Fathers in the Family

Debate between Neil Gray and David Burrowes

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on securing this debate. I declare an interest, as not only a father but a criminal defence solicitor. I refer to the latter because I certainly can amplify the stats given by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). When I reflect on the consistent themes in my filing cabinet, there were issues of addiction and mental health, but the predominant theme was an absence of involvement of fathers in the lives of those young people—predominantly men. It is clearly an issue of social justice. We must take the role of fathers seriously.

Some 36% of male prisoners come from households without a father’s involvement. Of those male prisoners, 50% have a child, and we need to take their responsibilities as fathers seriously. We cannot just cast them out from the justice system. Those responsibilities have an important role to play in their future rehabilitation. When I think of those prolific offenders, the light switched on not only when they took responsibility for themselves and for their habits—getting the next fix or the next stolen item—but when they suddenly realised they were a father.

[Neil Gray]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman making that point. The Year of the Dad campaign specifically went into prisons to talk to fathers. Will he commend that work and encourage the Minister to pick up where Scotland has been leading on that?

[Mr Burrowes]

I will. There is also good work in—

Private Renting: Homeless and Vulnerable People

Debate between Neil Gray and David Burrowes

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate with you in the Chair, Sir Alan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) on securing the debate. I thought his speech was an honest assessment of the country’s current situation. It was refreshing and followed on from the honest title of the White Paper presented yesterday: I remind hon. Members that that is based on the situation in England.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made a passionate speech and touched on short-term tenancies and tenancy insecurity, and on the building of homes. What she said is right: it is the only way we shall get around the housing supply problems we face across these isles. I understand what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) was saying about hostels, but we must surely be capable of providing something more secure and dignified to homeless people in this day and age. The constituency example outlined by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) reminds me of looking at census data from Victorian times. It is shocking and highlights the desperate situation that people find themselves in, particularly in London. Action must be taken on that.

The private rented sector has a clear role to play in assisting those experiencing or facing the prospect of homelessness. However, the problems it creates are also well known: affordability, landlords’ reluctance to rent to housing benefit recipients, a lack of security of tenure, poor quality housing and a lack of support for vulnerable people. All these make what is a potential source of vital support for homeless and vulnerable people more difficult for them to obtain.

The focus on seeking private rented solutions for homeless and vulnerable people presents challenges. Although there has been a growth in the private rented sector, changes to housing benefit entitlement since 2010 mean that it is more difficult for housing benefit claimants to cover the full amount of rent due, as I said in an earlier intervention. That is especially so for young people, who are seeing their support cut away. In the light of all of the UK-wide issues caused by the Government’s social security policies, I believe that the effective approach being taken in Scotland should be commended and articulated.

All local authorities in Scotland have a duty towards all unintentionally homeless households, regardless of whether they are classed as being in priority need. That is one reason why, in April 2016, Crisis recorded that Scotland has been on a “marked downward path” for the past five years in relation to homelessness. That downward path can be seen in the Scottish Government’s statistics from 2016, which indicate that 81% of unintentionally homeless households in Scotland that had an outcome between April and September of that year secured settled accommodation—not only in social housing but in private rented tenancies as well.

[Mr Burrowes]

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says about that progress, but I was in Edinburgh over the weekend and I was particularly shocked by the level of street homelessness. I am a London MP and have sadly seen an increase in that on our streets in London, but in Edinburgh it was extremely significant.

[Neil Gray]

I would not for a minute even begin to suggest that we have all the answers in Scotland, nor that, just because the evidence from organisations such as Crisis suggests that things are going the right way, we cannot do more. Clearly, more can be done. I live near Edinburgh and know the situation there very well, which is a smaller version of what we see here in London. That is why some of the Scottish Government’s interventions, which I will touch on, are directed at that.

If private rented accommodation is to be a viable solution for homeless people, it is clearly imperative that protections are put in place to ensure that it is secure and affordable and provides an acceptable standard of living conditions. I will focus on some of the measures introduced in Scotland in the past decade that help to address some of those issues. In 2006, Scotland was the first part of the UK to introduce a mandatory landlord registration scheme, which we touched on earlier, in terms of licensing. The local authority must be satisfied that the owner of the property and the agent are fit and proper persons to let the residential property before registering them.

