Homelessness Reduction Bill (Second sitting)

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Bob Blackman]

In many ways, this substantive clause, on which we have been given notice of no amendments, goes to the very heart of the Bill. The current position is that advisory services are provided by local authorities to priority need households, but not to non-priority need ones. The measure will require each local authority to provide advisory services on all local housing authorities for all applicants. Authorities will have to provide information and advice to any person who goes to them from their area. The advice must cover: the provision of preventing and relieving homelessness; the rights of homeless people or those threatened with homelessness; the duties of the authority; the help available from the local housing authority and other agencies; and how to access the available help.

The idea is that each local authority should design its own service. We do not want to take away the flexibility of local authorities to design their help and advice service, but clearly they should design such a service with certain listed vulnerable groups in mind—for example, care leavers, who are covered in the Bill for the first time, and victims of domestic abuse. The Bill allows local housing authorities to outsource the advisory services, if they so choose, to a third party such as a contractor or a specialist agency.

The measure has been included in the Bill to ensure that local housing authorities provide detailed advice and information to all households in their area, including those that are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, so that households can be empowered to seek support and solutions to their current situation. That is a far cry from what goes on at the moment. Currently, many local authorities, as we discovered through the Select Committee process, do not provide such services to non-priority need homeless people. Clearly there are local authorities that do provide such services, and we do not want to hamper their ability to do so.

The measure ensures that everyone has access to a similar type of help in the first instance. People who face the terrible crisis of being threatened with homelessness or, worse still, have suffered homelessness will get help and advice; they will not just be shown the door by a local authority. It is quite clear that the existing law does not specify the type or quality of advice and information that must be provided on homelessness and its prevention, and nor does it require that advice to be tailored to the needs of local people, particularly the needs of certain groups. Evidence that we secured through the Select Committee process suggested that some local authorities provide minimal or, even worse, out-of-date information. The measure means that, for the first time, local authorities will have to provide that service to people in this terrible position.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend clarify how he envisages the interplay between this local authority advisory service and charitable organisations such as Routes to Roots, which is just outside my constituency but within Poole?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Local authorities will clearly have to design the service with local needs in mind. We cannot prescribe every single way in which they can choose to provide the help and advice that individuals in their area will need, because to do so would hamper their creativity. The whole idea behind the Bill is to turn on its head the attitude, which has existed in some local authorities, that they will not help someone unless they are in priority need. Local authorities would now be required to provide help and advice to anyone and everyone from their local areas who is threatened with homelessness. For example, my hon. Friend’s local authority may choose to outsource its role to a charity or another third party; that is its choice and we do not want to hamper it. What matters is that the individuals receive the help and advice they need to guide them in the right direction.

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We are, therefore, starting from a very low base and in a climate in which the direction of travel has been towards pulling down the shutters and saying, “Look, there is very little that we can do here.” I am not going to dwell on that point, because I suspect we will return to it, but it raises the two pregnant questions that underlie the Bill. First, if we are to place these onerous additional duties on local authorities in particular, how are they to be resourced? Will they be resourced in terms of advice services? Assuming that that substantial hurdle can be overcome, against the trend of the past few years, how valid will the advice be in areas of particular housing stress where there is not only a chronic shortage of social housing, but a lack of access to housing in the private sector?

[Michael Tomlinson]

It is great to be on a Bill Committee where there is cross-party support. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the burdens on local authorities are not especially onerous and that the associated costs, specifically in relation to clause 2, will therefore be relatively minimal?

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[Michael Tomlinson]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I rise to address one or two points that have been made in this constructive debate, and I speak strongly in favour of clause 2 as drafted.

I agree with almost everything that the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said, and she is right that there is no point in setting out more detail in the Bill if the Bill does not impose additional duties and burdens, but my point is slightly different. There are heavier burdens and financial duties elsewhere in the Bill, and I had a measure of agreement on that from the hon. Member for Hammersmith. I do not minimise the additional duties set out in the clause—far from it. I will address one or two details, but I anticipate that in Committee we will hear further detail from the Minister on funding.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, who commented on the interplay between local authorities and local charities and organisations. I mentioned the Routes to Roots organisation in Poole. Each year, the youth worker at the parish church of Lytchett Minster & St Dunstan’s at Upton organises the great Dorset sleep out. You can join us next year, Mr Chope, if you happen to be free on that date—I will perhaps need to give you lots of warning.

