Employment Rights Bill

Paula Barker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We want the culture to change as well. We have had a race to the bottom where workers have not been protected, and we have seen the biggest wave of strike action because of the previous Government.

We want employers and trade unions to come together to grow our economy. The employers and the unions are up for that challenge, because we know that the world of work is fairer and more productive when working people can come together to negotiate fair pay and decent conditions. That is why we are reinstating the school support staff negotiating body in recognition of the vital role that support staff play in the workforce and in young people’s education.

As a former carer, I have said from day one that in this place I will champion carers and the complex, high-quality and professional work that they do. I am so proud to say that after 14 years, their extraordinary, life-saving contribution to our community will no longer be devalued by low pay and lack of career progression. For the first time, thanks to this Labour Government, there will be a historic fair pay agreement process in the adult social care sector, with a new body empowered to negotiate pay and conditions and ensure that training and a career structure are in place. At last, care will be rightly regarded as a multi-skilled profession and carers will be confident that they have the respect and income that they deserve for looking after our vulnerable loved ones and helping to manage the pressures on the NHS and in social care.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my right hon. Friend agree that care workers are often the Cinderella service? They are low paid, but certainly not low skilled. It is time we got to grips with hostile employers who do not pay travel time.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The disparity in the terms and conditions for care workers actually impedes recruitment: we are seeing huge numbers of vacancies in the care sector. Through the fair pay agreement, I want to see carers being treated with fairness for the valuable contribution they make. They are also key to tackling the challenges we face in our NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

No, I will make a little progress. The cost of all these measures—in individual opportunities and to the wider economy—is huge. The Government may try to deny that, despite their clear lack of experience of the real world of business. It is extremely alarming that not one of those on the Front Bench today have ever started or run a business that employed anyone. Even worse than that, only one member of the Cabinet has ever done so, and that is the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Shamefully, given what is at stake, the Government cannot deny our case that the Bill will have a huge economic cost, because today—finally, two hours before this debate—they have actually produced the impact assessments. The cost of the Bill is on the very first page: up to £5 billion per annum. The word “uncertain” appears 302 times in those impact assessments, and the word “risk” is used 432 times, so the cost is likely to be much more.

[Paula Barker]

The shadow Minister has just said that shamefully there is only one person on our Front Bench who has run a business. How many of his Front-Bench team are trade union members?

Renters’ Rights Bill

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

Let me start by congratulating the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), for working relentlessly on these matters in opposition and carrying that momentum into Government. This far-reaching Bill will end section 21 no-fault evictions, which for too long have been a major factor in driving up homelessness. It gives real protections to those who have been left to the whims of the market and have borne the brunt of the housing crisis and a protected period at the beginning of the tenancy, brings an end to discrimination faced by those in receipt of social security, brings an end to the bidding wars, and rolls out the decent homes standard across the private rented sector.

The Government will no doubt face stiff resistance from the usual suspects, who will endeavour to pick away at key aspects of the legislation, not least the four-month notice period that the homelessness sector and charities such as Crisis have welcomed. I urge the Government to stand firm, knowing that they are on the right side of history.

Since 1980, the private rented sector has more than doubled in size, overtaking social housing to become Britain’s second-largest form of housing tenure. The PRS is the most expensive of all forms of housing tenure, and rents are increasing. In 2023 the Centre for Policy Studies noted:

“Since 2010, the cost of renting has gone up by 44.5% according to the Halifax. During this period, wages have risen by 30.4% and inflation has risen by 24%. This is hardly a sign of a functioning market.”

Not only in London but in our great northern cities, including Liverpool and Manchester, the private rented sector has lost all sense of proportion as a cabal of landlords and letting agents has sought to jack up rents again and again. Young adults are particularly affected.

Remaining on rents, the Government must go further. I urge them to look at rent stabilisation methods, including tagging rents to the lowest of local wage growth or inflation to guard against further hardship being faced by our communities. On enforcement of the decent homes standard, I urge the Government to resource local authorities adequately to ensure that that work is carried through effectively. I also raise a small but significant absence in the Bill: reform of the deposit system, which is routinely abused in too many instances. I will look to work with the Minister on a constructive amendment in that regard.

