Employment Rights Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

I wish to make Members aware that I am a member of the GMB, as many Members on this side of the House seem to be.

It is great to take part in the debate. It is important to recognise the great history of women on these Benches and in our movement, such as Eleanor Marx’s role in setting up the GMB, Barbara Castle’s in passing the Equal Pay Act 1970 and, today, that of our very own Deputy Prime Minister in setting out another game-changing piece of legislation.

I want to focus on gender, because since the introduction of gender pay reporting in 2017, we have made some progress in making people aware of pay disparities in some of our workplaces, but the facts are still stark. The gender pay gap is stubbornly stuck at 14%. That is horrific enough, but in certain sectors, including care, the gap is even higher. Pay inequality compounds over the course of a woman’s life, meaning that she is more likely to live in poverty as a pensioner, and unable to gain opportunities that her male counterparts have had through their lives.

According to the TUC, the pay gap means that, on average, women effectively work for free for nearly two months of the year compared to men. At the current rate of progress, it could take another 20 years to close the gap. That is 20 years too long. While reporting has become an accepted part of employment practice, we must do much more than just raise awareness of the issue. We need concrete action, which is why I am proud that the Bill introduces much-needed regulations to require employees with more than 250 staff to publish a plan to address their gender pay gap. That will ensure that organisations are not only transparent about pay inequalities, but actively work to close them.

Another critical part of the Bill is the provision to support women experiencing menopause. Women between the ages of 45 and 54 make up 11% of our workforce and 23% of all women in the workforce—around 3.5 million women. Despite the growing number of women in the labour market of that age, the challenges they face from the menopause are often overlooked, leading to discriminatory practices and a lack of adequate workplace support. BUPA estimates that nearly 1 million women have been forced out of the labour market by menopausal symptoms. That is simply not good enough, which is why I am proud that the Bill takes steps to address it. Employers will be required to publish how they will better support women going through the menopause.

Planning Policy: Traveller Sites

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for securing this debate on a subject with which I am sure many hon. Members are familiar, although sadly that familiarity does not always come from a good place. Often it is driven by casework.

My understanding of the issues has been enriched by listening to the Traveller community in my constituency and hearing about the problems that they have experienced. I have heard the concerns about a two-tier system in planning, but it was interesting to hear, in a discussion on a long-standing site run by the council in my area, that they are not eligible for the right to buy, even though some of those families have lived there for 40-plus years. The idea that there is a two-tier system in planning ignores the fact that there is also a two-tier system for this very prejudiced-against group of people.

Too often our familiarity comes from lurid headlines that generate a lot of heat rather than shedding light on the problems experienced by a community facing discrimination and disadvantage across the board. It is important that we bear that in mind when we talk about the issue in the context of the planning system, and it is important that we are honest about the context of those problems. It is difficult to have a sensible discussion about how we best serve Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities when words like “incursion” are used and when groups of Travellers are repeatedly characterised as ruining picturesque landscapes, towns or villages, creating nuisance and disturbance, or somehow being above the rules.

Given that context, we need to be explicit in saying that, far from the invalidation and demonisation of such communities that we often see in the media, the planning system should support this group to live in the way that they choose. There has been an absolute failure to provide adequate sites for those who do travel. Stopping places simply have not been available, so it is no wonder that families are looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, that means a huge shortage of sites and pitches across the UK, particularly in England. As a result, in 2019 some 13% of caravans were on unauthorised land, as the organisation Friends, Families and Travellers reports. What we are seeing is not an incursion, but rather a forced displacement due to the lack of available sites for those who choose to travel.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely agree that sites should be made available, but may I reiterate the point that I raised? For the family I mentioned, sites were available. In fact, the family occupied a site at Tara Park in Malton until they moved on to that particular site, so it is not the case that no sites are available. There are also nearby sites in Osbaldwick in York. It is not as if there are no alternatives to occupying the site unlawfully. It is important to understand that.

[Olivia Blake]

That is why I think it is important that local authorities work with the community to understand their needs. There are many reasons why individual families may not feel able to be on a site. They may also want to create their own space and home, which I completely understand.

Rather than creating more sites, the previous Government moved to criminalise GRT communities through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Those laws should be repealed, in my view. We should be tackling the root cause of the issue: the failure of the system to support a diverse group of people who already suffer prejudice and discrimination. There is a lack of understanding about the realities for this group.

It is not just that we need new sites and more pitches; the ones that we have are not up to scratch. That is certainly true of the sites in my constituency: they are often segregated from settled communities and suffer problems with access to services, transport and schools. There is no path to reach the community that I represent, so children have to walk down a 60 mph road to get the bus to school. When the street lights were updated, for some reason the contractor did not realise that the council owned the properties, so the community has been living with poor-quality street lighting rather than LEDs. I hope that that will soon be resolved on the site.

That is the kind of suffering that we see in those communities. They are often seen as other, as different or as difficult to deal with. That is not true, in my experience. If we listen to the concerns of the community, we will see progress and clarity of responsibility, not only from the community itself but from the services that are meant to serve it. Decisions are often made to place sites in unsafe areas next to main roads, refuse destructors, traffic-laden areas, intersections of motorways, busy highways or railway tracks. There are many reasons that people would not want their children to be near those things. That has contributed significantly to the health, education and other social inequalities that we see in the community.