[Christian Matheson]

Can I come too?

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Member for City of Chester and other hon. Members are more than welcome to join, too. It is a fun occasion that makes a serious point. It does two things. First, it raises money for the charity. Secondly, it raises awareness of homelessness. People picture Dorset and Poole as a leafy part of the country and ask why on earth we have homelessness, yet even today people are sleeping rough on the streets of Poole. One evening a few weeks ago, we heard from two people who had formerly been homeless—they were not homeless in Dorset—but are happily now homed in Poole. Had the measures in the Bill to provide advisory services already been in place, they would have helped those two individuals no end by pointing them in the right direction.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the clause will free up charities to help people via other mechanisms rather than fighting for them to get the advice they need? My local charity in Chippenham, Doorway, has shared that with me.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is right. It is about flexibility. Local authorities will have a duty under the Bill, but I would like far greater interplay between local authorities and charities. The relationship works well in some areas, as we have heard from Members on both sides of the Committee, but the aim of the clause is to raise standards across the board.

My final point is on the detail. I am particularly pleased that proposed new section 179(2) of the Housing Act 1996 lists

“former members of the regular armed forces”,

which is right and proper. It also lists

“persons released from prison or youth detention accommodation”.

I am sure the Government’s ambition and intention is to reduce reoffending—if it is not, it should be. There are three key planks to that. One is housing, and the other two are education and employment. If housing or advisory support on housing were available, it would be a big step in the right direction. I strongly support the measures in clause 2.

[Mr Jones]

It is a pleasure to respond to clause 2 on the second day of our consideration. It is obvious from this first debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has chosen well because Members on both sides of the Committee are not only capable and knowledgeable but have spoken with immense passion and power. It is obvious that the members of this Committee care about the enactment of the Bill.

The Government welcome the duty to provide homelessness advisory services and hope it will go a long way in helping to provide access to the same high standard of information and support for everyone. It does not help to prevent homelessness if local authorities provide minimal and out-of-date information but, technically, they could still be acting within the law. The measure is a key first step to addressing that. Having said that, some local housing authorities provide relevant and up-to-date information and, in some cases, tailored advice, and they need to be commended.

The clause will help to ensure that all local housing authorities step up to the standard of the best by providing detailed advice and information to all households in their area while empowering people to seek support before their housing concerns turn into a housing crisis. We hope local housing authorities provide more personalised advice that meets the needs of households that are likely to be at risk of homelessness, and advice that targets the vulnerable groups identified in the clause.

Earlier, I mentioned some prevention trailblazers. The best local authorities include Newcastle, where staff work to gather information to identify people at risk of becoming homeless so they can target their advice and support far earlier so that people do not end up in a housing crisis. That is the spirit in which the clause sets out further obligations for local authorities, and what we expect to happen.

To ensure that the measures work in practice, we will work with local housing authorities, homelessness support organisations and others to review and update the guidance on how local housing authorities should comply with the new duty. In doing so, we will look to Wales, which has a similar duty enshrined in legislation in section 60 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, and to other good practice such as that which I mentioned in England.

As I mention Wales, may I respond, in order to assist my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, to the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the extent of the legislation regarding England and Wales? I reassure him that we have discussed the Bill with Welsh Government lawyers and are satisfied that the approach taken in the Bill correctly addresses the devolution points he raised. I have some responses to assist my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East in a few other areas.

A number of hon. Members mentioned the issue of funding for the Bill. I reiterate that we are absolutely committed to funding the costs of the Bill. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East, who chairs the Select Committee, mentioned, we are still working with local authorities and the LGA to identify the costs of the Bill. Given how the Bill has been brought to the House, the timescales have been tight, particularly for the Select Committee’s scrutiny process and the tabling of amendments.