The national database is a game changer with the potential to properly regulate the sector across the piece. I would like to see more information available on the national database, including information on letting agents managing tenancies being tagged to properties. As we move into this new phase to protect the millions living in the private rented sector, education and information being readily available is crucial to tenants knowing and understanding their rights. Maybe we could use the national database as a portal for resources available to tenants.

I end by once again paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister. I know that he has a steely determination to see the Bill through. I hope that Members across the House will back him in doing so.

Building Homes

Paula Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The short answer is when it next updates. As I said in my answer to the shadow Secretary of State, councils that have an up-to-date local plan will not be made to start again. I commend the right hon. Gentleman’s local authority for having an up-to-date plan, because that is the best way to have consultations with a local area and provide the housing that local people need. This Government will work with local leaders and mayors to make sure that we deliver the houses that local people want and deal with the crisis they face.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making a superb statement. She knows that she will have strong support on the Labour Benches for building the homes that we need in Liverpool to tackle homelessness, rising costs and the huge waiting list for social housing, but councils will be reluctant to build if they know that houses will simply end up in the hands of private landlords who exploit the right to buy. I welcome her review into the higher discounts imposed by the last Government. Can she assure me that it will be a rapid review? Given the mess that she has inherited, there is no time to waste in clearing this up.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Again, the short answer is yes, it will be a rapid review. We were already speaking about this issue before the election. We want to make sure that people take part in the review, but we are also very clear that the discounts that the last Government applied to the right-to-buy formula in 2012 mean that councils cannot replace the houses that are bought under the right-to-buy scheme. We believe that people should have the right to buy, but it has to be balanced against the discounts given to the public on our social housing stock, so that we can make sure that we replace that stock for those who desperately need it.

Families in Temporary Accommodation

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I agree. Those families are being failed, and they are being failed by us all unless we get action to build more social housing.

The shocking thing is that the weaker someone is, and the less fight they have, the worse they get treated. A child with special needs will often find themselves in the ridiculous situation whereby the social services department—in the same council as the housing department that placed the child outside their borough—scraps the transport to their special school because their council has moved them out of their area. It is extraordinary that we make victims of those people, who just cannot stand up for themselves.

Members would not believe the fortune that taxpayers spend on such unacceptable accommodation—accommodation that you wouldn’t put your pet in. London boroughs spend £90 million every month on it, which is 40% more than they spent last year. Councils in England alone spent £1.74 billion on temporary accommodation in 2022/23—that is 10% more than the year before and a 62% increase over five years. Some councils seriously risk bankruptcy because of the cost of temporary accommodation.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend, who is undoubtedly a doughty champion for those in temporary accommodation in constituencies up and down the country, is making a powerful and moving speech. The Secretary of State has expressed his regret about the number of children living in temporary accommodation, even though he has sat on the Government Benches throughout. The figures that my hon. Friend outlines make for very grim reading indeed, and it is clear that we cannot go on like that. Does she agree that a future Labour Government will have to work at pace across all Government Departments, rather than in silos, to get those numbers down, just as we did last time we were in office?

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Providing more social housing, and giving more support to families in temporary accommodation, needs to be a mission of the next Labour Government.

It strikes me as extraordinary that we, as a nation, are spending £1.74 billion on temporary accommodation, knowing that the figure will not go down any time soon. In Merton, we have one of the lowest numbers of families in temporary accommodation. The figure stands at between 400 and 500 families, but that is 400% higher than it ever used to be. With the ban on section 21 evictions again kicked into the long grass, I have no doubt that I will continue to see more and more families turn up at my weekly advice surgeries having been evicted from their homes and forced into temporary accommodation.