We have to acknowledge that the isolation and segregation are partly due to political pressure. We know that local authorities have not achieved what they should in terms of sites, options and working with the community as best they can. That is why this is not just a technical debate on planning laws; we have to talk about tackling attitudes as well. When the Caravan Sites Act 1968 gave councils a statutory duty to create sites, many people opposed having them in their area. To put it bluntly, the location of many sites today is a consequence of anti-Traveller racism. The site in my area is right on the edge of town, away from many services.

We need more sites and pitches, and we need to end the criminalisation of people living in a legitimate way, but we also need to work with the community and listen to their needs, understanding that they are individuals and have individual rights, as we all do. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton probably disagrees; he alluded to European human rights putting one group ahead of another. I disagree. I think that those rights protect us all and allow us all to have the individual rights and freedoms that we so richly deserve.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree with the principle. My point is that that is how the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act are framed, but it is not how things operate in practice. My constituents cannot occupy a field and build a house on it if it is in open countryside and not within the development limits of a village. They operate on that basis. Why should somebody else from a different community be able to occupy that site and develop it in a way that my other constituents, who work on a lawful basis, cannot? Why should that be the case?

[Olivia Blake]

The hon. Member highlights an important issue for his constituency that points to the failure in this space. I am not disagreeing, but I think we have to recognise that these rights come to the fore because of that failure, not the other way around. We really need to focus on that in our planning policies. We need to communicate with the community, work with them to understand their needs and make sure that those needs are being adequately met. We should not hold it against communities that have bought their own land; we should work with them to ensure they can go through the planning process adequately for their community needs and family needs.

We also need better integration within communities of amenities and services, and we need to end the criminalisation. To do that, we need to challenge anti-GRT attitudes and the lurid headlines that drive them. That would be a good start to ensuring that the planning system works for the community. I do not disagree with the idea that the planning system is broken, but I think there is certainly a better way into the conversation that starts with an understanding of all our communities, not just one or the other.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme Anniversary

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the anniversary of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Dowd. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the excellent research support I receive from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project and as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration. I want to make special mention of and thank the Sheffield branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, with which I have been working to highlight the challenges facing Ukrainian refugees as they come to this country. The contributions of such groups have been extremely helpful and have better equipped us to learn lessons from the past year.

Since the war started in February 2022, more than 8 million people have fled Ukraine and some 6 million have been displaced internally. According to the British Red Cross, more than 160,000 of those who have fled have come to the UK. I think I speak for all Members present when I extend my huge thanks to all those who have opened their homes to refugees. While the war has shown the very worst of humanity, the resilience of ordinary Ukrainians enduring extraordinary violence, alongside the response they have received from our communities, has shown the very best.

A year into the war, it is time to take stock of our own response and the support we have extended to those fleeing the conflict. Now is a timely moment to highlight two problems facing the refugees who have come here: the shameful prospect of homelessness for some Ukrainian families, and the restrictions they face as they transition into private sector rented housing.

A new British Red Cross report, “Fleeing, fearing, facing the future”, has found that homelessness is a key risk for Ukrainians in the UK. Government figures reveal that well over 4,000 Ukrainian households in England have been homeless or at risk of homelessness in the past year—a 97% increase on October 2020. According to data from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in my own local authority area, a total of 30 Ukrainian households, half of which included children, have been homeless, offered homelessness prevention or relief duty services by Sheffield City Council. Of those households, 17 are here under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and 13 are here under the family scheme.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am loth to interrupt the hon. Lady so early in her deliberations, but I wondered if she would like to take this opportunity to congratulate or comment on SNP-run Perth and Kinross Council, which has the third highest number, and the highest number per capita, of Ukrainian guests in the whole of Scotland, as well as the smallest number in temporary accommodation. That is because of building a positive relationship with the private letting sector and creating our own agency. Does the hon. Lady agree that P and K’s approach of actively bringing together guests and hosts works, and that being prepared to build on existing structures with existing relationships is the way to give good options to our guests from Ukraine?

[Olivia Blake]

I completely agree. Where things have worked well, we should be learning lessons and rolling those lessons out across the country—across all the countries of Great Britain. We need to take stock at this point to see where things have progressed and been valuable to the community, and where they have not worked so well.

We should be concerned about the figures I was just highlighting, which show that we urgently need to support people to either continue to stay with their hosts or move into their own longer term accommodation, especially as the conflict seems to be lasting a lot longer than any of us would have hoped.

The reasons behind the homelessness that many Ukrainian refugees face are multifaceted, ranging from the impact of the rising cost of living for hosts, the changing circumstances of hosts and guests, the inappropriateness of accommodation and difficulties being rematched with other hosts if the relationship breaks down. Sponsors were initially asked to host for only six months, but sadly there is no sign of the military conflict in Ukraine abating, which makes the precarious nature of the future for many refugees all the more worrying.

