Supported Housing

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on securing this debate and on all the work that they have done. I welcome the new Minister to her place—a pragmatic Minister, I hear.

Housing policy is complex. It is not easy and not always universally popular. It is tricky for Governments of any colour to develop policy, but we can consider the end result in fairly simple terms. Is it the right thing to do and is it better than what went before? When it comes to the proposals for the Government’s definition of short-term supported housing, charities, users and service providers are telling me, as have Members in this Chamber and beyond, that the answer is a plain and simple no. Indeed, on the test of whether the policy will make things better, it fails in relation to housing provision and tenants’ rights, and pretty quickly it will have a knock-on effect on other services such as the NHS.

Before I explain why, I accept that there are some things that the housing providers who operate in my constituency and elsewhere welcome. They tell me that the Government have done the right thing on LHA and by recognising the higher costs of sheltered housing and extra care housing. That is to the Government’s credit. However, a Government that accept praise when they do the right thing must also listen to experts when they criticise them—constructively—too.

Housing providers tell me that the move to the defined short-term local authority grants not only has the potential to be damaging to the sector in future, but is already causing 85% of new schemes to be put on hold. Even if we accept that the local authority grants will be ring-fenced—the evidence suggests they will not—can we blame any housing association for being cautious, knowing what pressure there is on local government finances and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) mentioned, bearing in mind the complexity of local government finances as well?

The consequences reach beyond the issue of housing numbers alone. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East referred to this. There are serious implications for tenants’ rights and the broader health and social care sector. Local authority grants do not provide the same protections and rights for those living in short-term supported housing as those living in long-term schemes. Service users will no longer enjoy the same rights as tenants. The situation is described by Riverside and Women’s Aid, who operate in my constituency and elsewhere, as a backward step. Many people who access such housing are already marginalised from society on multiple levels. Removing tenancy rights not only makes matters worse, but sends a signal that our services and our society define users as short-term problems, not as equals. On the question of whether it is the right thing to do, the answer again must surely be no.

Finally, when it comes to the test of whether the policy will make things better for services such as the NHS and social care—we have already referred to women’s refuges—yet again the answer is no. Short-term accommodation provides emergency support for those who have been through a crisis: the homeless, victims of domestic violence, people with mental ill health, and those dealing with drug and alcohol dependency. Social care, our NHS and homelessness are already at crisis point. A policy that reduces the chance of vulnerable people having a safe place to stay will only make matters worse.

In the current climate it may be unwise to predict politics. However, I fear that 12 months down the line the effects of these policies being enacted will be a topic of debate yet again, with the most vulnerable in our society paying for the consequences of a poorly shaped policy. My message to the Minister is this: no individual contributing to this debate here and beyond has every single answer to every question. But collectively, the Minister included, our housing associations, our charities and our service users have the knowledge and the ideas to develop a better approach than the one that is currently planned. Listen to what they say. It is in all our interests, so please respond pragmatically.