However, we can solve this crisis; it just needs the political will, which is, I would argue, something that we have been missing over the past 14 years. I do not know how anyone can say that building more social housing has been at the top of the Government’s priority list, given that we have had 15 housing Ministers in 10 years, with an average tenure of nine months each. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) is very talented, and I know that she is sympathetic to our arguments and has helped the APPG on temporary accommodation greatly, but I think even she would find it difficult to struggle around this generational crisis in less than a year.

I try not to take things personally in politics, but when a Government treat housing as a political game—another hotseat for the latest Minister, only for them to be turfed out months later—it is difficult not to be angry. Never has this country needed a cross-party, long-term consensus about tackling our housing crisis more than it does now, and never have a Government seemed so ill equipped for that challenge. I appreciate that I may be biased, but the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities must be desperate for a Labour Government, just to give it some stability. I bet that a fair few of the 112,660 families living in temporary accommodation would like to see that, too.

Here is what we can do. There are 19,334 hectares of unbuilt green belt within a 10-minute walk of London train stations where there is enough space for 1 million new homes—that would be a very sensible start. Then, we could look at dealing with land bankers: in 2019, the FTSE 100 house-building companies were sitting on land banks of more than 300,000 plots between them. That is even more land that could be used for some of the families I have mentioned today. Finally, it feels like stating the obvious, but we could bring back mandatory house-building targets for local authorities. It is incredibly important to bring back those targets, and I am glad that Labour Front Benchers have committed to do just that.

There is one party in this House refusing to build on the grey belt, removing housing targets and delaying the ban on section 21 evictions, and its Members are not sat on the Opposition Benches. I issue a plea to the Government: build the homes my constituents deserve, so that we can end the vicious cycle of temporary accommodation. The situation is desperate, and I hope that the Government give it the political will it deserves.

Youth Homelessness

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered youth homelessness.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I should declare that my husband is chair of YMCA Together, in Liverpool—it is an unpaid role—and that I am a national patron for YMCA. I pay tribute to the colleagues and friends from various organisations in the homelessness sector who are here today. We have representatives from New Horizon Youth Centre, Centrepoint and Depaul. Thank you for the work that you do and for being here today.

Those colleagues who know me well know that I have a very keen interest in all matters relating to homelessness —hopefully, some would say a serious interest. I am also very proud to be a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. I use my role to regularly raise awareness, where and when I can. I am more than happy to be considered a broken record on homelessness. Given that I care deeply about being a voice for those who may feel they have none, I will accept such a charge. I know that if I am a nuisance to the Minister—I have a lot of time for her, as she well knows—and my hon. and very good Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), I will be playing my small part in moving the needle towards progress and change.

Homelessness is multifaceted. Different forms exist. They range from sofa surfing and rough sleeping, to being stuck in temporary accommodation, and so much more besides. Yesterday we saw the latest statistics released by the Department and they once again reveal the scale of the problem—more than 112,000 households and 145,000 children in temporary accommodation.

Of course, homelessness is caused by different factors: poverty, trauma, leaving care, being a victim of domestic abuse—the list goes on and on, and different demographics of people are affected in a multitude of ways. They include women, young people, those who define as LGBTQ+, our veterans, prison leavers and many more. The solution to the homelessness emergency therefore must be multifaceted. Yes, we desperately need to build more homes for truly affordable and social rent, but so too must we properly fund our local authorities and reform the welfare system—although not in the way that we have seen announced this week—and essentially we must tackle the underlying trauma that the vast majority of people who find themselves homeless have experienced in one form or another. All of this will require all of Government—not just one part—to put it front and centre. Anything less is simply not good enough.

Amid such an emergency, young people are often overlooked by the system. There is growing concern that ever greater revenue constraints being placed on local government lead to young people and young adults getting a raw deal from a system already at breaking point. Young people who experience homelessness are overlooked, in my opinion, by Government, by the Department and, yes, by Members from across this place. Although I know that there are local elections tomorrow, I am saddened that we are not seeing more Members here today for this incredibly important debate.