As the cost of living crisis continues to bite, many sponsors simply cannot afford to continue hosting, and I ask the Minister to consider that in her response. In November 2022, 18% of Homes for Ukraine hosts said that the rising cost of living was “very much” impacting their ability to provide support, which is double the proportion in July 2022, when the figure was 9%. Clearly, the impact on host families is getting worse, which is having a direct impact on Ukrainian refugees. The Government have announced that hosts on the Homes for Ukraine scheme will receive more financial support, which is increasing from £350 to £500 a month, but that is only after the people they are hosting have been in the UK for 12 months. The cost of living crisis is happening now, and that should mean action now to support refugee households.

At the same time, despite accounting for around a third of arrivals, and unlike under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, people hosting family members through the family scheme do not receive any monthly “thank you” payment, and are not protected from the increased council tax bills that come from having additional household members. Similarly, although local councils ensure that those on the Homes for Ukraine scheme receive a £200 per person interim payment on arrival, to help with the cost of food and essentials, Ukrainians on the family visa scheme do not receive the same support unless they are in Northern Ireland.

The Government need to take Ukrainian families’ risk of homelessness seriously and act quickly. The British Red Cross suggests that the Department should extend the interim £200 payment to everyone arriving on the Ukrainian family scheme to support people waiting for their first universal credit payment. Ministers should also consider increasing the monthly payment immediately for all hosts, no matter what scheme they are on, instead of waiting for people to have been here in the UK for 12 months. At the moment, the costs are falling on hosts. Those hosting people who arrived in the UK through the Ukrainian family scheme should receive the same financial support as those hosting under the Homes for Ukraine scheme to support their continued hosting. Are discussions along those lines between the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities already under way, and if not, why not? In addition, the Department should ensure that the council tax regulations are further amended so that hosts on the Ukrainian family scheme are also protected from increasing council tax bills, especially as they are not currently receiving any extra financial support in that way. Will the Minister set out the Government’s position on those simple steps, which could make a difference?

The second set of issues I want to raise relates to what happens after refugees leave their hosts. Our unfair and exploitative private rented sector is a huge barrier to many people’s living their lives as they want. For Ukrainians, the situation is no different. Even once they are ready to move on from their accommodation and strike out on their own, there are significant challenges. Without a UK-based guarantor, rental references or a deposit, it can be difficult for people to find privately rented accommodation. Although people on both schemes have the right to work and access public funds, including universal credit, the British Red Cross reports that across the UK many refugees struggle to afford the rent for longer term accommodation. Frozen local housing allowances also restrict access to private rented accommodation for those who work part time or are single parents, often with multiple children. The demographics of the Ukrainian refugees who are coming over here—many are mothers with children, which is a complexity of the war—should be borne in mind when we develop policy, so that these conditions, issues and individual circumstances are understood.

All that is supported by data. In my own city, of 322 families who arrived in Sheffield under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, only 44 have been moved into private rented accommodation to date. A survey by the Office for National Statistics published in December 2022 found that 69% of Homes for Ukraine hosts had guests looking to move into private accommodation, but 81% of them reported barriers when helping their guests to look for private rented accommodation: 67% could not afford to rent privately, 64% could not provide a guarantor, 57% could not afford a deposit or other up-front payments, and 43% had no suitable properties in the area that they had arrived in.

DLUHC has announced £150 million additional funding for local authorities across the UK to support refugees to move into their own homes. It was also announced that local authorities in England will get a new £500 million fund to acquire housing stock for refugees, and tackle homelessness in refugee communities. The announcement rightly said that not only those who arrived from Ukraine and Afghanistan but all those fleeing conflict would be included. I welcome those measures, but I know local authorities are unclear about how to use the funding. Will the Minister clarify the details? How will the £150 million one-off funding be allocated and spent, so that local authorities have more certainty when addressing growing housing needs? It should be noted that, in addition to that funding, there is support for local authorities to implement rent deposit schemes where they do not already exist, and to ensure that eligibility criteria do not exclude people displaced from Ukraine. Last week, the Secretary of State told the House that his Department would investigate Government-backed rent guarantee schemes specifically to support displaced Ukrainians. What action are the Government taking in that respect?

The local association has raised with me the fact that a crucial part of making the transition to an independent life is access to skills and training. Many of the people who have come here are already highly qualified, but either their qualifications are not recognised, or they are struggling to find work that matches their qualifications. How are the Government working across Departments to ensure that refugees settling here can fulfil their full potential and find gainful skilled employment?

The toll of the war on those who have left Ukraine as refugees, fleeing the bombs raining down on their homes and neighbourhoods, has been immense. They have gathered their lives into suitcases or even less, unsure of what they will return to, whether they will return to anything, or whether they will return at all. Across the UK, and certainly in Sheffield, which is a proud city of sanctuary, the greeting they have received is a light in the darkness. It has represented the hope of refuge far from the violence and destruction. Now, a year later, it is time to transform hope into certainty, and turn the promise of safety into the opportunity of building new, secure and stable lives in the UK, free from the worry of homelessness and destitution. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and those of other hon. Members, knowing they will care deeply about the issues I have raised, on how we can help refugees to build that life in the UK while they are here.