Commencement of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 will remove the “no fault” grounds for repossession, and should mean that there is no risk of a retaliatory eviction in Scotland. When commenced, that Act will also introduce a new type of tenancy for the private rented sector in Scotland to replace short assured and assured tenancies for all future lets. The new tenancy will be known as a “private residential tenancy”, which will be open ended and will not have a “no fault” ground for possession equivalent to the current notice that can be given under section 33 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988.

Finally, the 2016 Act will allow local authorities to implement rent caps in designated areas—“rent pressure zones”; one such zone is in Edinburgh—where there are excessive rent increases. Applications must be made to Scottish Ministers, who will then lay regulations before the Scottish Parliament. Tenants unhappy with the proposed rent increase will also be able to refer a case to a rent officer for adjudication. Each of those rules and pieces of legislation help in different ways to ensure that the private rented sector is up to standard when used as an option for homeless and vulnerable people. There is clearly no point in placing homeless people in privately rented accommodation when it will only lead to an unaffordable rent, unacceptable standard of housing or an insecure tenure.

Homelessness

Debate between Neil Gray and David Burrowes

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely, I acknowledge that. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) sits on the Bill Committee, so it is something that we are working on constructively. I will come on to other areas where I believe the Government should be doing more to address the issues we face.

Housing matters are devolved to each nation of the UK, so this debate offers me the chance to focus on what actions the Scottish Government have taken, using those powers, to address the problem of homelessness when it arises and to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Although housing policy is devolved, the reasons for homelessness are largely, in the public policy sense, the result of decisions taken here.

Homelessness can take many forms and has a variety of causes and consequences. Although it is sometimes thought of as referring only to those sleeping rough on the streets, an assortment of circumstances can lead to an individual being classed as homeless. Many live in temporary accommodation or stay on friends’ floors or with family, sometimes in precarious arrangements. Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, a person should be treated as homeless even if they have accommodation if it would not be reasonable for them to continue to occupy it.

Just as countless types of people can find themselves forced to seek asylum or to migrate to another country when their circumstances change, homelessness can affect almost anyone, and for a number of reasons, such as domestic abuse, marital breakdown, disputes with neighbours, bereavement of a family member and loss of income—those are among the many reasons why someone could find themselves unable to remain in their current property and in need of support.

The key difference in the approach to homelessness prevention in Scotland from that in the other three nations of the UK is that local authorities have a duty towards all unintentionally homeless households, irrespective of whether they are classed as being a priority need. Clearly, for any individual or family, regardless of any other criteria, the prospect of losing the roof over their head means they should be entitled to all possible support in finding alternative accommodation. The abolition of the priority need criterion was described by Shelter as providing

“the best homelessness law in Europe.”

According to figures from Crisis from April 2016, homelessness in Scotland has been on “a marked downward path” for the past five years. Crisis has attributed that decline to the introduction of the housing options model, a process in Scotland that starts with giving housing advice to someone with a housing problem who approaches their local authority, to look at an individual’s options, given their circumstances, so as to match things up best and spot any warning signs for potential problems at an early stage.

In that regard, the most significant action has been the abolition of the right-to-buy scheme in Scotland. Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, argues that

“as the decades passed, it became clear that the impact of right-to-buy was to create more losers than winners in our housing system, significantly undermining wider efforts to improve social justice in Scotland…The initiative saw three social homes being sold for every new one built, representing poor value for increasingly limited public money…During the right-to-buy era, homelessness numbers soared and today still remain at levels far beyond those in 1980.”

By abolishing the right to buy the Scottish Government will help to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of local authority housing stock, at an affordable rent and with secure tenancies, to help alleviate some of the causes of potential homelessness that come with expensive private rents and the uncertainty about the long term that short-term tenancies can bring.

The Scottish National party is already committed to investing more than £3 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes, with 35,000 for social rent. Housing supply is key to the matter before us today, which is why I am heartened by the statistics released as national statistics for Scotland this week showing that social house building is up in Scotland by 77% in April to June this year, with a 26% increase in starts on council homes to September.

As well as dealing with the right to buy, the SNP Government have attempted to address another factor behind homelessness by using their limited powers to mitigate the impact of the Tory bedroom tax. Numerous homelessness charities, including Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have said that that hated policy is partly responsible for the rise in homelessness across the UK since the start of this decade. The UK Government’s own research from December 2015 found that on average only 0.5% of those affected by the bedroom tax have been able to move from their home; the vast majority of those affected by the cut have had to live with a reduced income, unable to move because of family proximity, school, work and the shortage of appropriate housing.