We are now dealing with changes to clause 1 to deal with challenges raised by a particular stakeholder group, so we are still finalising the costs. We expect to be able to come to the Committee shortly with the final details of those costs. I can reassure people that when we come back with that final detail, we will be taking into account the costs as a result of clause 2.

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[Mr Betts]

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I draw a parallel with clause 2, which will be on the face of the Bill—hopefully on the face of the Act—because the current guidance is not always observed; it is not as strong and does not give people as strong a right to the services that we think they ought to have. I am making the same point with the amendment. Currently, the suitability of the location is contained in the guidance. An authority should take account of it, but in the end it does not have to. Now, perhaps people can take a judicial review against the authority, but we should not be relying on applicants in very difficult circumstances to get appropriate advice and take a JR against the local authority to ensure that the will of this House is implemented.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Following the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South, would the hon. Gentleman release the video that he is talking about, or get permission to have it released, so that those of us who do not have the privilege or pleasure of being members of his Committee can have the benefit of seeing it as well?

[Mr Betts]

I certainly will. The Select Committee saw it, and I believe that it was also sent to its members so that we could view it on our own computers. I think that there are licensing issues with the ownership, but I will certainly go back to the Clerk of the Committee to see whether it can also be released to members of this Committee. That is a very helpful point and I will try to achieve that.

The purpose of the amendment is to put on the face of the Bill the requirement to take account of those issues when drawing up the plan with a view to looking at what accommodation might be suitable. I entirely understand that it might not be possible in some parts of the country—particularly London. It might be that an authority has no suitable accommodation in-area and therefore, in the end, must go out of borough. That might be inevitable in some areas.

In other parts of the country, including mine in Sheffield, although there is a shortage of suitable accommodation and it is not always possible to have regard to all the factors when an allocation is eventually made, when considering a suitable offer authorities should at least have regard to where children are at school and where caring responsibilities are in place, either for or on behalf of the individuals who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. If people are in work, authorities should look at whether they can continue to get to their job and whether they will lose their job as a result of being found a house. Where possible, authorities should have regard to those things, but they do not always do so. I have had letters on behalf of constituents from my local authority saying, “We can’t really take account of those issues. It’s going to be one offer, and that’s it.” That is not acceptable. If it can be done, it should be done.

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[Andy Slaughter]

Before I speak to the amendments in my name, may I briefly express my support for the amendment tabled by the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East? I am surprised that Government Members are not prepared to support it; I ask the Bill’s promoter to encourage his colleagues to do so. Although the hon. Member for Colchester is absolutely right that there is case law and guidance on locality, it is fair to say that it is often more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The consequence is a lot of unnecessary litigation, where advice and lawyers are available to assist with it, and a lot of work. My office spends a huge amount of time on this issue, trying to persuade local authorities not to move people out of the area or to bring them back after they have been moved, when it has proved impossible for the family to continue to live as they did before.

I had a case in my surgery this week in which a family with three children were living in temporary accommodation that was so poor, with damp and disrepair, that the local authority needed to move them somewhere else. There is nowhere available in the borough at the moment, so it is seeking to move them outside London. All the kids are in local schools. My view was that the family had been in temporary accommodation for 10 years in a variety of places, so surely the solution was to find them permanent accommodation. That just showed that I am not completely in touch with everything that goes on, because my senior caseworker said that it is not exceptional now for people to spend 10 years in temporary accommodation. That gives a little insight into the real problems that occur, particularly in London boroughs but elsewhere too. That point needs to be emphasised, so I strongly support what my hon. Friend said.

Let me deal briefly with the amendments standing in my name. I entirely accept that I am placing those additional burdens on local authorities that I warned against about an hour ago. That is why I am particularly keen to hear the Minister come forward with his bag of cash at the earliest opportunity. Nevertheless, if we are to legislate for the long term, we need to make clear what we expect housing authorities to do.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am delighted by the smile on his face as he presents his amendments. Does he not see that, as drafted, the obligation on local authorities is so wide that they would have to look across multiple different authorities in order to fulfil it? I think he notes that by his smile. Is this not just placing unreasonable burdens on our local authorities?