Thank you, Mr Dowd, for allowing me the time to debate this issue. It is important to keep it highlighted, learn the lessons from this scheme in our broader approach to refugees, and show solidarity to Ukrainians.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that if they wish to allow as many as possible to speak in the debate, they should be brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank everyone for the constructive tone of the debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) on her very comprehensive and interesting speech.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for her personal contribution to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which is one of the most remarkable schemes this country has ever seen. It is because of the generosity and compassion of British people that we have been able to welcome so many Ukrainians to this country. The informed and impassioned contributions to the debate speak to the fact that, one year into this war, none of us has allowed there to be any creeping normalisation of the horrors we have witnessed in Ukraine. Our commitment to the people of Ukraine has not wavered, and it will not waver in the years ahead.

The debate is very important to me, not only because I am the Minister responsible for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, but also because my constituency of Kensington is the home of the Ukrainian community in London and, to an extent, throughout the UK. In my constituency, we have the Ukrainian embassy, the phenomenal St Mary’s Ukrainian School, where the numbers have gone up astronomically, the Ukrainian community centre and the Ukrainian Institute London, so the subject is very important to me. I first visited the Ukrainian community before the invasion, when tensions were rising, and I have been with them on a constituency basis all the way. I am delighted to say that in my small borough of Kensington and Chelsea we have 423 registered sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, and 617 Ukrainians have arrived in the borough, 152 of whom are children.

From the moment the first tanks crossed the border into Ukraine, the stoicism, courage and determination shown by President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have been a constant source of inspiration to us all. We have been clear from the get-go that if we want to live in a world where peaceful sovereign nations are free to choose their own destiny, Ukraine must win.

I will address the many points that Members have made, but I would like to start by emphasising that the Government and I are enormously proud of the support the UK is providing to Ukrainian nationals and their families. Most of all, we are proud that these schemes are being powered by the British people.

[Olivia Blake]

The Minister has referred to the housing issues, but one of the other uncertainties for families is the lack of clarity about family reunification rights under the different schemes and whether those will change over time. Will the Minister address that?

[Felicity Buchan]

I will address the different schemes and how they fit together in a few moments.

Before the Homes for Ukraine scheme even opened, thousands registered their interest in helping. As soon as it did open, thousands more opened their hearts and their homes to people whose lives had been torn apart by a conflict that they did not ask for. The scheme was the first of its kind in the UK and, since we launched it on 18 March 2022, we have welcomed a remarkable 115,800 people. When combined with the Ukraine families scheme, we have now helped to find over 163,500 people a safe and secure home.

At the outset, we vowed to keep the routes for Ukrainian refugees under constant review, and that is what we have done. The scheme did not stay static; it evolved as the weeks and months went on, including an extension to bring over unaccompanied children who were not travelling with a parent or legal guardian, with robust additional safeguarding checks. We have also adapted the scheme in terms of rematching. We have offered further money. The scheme is a living organism; it will potentially adapt further with time.

As a Government, we have been determined to reciprocate the generosity of the hosts who have come forward with offers of help. To that end, we have provided £1.1 billion to councils through a tariff for each arrival in their area to support guests and sponsors alike. In recognition of their generous support, all Homes for Ukraine sponsors will receive an increased “thank you” payment of £500 a month once guests have been in the country for over a year. We have extended the duration that sponsors can get “thank you” payments from one year to two years. Our absolute focus is providing stable homes for Ukrainians fleeing war and starting a new life on UK soil.

Let me take this opportunity before my concluding remarks to follow up on a few specific points. I will start with homelessness, because a number of Members raised it, and will go through our latest homelessness numbers. For the Homes for Ukraine scheme, it is 2,495. For Ukrainians as a whole, including the families scheme, it is 4,295. Homelessness is defined as a local authority having a duty to prevent and relieve, so, just focusing on the prevention part, a lot of these numbers will cover local authorities that are going in there to help people and put roofs over their heads. I want to be very clear on that definition. Local authorities are doing their job in many of these cases and preventing. If one looks at the 2,495 number in the context of 115,000 arrivals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, it is a small percentage. We do not want any Ukrainian to be homeless but, if one looks at the prevention and relief duties, it is a small percentage. As I said, it is a good thing that local authorities are doing their jobs and doing them incredibly well.

There are 735 households in temporary accommodation. What are the Government doing to support local authorities? I want to put it on the record that I think local authorities are doing a tremendous job. First, as I have already mentioned, the Government are providing £1.2 billion in tariffs. Those tariffs can be used for homelessness prevention—for example, to help guarantee private rental sector rents. We have also put a £150 million fund in place to relieve homelessness. I believe it was the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam who asked how that fund would be allocated. It will be allocated to the devolved authorities, and in England. We are in discussions with the devolved authorities—I have regular update calls with them—and are finessing the split of that fund. As soon as that has been done and we have agreed the split among the DAs, we will communicate the allocations to local authorities, but that is very much a work in progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Felicity Buchan]

When we are talking about homelessness under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, these are all people who are here with their visas, so I do not think it relates to the BRP scheme. However, I am happy to relay the hon. Member’s comments to the Home Office, as he has asked. To the extent that he has details about particular issues, if he could feed those in to me, I can pass them on.