I am reliably informed that this is the first time in nearly 40 years that such time has been dedicated to the specific issue of youth homelessness. The previous time, in 1985, was largely because the late Alfred Morris, the former Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe and latterly Lord Morris, took it upon himself to raise the matter with the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. I was reading through the Hansard entry and I despaired at the fact that that contribution, the words that Alfred Morris spoke in 1985, could be said here today, in 2024. The former Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe said there was

“no information available on the numbers of homeless adolescents and young people in London and the other major conurbations.”—[Official Report, 24 May 1985; Vol. 79, c. 1303.]

He went on to talk about the lack of cross-departmental working to tackle the problem, saying,

“the present piecemeal approach to the problem of homelessness among young people is hampering other valuable work in this sector”,

and,

“The DHSS, the Department of Education and Science, the Department of the Environment, the Home Office and local authorities are all involved in different, but not very clearly differentiated, aspects of the problem.”—[Official Report, 24 May 1985; Vol. 79, c. 1304.]

It is staggering to think 40 years later how little overall progress has been made. Even where it has been—for example, under the last Labour Government—surely it has since been eroded. We still do not truly know how many young adults find themselves homeless. The data collected by the Department could be so much better and so much more far-reaching. Given that we are almost certain to have a general election at some point in 2024, I truly hope that my Opposition Front-Bench colleagues will consider the demands that I will put to the Government today. Collecting better data on young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 will not alarm any fiscal hawk at the Treasury. It is good policy, and can be achieved very simply: by making amendments to the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

As it is, we rely on the likes of Centrepoint, the national youth homelessness charity, which through its databank work has estimated that nearly 136,000 young people approached their local council as homeless in 2022-23. Many of them were not even close to getting formally assessed. Despite Centrepoint’s numbers being much larger than those of the Department, it should be noted that those are a small c conservative estimate that do not include the thousands of young people classified as the hidden homeless—for instance, those young people sofa surfing and those who have not approached their local council in any way.

To obtain such information for England, Centrepoint had to make freedom of information requests for every local authority in the country. That is absolutely ridiculous and shameful. How can the Government properly begin to solve the problem if they do not truly understand the scale of it? That is why charities like Centrepoint—teaming up with the likes of the Albert Kennedy Trust, the YMCA and the fantastic New Horizon Youth Centre, which does so much to help young people in London, and 100 youth organisations—are calling for a national youth homelessness strategy: a plan for the 136,000.

Back in March, campaigners calling for a plan for the 136,000 homeless young people garnered more than 15,000 signatures on a UK Government petition. As they rightly said in their petition,

“no one is talking about this”

and there is no specific national plan to tackle youth homelessness. I ask the Minister to please refrain from trotting out the usual spiel about how much money the Department is throwing at homelessness—with little success, may I add?—and to instead commit today to start putting together a far-reaching and ambitious national youth homelessness strategy this side of the election: a plan for the 136,000.

As Alfred Morris highlighted in 1985, Departments did not work with each other then, and they still do not today. Those experiencing homelessness, not least our young people, are always the ones who bear the brunt of Whitehall working in its traditional silos. Despite a valiant effort by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) when he was a Minister to at least secure some cross-departmental buy-in for the rough sleeping strategy, this Government have shown no real vision in operating the cross-departmental working that a national youth homelessness strategy would rely on.

Young people can experience homelessness for a plethora of reasons. Their experience if they do can be nothing short of desperate, and they are routinely institutionally failed by the state. Many are not supported to transition into adulthood and, as such, they face unique barriers that can push them into homelessness. They may lack the documents to evidence their homelessness—for example, written confirmation from their caregiver that they are no longer welcome in the home. I have had the privilege of meeting many young people at New Horizon in London. They told me that they were not taken seriously or believed when they were presented at a council, and many local authorities fail to provide a proper homelessness assessment. Some young people are asked to return home when that may not be safe. Furthermore, they may not know what support is available beyond the family home that they need to leave. So we need wholesale change. Young people deserve better. Our care leavers deserve better.