Last year the Scottish Government provided an additional £35 million fully to mitigate the cost of the bedroom tax, with £90 million invested in that mitigation since 2013. Around 72,000 households in Scotland have been helped through this additional funding, with about 80% of recipients being disabled adults and about 11,000 of them being households with one or more children. Abolishing the bedroom tax in full will be one of the first priorities once the transfer of limited social security powers to the Scottish Government is completed.

The recent debate on the state of the social security system, particularly as it affects those unfit for work, provoked by Ken Loach’s film, “I, Daniel Blake”, casts our minds back to his earlier televised play, “Cathy Come Home”, which the Minister mentioned, and which, in a similar social realist way, helped to highlight the problem of homelessness in 1960s Britain. There is clearly a connection between these two works. Both highlight the importance of a strong social security system to helping avoid such problems, and both illustrate what happens when a Government’s approach to an issue fails fully to take into account people’s individual circumstances.

The private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on 2 December, which the SNP supported, sought to do just that by establishing a sanctions review system whereby an individual’s circumstances would be taken into account before a sanction decision could be made. Such a review would include considering whether someone is at risk of homelessness and would go some way to personalising the sanctions system, although we would obviously prefer that it be scrapped altogether.

The Tory Government’s sanctions regime has had many catastrophic consequences for families across the UK, and clearly the increase in homelessness must be considered among the most serious. The regime has left individuals and families, often already vulnerable, without money for weeks on end, at a time when they are often being hounded by predators, such as payday loan companies, and can often lead to rent arrears and spiralling debt that can create a downward spiral leading to eviction.

In December 2015, research for the homelessness charity Crisis carried out by Sheffield Hallam University found that 21% of people sanctioned in the last year had become homeless as a result and that 16% of those sanctioned had been forced to sleep rough. Only last month, in response to the National Audit Office report that suggested there was no evidence that sanctions worked, Mr Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said:

“We know from our own research that benefit sanctions are a cause of homelessness and have a significant impact on vulnerable people – including those who are already homeless, care leavers and people with mental ill health”.

For anyone in such a position, losing the support of benefits can be disastrous and make it even harder to find work.

The SNP is clear about the damage caused by UK social security cuts and will keep working with stakeholders to understand the impact of the UK Government’s planned local housing allowance changes on social tenants in Scotland. The proposed capping will lock those who need support out of either seeking it or being able to afford it.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

On the point about sanctions for those with mental health issues and homeless people, does the hon. Gentleman welcome the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions of a discretionary fund to help support them when they are at their most vulnerable?

[Neil Gray]

Yes, but it is clearly an acknowledgement that the system has not worked for these people. With respect, any move to get rid of the sanctions regime is obviously welcome, but far more needs to be done.

The gap between the LHA paid and the price of supported housing could see many at-risk individuals not receive the support they need from a residential tenancy. A sample study carried out by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations found that associations in Scotland that provided supported accommodation could lose between £5.2 million and £14.3 million per year. From 2019, the resources for supported accommodation will transfer to the Scottish Government. We are left with great concern about the LHA levels.

The Scottish Government have said that, once they have further details, they will work with their partners to ensure that supported accommodation is put on a secure and sustainable future for the longer term. With the cost of living set to rise, damning forecasts for the UK economy and little cheer in the autumn statement for low-income families, as we heard in the previous debate, it is important that the UK Government realise the damaging impact that austerity is having up and down the country in a variety of ways. This debate has helped to highlight this damage in the crucial area of homelessness. The UK Government should have little to ponder when they consider the growing emergence of people just about managing.

In the time left, I wish to touch briefly on a more general discussion about homelessness, looking at things from the individual’s point of view and understanding both the underlying causes and consequences of homelessness, which can be harder to quantify and address.

Crisis has carried out numerous pieces of important research on the causes and consequences, which have uncovered some particularly depressing statistics. On average, homeless people die at 47 years old, 30 years before the national average of 77. However, poor physical or mental health, along with dependency issues, are problems for the entire homeless population, whether they are sleeping rough on the streets, in hostels or in temporary accommodation.