We have also set up a £500 million fund for local authorities to purchase, build or redevelop homes, with an initial focus on Ukrainians and Afghans, although the aim over time is for those homes to be for the benefit of the local community. We are very focused as a Government on homelessness prevention; indeed, we want to prevent homelessness from ever happening. In the last fiscal year, 2022-23, we spent £316 million, but we got an extra top-up from the Treasury of £50 million to alleviate winter homelessness, which makes £366 million. These are big sums of money, and in December we announced £654 million over two years for homelessness prevention.

Let me turn to the private rented sector. I had a look at the last Office for National Statistics survey, in which 17% of those surveyed were in the PRS; however, I am conscious—and clearly I have heard—that there have been issues with some Ukrainians accessing that sector. Sometimes it has been because of a lack of credit history in the UK; sometimes they have been unable to put down deposits. We have encouraged local authorities to think innovatively about how to use the tariff to help people access the private rental sector—an awful lot of local authorities have said that people are using the £10,500 that was received last year to put down deposits. We would encourage them to look at those solutions. Local authorities know best what the funding situation is in their local area.

We are also working very closely with the LGA and the National Residential Landlords Association to get to the bottom of any problems and see how we can incentivise landlords to get round these issues, because it is quite clear that a lot of Ukrainians would like to be independent. While many sponsors are prepared to go longer than six months—in fact, I had another look at the ONS data, and 90% of sponsors said that they were prepared to go longer than six months, while 60% already have—clearly, access to the private rental sector is an important option for Ukrainians. It is something that my Department is working on with a lot of focus. As I say, we are encouraging best practice. We are also funding the strategic migration partnerships to share that best practice among local authorities.

A lot of Members talked about the importance of English for speakers of other languages—ESOL—and skilled employment, and I could not agree more. I chaired a cross-Government meeting last week, attended by a Minister from every Department, where we talked about how we can ramp up that provision of English language classes and ensure that professional qualifications are recognised. Clearly, professional qualifications are recognised by independent bodies, so we cannot tell the Nursing and Midwifery Council what it should approve, but we encourage it to focus on this. There are issues that these bodies need to take into account. It is a focus of Government; I am working very closely with the Minister responsible, the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), on that matter.

I would like to pick up on a few other issues that were raised, such as that about council tax. I want to make it very clear that people who arrive in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and are living with people will be disregarded for the purposes of council tax. Let us say you are a single person and you get the single person discount. If you bring in two Ukrainians under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, you are still one single person for the purposes of council tax, so you will still get the 25% discount.

[Olivia Blake]

Will the Minister give way?

[Felicity Buchan]

I think the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam is about to disagree with me—I give way.

[Olivia Blake]

Not to disagree—that is correct, and it is fantastic. But again, this is a problem in the Ukraine family scheme. People are not getting that extra payment, but they are getting the extra cost of turning from a single-person household to a multi-person household. That is the question for me, really: what can you do to ensure that these schemes are equitable to allow stability? As you rightly pointed out, people are leaving both the Homes for Ukraine scheme and the family scheme because of difficulties with the cost of living.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. At the risk of being pedantic, there are a lot of “you”s going on here. Can we address points through the Chair, if Members do not mind?

--- Later in debate ---

[Olivia Blake]

Apologies for my earlier use of “you”, Mr Dowd. I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has taken part in today’s debate. We heard about personal experiences from the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), and about the innovative schemes in Perth and Glasgow. It is important that we look across UK borders—or should I say devolution lines?—to make sure that we learn as much as we can about how the schemes are working.

I was privileged to work closely with host families in my area. I hosted joint surgeries, so that we could share experiences, and hear from people going through the process, which was iterative. That approach at Government level is important, so I thank the Minister for addressing the concerns raised. We might have to agree to disagree on the issues around the difference between the two schemes, as things are a bit more complicated in reality than they were outlined as being.

I forgot to mention the question of how we monitor the number of people returning to Ukraine. In Sheffield, 34 families have returned to Ukraine. According to the Sheffield branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, that was primarily because of an inability to get private rented sector housing. Information of that kind is key to our understanding, and gives us the opportunity to improve the scheme.

I thank everyone for taking part in this debate. I am grateful that time was allowed for us to consider the issues. Although the scheme has been a success, we can always learn lessons, so that we can make sure that, in the medium to long term, we give our full support to the people of Ukraine.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the anniversary of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Homes for Ukraine: Child Refugees

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on securing this important debate. It has been amazingly heartening to see so many people, including many of my constituents, open their hearts and homes to those fleeing this war. It has been equally amazing to see the passion of Members of Parliament, such as my hon. Friend, in fighting to get families reunited and brought here through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Like my hon. Friend, I am concerned about what the future will hold for Ukrainian refugees, especially children, who have come here through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We rightly celebrate kinship care for our own children, so it feels incredibly wrong that this is being denied to children whose parents have no choice but to leave them with other family members to come to the UK. Ministers must take responsibility for the limitations of the scheme.