The cost of youth homelessness to the Treasury is estimated to be £8.5 billion a year, or an average of £27,347 for each young homeless person. Young people are vulnerable to homelessness due to unique barriers, including a lack of visibility, reduced benefits and a shortage of affordable youth-specific housing. I just mentioned the poor outcomes for young people who approach their local council for support. In my city of Liverpool, 1,849 young people approached the council as homeless, but only 332 were assessed by the local authority. A total of 1,743 people were not supported into housing after approaching Liverpool City Council. I do not blame my council; I blame this Government. Resources are scarce and the council is stretched to absolute breaking point. Young people often bear the brunt of local government austerity more than most. Liverpool City Council is projected to see temporary accommodation costs rise from £250,000 in 2019 to £25 million by the end of this financial year, which is a rise of 10,000%.

What could a national strategy achieve? A national cross-departmental youth homelessness strategy could look at extending priority need to all care leavers up to age 25, as well as exempting them from council tax payments. A national strategy could work with colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions to look at taper rates for those young people in supported housing who are disincentivised from taking on extra hours at work, and as a result cannot move on to independent living. In hotspot areas, a national strategy could see councils adopting localised youth homelessness strategies, with dedicated youth homelessness teams. It could also look at repurposing a small part of the single homelessness accommodation programme to include youth-specific provision. We need a plan for the 136,000. A national strategy could do that and so much more much besides.

Behind the headline figures and the policies are human stories of desperation and frustration—stories of untapped potential and young people not being able to fulfil their hopes, dreams and aspirations. I have witnessed first-hand the fantastic work of local charities such as the Whitechapel Centre in Liverpool, the Mustard Tree in Manchester and the New Horizon Youth Centre in north London.

New Horizon’s chief executive, Phil Kerry, head of policy, Polly, and their whole team told me the story of Zephyr. At 20 years old, university student Zephyr suddenly had to leave his family home in east London after a family breakdown last summer. He had nowhere else to go, so he spent over a week on the streets of London, which he says was awful. He struggled to find food, so spent much of the week starving. During that time, Zephyr came across New Horizon Youth Centre outreach workers, who invited him into the day centre where he received food and was able to shower. He was given emergency accommodation for a week. After at least three weeks of waiting, he was accepted into a medium-stay hostel where he was able to volunteer.

Being off the streets and in stable accommodation allowed Zephyr to focus on his future. However, he was developing severe issues with his mental health as a result of being homeless and of his financial situation, so he had to drop out of university. Through mental health support, jobs education and training support from New Horizon, he is now in full-time employment as a support assistant for a housing association in London. He is still staying in hostel accommodation and is waiting until he can afford a room of his own in the private rented sector. Zephyr’s dream is to become a youth worker to help other young people in situations like his own.

There are at least 136,000 more stories like Zephyr’s, and for every Zephyr there is someone like him who may not have a New Horizon Youth Centre to support them. Never mind the economic cost: if a person fails to get angry when contemplating the possible waste of human potential through youth homelessness, I would argue that they are simply not human. Zephyr needs hope, but more importantly he deserves a future. Surely that is why we all entered politics. Austerity economics, the cost of living crisis, low wages and a housing crisis that is out of control have led us to this place.

All our young people are struggling, across the board, but care leavers, those who cannot access mental health support and those who have suffered family breakdown, have untold trauma and then fall on the wrong side of a homeless emergency—who will speak up for them? The third sector does an absolutely amazing job, but we cannot absolve ourselves of our responsibilities in this place and across Whitehall. This has been going on for far too long. The state has a much more active role to play.

It falls to all of us in this place to speak up for our young people who experience homelessness and, crucially, to make change happen. I hope that the Minister can agree today to changing how data is collected and commit to implementing a youth homelessness strategy. I would also very much welcome a commitment to looking at removing the elements relating to homelessness from the Criminal Justice Bill, which is an issue that I have consistently raised in this place.

