plan or secure future housing, schooling and many other needs. I am pleased to see that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), in the Chamber to hear this. These issues cannot be solved without joint enterprise between Government Departments, and I am pleased that she is here to listen to the debate.
It is welcome that the Bill offers a secure tenancy to victims, but many will simply be unable to go through the process of moving into such a tenancy straight from their previous one. Many victims of domestic abuse will leave their abusive relationships with very few possessions and nowhere to go. This is why we need a fit-for-purpose refuge system to provide a safe haven for those with nowhere to go. Unfortunately, the current system is simply failing women across the country. Just this Friday, victims of domestic violence from Birmingham were offered accommodation in Burton and Milton Keynes, and even as far away as Manchester. Birmingham is not a small town experiencing a spike in referrals. It is a city of 2.5 million people that is sending victims 86 miles away because it does not have the capacity to accommodate vulnerable people.
Sadly, that fits into the national crisis under this Government. One fifth of specialist women’s refuges have shut down under the Conservatives, and 60% of all referrals to refuges were declined in 2016-17 due to a lack of space. Furthermore, 95% of refuge managers have reported turning away victims with complex mental health needs, with physical impairments or with a large number of children over a six-month period because they simply did not have the means to accommodate and care for them. On a typical day, 155 women and 103 children are turned away from refuges. This national crisis needs urgent attention, but instead the Government are pressing ahead with their catastrophic reforms to supported housing funding that threaten the future of refuges as we know them. Charities such as Women’s Aid, St Mungo’s, Shelter and the Salvation Army all highlighted their concerns to the Government during the consultation period, and serious questions remain about the effect of the Government’s proposals on refuges.
The reality for the funding of refuges is that, following an oversight—if I am going to be generous—by the Government, supported housing, including refuges, was included in the local housing allowance caps. A review into the funding of supported housing ended on 23 January, but the Minister has said today that there will be yet another extension, review and consultation, specifically with regard to refuge. It seems to me that when refuges are asking for security and reassurance for the sector when it comes to funding, another review will not help.
To set the record straight, it is not a review. It is an audit, and we have been asked by those in the business to do this.
I thank the Minister for that comment. I genuinely believe that this has been asked for as a result of the lack of clarity that came out of the Government’s review that ended on 23 January. The sector needs security and reassurance about its funding if it is to extend its provision and support the people who, as the Minister has rightly acknowledged, deserve all the support that the Government can afford to provide.
How can councils measure local demand when two thirds of victims of domestic abuse come from outside their local authority area? Are the Government finally ready to offer assurances to providers of refuges, and to guarantee that funding will be ring-fenced for 2021 and beyond and that the £500 million set aside by the Treasury for 2021-22 has been assigned to supported housing? According to Women’s Aid, more than half of refuges will have to close their service entirely or reduce the number of spaces available if these reforms go through as proposed. Will the Government therefore use the end of the consultation period on 23 January to finally listen to the experts in this field and to reconsider their reforms?
One thing that the Government must do to remove some of the pressure on short-term supported housing providers is ensure that victims and their families are rehoused in their secure tenancies as soon as possible. However, social rent capacity—whether provided by councils or by housing associations—is in crisis. New social housing is desperately needed, but the Government funded fewer than 1,000 new homes last year. In 2010, Labour left the Government a legacy of 40,000 new social rental houses a year, because we knew that having readily available social housing stock around the country is critical for so many people, including domestic violence victims. The Conservatives have taken a wrecking ball to that legacy, with fewer than 1,000 social rental homes being built in the past year, a number dwarfed by the 13,500 social homes that were sold off under the Government’s right-to-buy scheme.
That perhaps explains the Government’s rationale behind the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Rather than allowing councils to offer a secure, stable home to those who need it and building a sustainable amount of social housing, the Government decided to rip the heart out of social housing by making social tenancies more insecure. I note that the Government have not published plans to go ahead with the change agreed in the 2016 Act, and I wonder whether they have seen sense and have reconsidered the changes that they proposed in 2016. If not, perhaps they will tell us today when they plan to implement the changes.
The Government must solve the myriad problems with provision for domestic abuse victims as soon as possible. The Bill before the House today represents a small step in the right direction, and we will support it, but this legislation should have been enshrined in the 2016 Act. As such, Labour will be particularly hawkish in ensuring that the Bill carries out its intended purposes and lives up to the guarantees that the Government gave in the other place. The Bill must ensure that the many women who move local authority area after being victims of domestic abuse can transfer the right to a secure tenancy to their new local authority. The Government guaranteed that after an amendment tabled by my colleague Baroness Lister, as the Minister recognised.
Victims of domestic abuse need support after leaving an abusive relationship, and knowing that a safe pathway out of an abusive relationship exists will ease many of the worries that prevent the ending of an abusive relationship. Much more needs to be done to make that a reality. I hope that the forthcoming domestic violence and abuse Bill does much to improve provision, but we are happy to support this Bill’s Second Reading.