The issues I want to raise relate mainly to our duty of care for refugees once they arrive. First, some will be unable to complete their six-month placement with their host. In fact, reports suggest that as many as 660 Ukrainian households have had to declare themselves homeless to their council because of breakdowns in relationships with hosts. Some have been asked to leave with just a day’s notice, making it incredibly difficult for them to seek alternative arrangements. For child refugees, it goes without saying that that is hugely destabilising. They are more vulnerable and they are being turned out of homes: 480 households with dependent children had no choice but to seek help because they had discovered the accommodation that they were supposed to be living in was not fit for purpose or meeting their needs. I have also been made aware of situations where the host’s Disclosure and Barring Service check came back with concerns—and this was after children had been placed with them—meaning that families could no longer stay and their place of sanctuary suddenly became a place of fear.

Secondly, I have been wondering why the checks and balances and, importantly, the support offered to hosts are not the same as those for foster carers, especially therapeutic interventions. They should also be provided to the host family. Local authorities need the resources to adequately prioritise and ensure safeguarding and welfare. Access to education probably deserves a debate in its own right, as it is a huge issue for children. A catch-up for schools in the summer is a great idea that has been raised with me by the Ukrainian society in Sheffield.

The warmth and generosity from members of the public has been inspiring, but things can go wrong. Ministers cannot and should not forget refugees once they have entered the country. That leads me to the third problem: what will happen to people once their six-month placement is over? At the moment, Ukrainians are facing a cliff edge. Some organisations have highlighted that they might struggle to access housing. We know that some landlords will not accept those who receive benefits, until the law hopefully changes. Others will struggle to provide the years of financial evidence required for renting. Deposits and up-front rent will also be a challenge. The availability of social housing has clearly been a challenge for many years. In Sheffield, over 20,000 people are already on waiting lists.

For those people who have lost everything in war, housing will be critical when the six-month cut-out comes. Since people have already been here for up to three or four months, it is becoming critical. They have no one to act as guarantors, which is another issue for private renting. The Government must face up to the reality and urgently investigate how those who came here under the Homes for Ukraine scheme can be housed securely. They must put in place a plan for what happens after the initial housing period comes to an end.

If we do not get this right, Ministers will be stripping vulnerable people of the hope that they had been given for a better future in the UK by the Homes for Ukraine scheme. I ask them to urgently consider what resettlement options will be available to people at the end of the six months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

I do not think it would be possible for me to set a timeframe, but I can say that we are going to contact the 1,000 people who have already applied, working through those as quickly as we can. The policy will initially apply to applications in the system that were put on hold, but they will, as the hon. Lady has suggested, be prioritised for processing through the expanded scheme once it opens in July, although we need to ensure that sponsorship arrangements are appropriate, which is complex, and that all safeguarding checks have taken place prior to travel. That might take a few weeks.

All that will be welcome news for many of the children and many of the potential sponsors who are well placed to offer a child safety, sanctuary and security in their home, but I want to be completely clear about the fact that it will be possible only in some carefully defined circumstances, including when children are travelling with or are joining an adult relative, or children travelling alone are travelling to stay with a known sponsor, such as a close family friend. The safety of the child must be paramount.

It is important that we take this opportunity to expand the scheme—

[Olivia Blake]

I am slightly concerned because trusted adults often can be perpetrators of abuse. I want to ensure that there will be continued monitoring of and checks on children who are placed with people outside their family, and that the correct safeguarding and infrastructure are around those children.

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely accept and understand the point that the hon. Lady has made, and it is important that the parents determine who such a person should be. To that end, we would trust that the children were to be placed in a safe environment.

It is important to take this opportunity to expand the scheme. We are particularly grateful for the support of colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for the support of other expert practitioners, including local authorities, in helping us to develop the expanded format and ensure that the scheme is focused on delivering what is in the best interests of any child. In line with our commitment, the expanded scheme will include an additional requirement for local authorities to assess the suitability of sponsorship arrangements and ensure that robust safeguarding processes are put in place.

There will also be clear requirements for parental consent to any sponsorship arrangement and an expectation that the sponsor should be someone who is personally known to the parents.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Olivia Blake Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

The Government’s levelling-up White Paper states:

“While talent is spread equally across our country, opportunity is not. Levelling up is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness.”

I want to talk about an unfairness that is at the heart of inequality in the UK, and why I think the Bill lacks the ambition to address it.

There is a housing crisis in Britain, and my city is at the sharp end of it. In 2021, there were 21,615 households on Sheffield’s housing waiting list. Between 2020 and 2021, nearly 3,000 Sheffield households were made homeless or threatened with homelessness. Sheffield has also experienced one of the largest increases in annual rental demands in the country. From 2020 to 2021, there was a 46% increase in the number of private renters claiming housing benefit to help pay the rent. A 2019 Sheffield and Rotherham housing market assessment found that, in 13 of the 19 areas in our region, one third of all households were priced out of private renting altogether. After 12 years of stagnating wages and savage cuts to our local services, and now soaring inflation, the situation is getting far worse, not better.

Without action to tackle the housing crisis, the words “levelling up” will ring hollow to many of my constituents and the 17.5 million people across the UK who are also affected. The failure to invest in good-quality, genuinely affordable social homes lies at the root of their problems and at the root of the housing emergency, so surely that is where the Government should start.