--- 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, Dame Siobhain. I thank the House for assembling here to debate the very important topic of youth homelessness, and those in the Public Gallery who have come into Parliament today. I also thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), who I know well as my shadow Minister, for her thoughtful contribution. I will address her big picture points on data and the youth homelessness strategy, but first I will address a few of the specific questions that I have been asked.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) for his powerful and brief contribution. It is good that he was able to do so with a struggling voice. I agree with him that alcohol and drug addiction are significant drivers of homelessness. That is why the Government are investing £186.5 million over the three-year spending review period, and we allocated £15 million as part of the cross-Government drug strategy. I agree that homelessness is a complex problem, but addiction clearly is part of it. I reassure my hon. Friend that I work incredibly closely with colleagues in the Department of Health.

I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his contribution. I particularly thank him for participating since housing is devolved in Northern Ireland. He raised powerful points.

The suggestion that the Government are not working in a cross-Government way and are siloed is slightly ironic, because this morning I chaired the cross-Government rough sleeping board, part of which consists of the senior officials in every relevant Department. I assure the House that there is a lot of cross-Government working happening, which is critical.

[Paula Barker]

It is wonderful to hear the Minister speak about chairing the cross-Government rough sleeping board, but has she asked why it is failing and why the numbers are consistently going up?

[Felicity Buchan]

Rough sleeping has ticked up over the past year, but it is still down from the pre-pandemic numbers and the peaks in 2017. Clearly, every single person rough sleeping is one too many. We have particular issues in London with rough sleepers who have no recourse to public funds, and we encourage support for them, but that is an entrenched issue. The Government are working to address any new flow of rough sleepers; I want to give the House a few examples of that.

We have been working incredibly closely with the Ministry of Justice to address those leaving prison. There are sometimes relatively simple solutions, such as not releasing someone from prison on a Friday, given that there is no local authority support over the weekend. I was very happy to hear that the number of prison leavers who are rough sleeping has gone down by one third, but there is clearly still work to be done.

I have also worked incredibly closely with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that people are not released from hospital on to the streets. In the winter, we formulated new guidance on that for all hospitals, and we made exceptional money available and suggested that it could be used on hospital discharge.

I work incredibly closely with my colleagues in the Department for Education. The hon. Lady rightly referred to care leavers who are rough sleeping, and I will talk about them in more depth.

We also work very closely with the Home Office. An issue that has come up in the Chamber in the past is that there are a lot of people who have successful asylum claims, and in some instances when they leave Home Office accommodation they go to their local authority for support. We have clearly seen an uptick in successful asylum seekers.

I could not agree more that we need to build more homes, and this Government are on track to achieve our manifesto commitment of 1 million homes during the life of this Parliament; we have a target of 300,000 homes per year. I thought it was a bit rich when the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) said the Labour party would be better at delivering more homes, given that London under the Labour Mayor is the worst-performing region for housing delivery and has required intervention from the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paula Barker]

I thank all Members for taking part in this important debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) for his contribution, which was delivered with his usual aplomb even if he was quite croaky today. We disagree on the issue of net immigration and those factors—we have served on the Home Affairs Committee together. I suggest that the immigration problems are part of the wider issue of the Government not getting to grips with the backlog, and also the significant money they are spending on hotels. I am sure we will have that debate outside this place when he has his voice back in full flow.

As a journalist, the hon. Gentleman spent time on the streets, and he spoke about drug addiction in his usual, knowledgeable fashion. I completely agree that we have to do more to support people with drug and alcohol addiction. For me, that starts with trauma-informed services. Trauma-informed and trauma-led services should be mandatory, and that is a challenge that I pose to my good friend on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), if we are lucky enough to form a Government at the next election.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is sadly not in his place, delivered his contribution with his usual knowledge and compassion, and it was very interesting to hear about his contributions in Northern Ireland. I know how much this debate means to the sector, which does so much to serve our communities, and particularly young people. Once again, I thank all Members for being here today, and I hope that my colleagues have taken something away from the debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale for his valuable contribution. I know, through our many years of friendship, that he understands the issues, and I am committed to ensuring that, in the months ahead, he loses the word “shadow” from his title. We can then start to tackle some of these matters head on, and hopefully together. I applaud his commitment to increasing housing supply, ending section 21 evictions and tackling all forms of homelessness, including youth homelessness. I hope that the shadow Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities team considers how we can learn lessons from the last Labour Government. We had practically eradicated homelessness and rough sleeping by the time we left office in 2010. My good friend spoke about Dame Louise Casey, and I hope we can learn lessons from her marvellous work and have a truly cross-departmental strategy.