But that is not what the Bill proposes. Rather than mandate for a boom in affordable and social rents, the proposal for an infrastructure levy only guarantees that affordable housing will be built at the same rate as it is now. But the status quo clearly is not working. Between 2015 and 2020, there was a net loss of more than 1,500 social homes in Sheffield. Only 229 new homes could be built by the local authority, and 1,800 were lost through right to buy. Our city council is ambitious and has embarked on a programme to build more than 3,000 new council homes by 2029 but, without proper support, that will not be enough to tackle Sheffield’s housing emergency.

The conditions in the Government’s affordable homes programme have made building good-quality social housing in Sheffield almost impossible. Until 2021, geographical restrictions stopped us from receiving funding altogether, despite the great waiting lists that we have. Even though Sheffield is now eligible, the way in which money is allocated is still producing problems. To ration a small national pot of money, the Government have mandated that schemes with the cheapest cost per home be prioritised. Delivering good-quality, environmentally friendly, disability-accessible social homes is often not possible because they cost more to build than other types of affordable housing. Social housing should and could be a source of quality, innovation and even excitement for our communities, but the programme bakes in a lack of ambition for the delivery of our housing stock. We should be providing families with a home, the asylum for so many people. People cannot get on in life if they do not have access to good-quality housing. That is a fact that we need to acknowledge and take seriously, but the Bill does nothing to address it or to address the rapid decline in affordable housing. What Sheffield needs to level up is a plan to build good-quality affordable social homes, but, as ever with this Government, what we have is a wasted opportunity and more of the same.

I did not expect to come here today and hear light entertainment from Government Members, but I have to say that I am pleased that the Secretary of State seems to have given up on his ambitions to audition for—[Hon. Members: “Time!”] My apologies. I will stop.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Would the hon. Lady like to finish?

[Olivia Blake]

It is fine—don’t worry. They don’t want to hear it.

Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

As we are debating support for businesses and individuals through the covid crisis, I want to tell the story of one of my constituents, a recently self-employed person called Peter. He started trading in 2019, so he cannot claim on the self-employment income support scheme. He also cannot claim universal credit because his wife earns just a little too much, but not enough to cover all the bills. His life has been turned upside down, and he has been forced to borrow money from friends and family. Desperately looking for help, he telephoned Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and was told by the call handler, “I am sorry, but that is just the way it is.” Madam Deputy Speaker, the way it is is not good enough. Peter is one of more than 3 million people whom the Government have failed to support in this public health crisis.

In my constituency, that inaction is hitting young people the hardest. It is young people who were disproportionately in the low-paid, insecure, zero-hour jobs that were the first to go when the crisis hit. Last year, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits in Sheffield increased by 158%. For 16 to 24-year-olds, that number increased by a staggering 300%. Many were made redundant because the Government told employers that the furlough scheme would stop, or change, on 31 October. The mixed messages of the past year have not been business friendly. Indeed, in many cases, they have been business ending, with sectors such as small breweries seeing two breweries close a week and changes to the small brewers’ relief looming.

Ministers were dragged kicking and screaming into extending the furlough scheme, but I wonder how many of those unemployed people would have kept their jobs had the Government communicated this decision sooner. Now, like Groundhog Day, we are going through the same process again. The Chancellor was too slow to act before and we ended up with record redundancies. With 4.6 million people still furloughed, he is in danger of doing it all over again. Rather than wait a month and put those jobs at risk, workers need guarantees next week that they will continue to receive support.

Time and again, the Government have refused to learn the lessons of the past year. The Chancellor must close the gaps in support systems and provide the clarity that workers and business owners alike urgently need to plan ahead. The mistakes of the previous year need to be fixed so that no one is left behind. Our recovery depends on it.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I appreciate that this will have been a particular challenge to Cornwall Council with its array of car parks and other attractions for the tourist sector. That is why we created the sales fees and charges scheme earlier in the year, which provides 75p in the pound to councils for losses in that regard. Already, we have paid out, I think, more than £500 million to local councils. I am sure that Cornwall Council has already benefited and will do so in the future and it is expected that that scheme will provide over £1 billion, if not significantly more. It is without cap, and we have announced in the settlement today that we will be rolling that forward to the middle point of next year. Cornwall Council will be able to rely on that to plan its future to the summer of next year, and, of course, we all hope that people will be in Cornwall enjoying its beaches and attractions in the summer of 2021.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I am concerned that the revised housing targets will cause a north-south divide on green-belt building. These new targets could lead to a 35% increase for Sheffield. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, following the very successful consultation with the community in Sheffield to limit green-belt building, the new target will not be imposed on Sheffield? Instead of levelling up, is it his plan to level our glorious northern green belt?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting argument, because we on the Government Benches want to see more private sector investment going into the great cities of the midlands and the north. We want to see more homes, more urban regeneration, and more brilliant and inspired schemes coming to constituencies such as hers. That is exactly the approach we have taken with respect to the local housing need, and I respectfully ask her to show a little bit more ambition for her community. The three-year annual delivery of homes in Sheffield is 2,500 homes; the new local housing need that we have proposed is 2,800 homes, so if the hon. Lady truly believes that 300 extra homes could not be built in a great city such as Sheffield, then I think she is talking it down, which I am sure is not her intention. However, through your auspices, Madam Deputy Speaker, can I offer her and, particularly, her mother—who has done a fantastic job leading her city over a very challenging year—a very happy Christmas?

Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on securing this debate today. I also congratulate him on his joint work with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) on the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member. I want to focus today on the private rental sector, but before I do, I would like to urge the Government to ensure that the support they are providing to local authorities is sensitive both to the social and regional inequalities that exist. Throughout the public health crisis, we have seen that, far from the virus being a great leveller, it has disproportionately impacted those with lower incomes, those experiencing insecure working conditions and, of course, those from black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, as the Public Health England report has confirmed. The formulae for allocating covid funds should be weighted to deprivation factors, reflecting the different needs of the populations served by councils. We know that housing and health are intrinsically linked, which is why I want to talk about housing today.

Members of the House will be aware of the Shelter poll published this week, and the shocking figures that it contains. The number of respondents who usually report being in arrears has doubled, and estimations based on the polling mean that roughly 220,000 people across the country are facing possible eviction. It is easy to see this as a consequence of the pandemic alone, but that would be short-sighted, because we have not discussed the whole picture. In November last year, Shelter briefed that the average percentage of income taken up by private renting was 41%. That is, 41% of those people’s income is going purely to pay the rent. The New Economics Foundation has said that 1.2 million of the 5.6 million people at risk of losing their jobs live in private rented accommodation.

We can see the increased vulnerability of private renters in this week’s polling from Shelter. A breakdown of those figures shows that people in blue-collar jobs are twice as likely to report being in rent arrears. Also, thanks to movements such as Black Lives Matter, we have been talking about the racial injustice of the pandemic, and housing and private renting are not immune to this. BAME people are twice as likely to face rent arrears as other renters. Importantly, I have seen a breakdown of Shelter’s figures that suggests that those who have been furloughed are also more likely to experience problems. A 20% salary reduction will of course lead to the choice between eating and paying the rent.

We clearly have a structural problem where wages are too low and rents are too high, and covid-19 has made that situation even worse. I realise that it is not the role of MHCLG, as a budget-setter, to raise wages, although I would say that many Labour councils, including Sheffield City Council, have implemented real living wages. Perhaps that is something the Ministry could look at funding. Whatever the limitations on the Ministry’s ability to raise wages, however, there are solutions that can come from action taken. It can do something about the cost of rents. We know that 63% of renters have no savings; in fact, many have debts. One of the reasons that rents are so high is high demand. People cannot afford to get on the housing ladder. We need more affordable housing, and local councils need the funds to be able to deliver that and the powers to hold developers to account. Coronavirus has exposed how precarious the housing situation is for so many people, but to build back better, we must provide proper funding for social housing and take action on housing crisis.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am afraid that I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes in order to give everyone a chance to speak.

Westferry Printworks Development

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

Like many who have spoken in the debate today, I arrived at this place as a councillor, having served for six years. I am glad we are having this debate, because the issue cuts to the heart of what is wrong with some aspects of our democracy and the way that some decisions are made. It is probably fair to say that very few of my constituents would have found out about the Westferry Printworks development if it had not been for the Secretary of State’s intervention in the planning process and the fact that it was then splashed all over the headlines. It is true that this is about a site in London, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) has expressed eloquently the impact on her community, but it is also a familiar story to us all. It is a story about the power and influence of big property developers, the struggle to build affordable housing and address the housing crisis, and the needs of communities being ignored.

It is already well established that there is a housing crisis in the UK today. Recent research conducted on behalf of the National Housing Federation has estimated that 3.6 million people are living in overcrowded housing, that 2.5 million people cannot afford their rent or mortgage—

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Olivia Blake]

I will not give way.

The research also found that 2.5 million people are in hidden households that they cannot afford to move out of; 1.7 million people are living in unsuitable accommodation; 1.4 million people live in poor-quality housing; and 400,000 people are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The Conservatives talk about the Labour party’s record, but we went on to fix poor-quality housing. Thousands of homes were upgraded under the Labour Government, and there was a low level of homelessness. We should be doing all we can to create better-quality, environmentally sustainable, affordable homes, given the dire situation.

It was more than reasonable for the planning inspector to say that 21% affordable housing in this scheme could be improved, as the Secretary of State agreed in his letter of approval. He admitted that the planning inspector was right:

“He agrees with the Inspector that, on the balance of the available evidence, it is likely that the scheme could provide more affordable housing and that 21% does not therefore represent the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing within the terms of”

the London plan. The letter goes on to say that

“for the purpose of his assessment of the proposal…the Secretary of State proceeds on the basis that the maximum amount of affordable housing that could be reasonably delivered is uncertain, but may be up to 35%”.

Yet he still thought it was appropriate to approve the application. To make matters worse, he rushed it through 24 hours before the increase in the community infrastructure levy. The decision meant the council was losing £40 million towards affordable homes, at a time when local authorities up and down the country are already struggling to do this.

I want to mention briefly, if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. No, the hon. Lady may not. She has exceeded her time, I am afraid.