I thank the Minister for her thoughtful contribution and reply. I totally respect her commitment to these matters but, sadly, I feel that she is a member of a tired Government who have manifestly failed to deliver on their intention with respect to all forms of homelessness. She has been set up to fail in the same way as some of her predecessors. Homelessness may have briefly been a priority for the Government under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), but I believe it has since fallen down the agenda.

I finish by imploring right hon. and hon. Members to continue talking about youth homelessness. Please talk up the need for a national youth homelessness strategy and be the voice for those 136,000 young people, because they deserve to have a life well lived in which they can fulfil their potential and realise their dreams, hopes and aspirations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered youth homelessness.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this matter. We have funded similar land purchases, but this will be dependent on the factors locally.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

11. What progress he has made on ending rough sleeping.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to end rough sleeping.

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

The Government are committed to ending rough sleeping. We published our cross-government strategy “Ending rough sleeping for good” in September 2022, and we are investing an unprecedented £2.4 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over three years. Rough sleeping levels were 18% lower in 2023 than they were at the peak in 2017 and they were 9% lower than pre-pandemic levels.

[Paula Barker]

This Government and Department have presided over a litany of failures. The Conservative party has pledged to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. I have to disagree with the hon. Lady, because rough sleeping numbers are yet again on the up. Instead of fulfilling their manifesto commitment, the Government have prioritised criminalising the homeless, rather than ending homelessness. Even many Conservative Back Benchers cannot support that, so when will this Department’s leadership grow a backbone and tell their colleagues in the Home Office to shelve the pernicious plans that exist within the Criminal Justice Bill?

[Felicity Buchan]

This Government are absolutely committed to ending rough sleeping, which is why we are investing £2.4 billion. Importantly, £1.2 billion is going into prevention, so that we prevent homelessness before it happens. I want to address the point about the Criminal Justice Bill. The Government are clear that no one should be criminalised for having nowhere to live. The Bill gives powers to the police and local authorities only where behaviour causes damage, distress, harassment or disruption. Guidance will be issued that makes it clear that outreach and support should be prioritised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about making sure that we strike the right balance. We have brought forward significant reforms in the Bill, but I am happy to continue to talk to him and other Members who are interested. The Government continue to look at what more can be done.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

T7. Last week we saw, for a second year running, rough sleeping numbers up by more than a quarter—that is a lot of people to criminalise if the Criminal Justice Bill remains unamended. More than 100,000 households, including 140,000 children, find themselves stuck in temporary accommodation, yet the mere mention of temporary accommodation sees Ministers pivot away from the subject entirely. This should be a source of shame for this Government. So where is the national plan to end all forms of homelessness? I sincerely hope it is not in the same place as the Government’s plan for ending section 21 evictions.

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

This Government have a clear plan that we introduced last year: ending rough sleeping for good. We announced £2 billion behind it and the figure is now £2.4 billion. We are giving unprecedented amounts of money to this very important task.

Draft Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg and to respond on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench team.

I am very familiar with the Building Safety Act. I was the shadow Housing Minister who took it through the Public Bill Committee and Report stage, and I tabled amendments to it. We worked constructively with former Ministers—and, indeed, the Secretary of State—to bring it on its journey.

We worked with key stakeholders in our constituencies and way beyond, including Cladiators campaigners, the National Leasehold Campaign, End Our Cladding Scandal, and the UK Cladding Action Group—all groups that the Minister is very familiar with. The Act is a landmark piece of legislation. It changes the regulatory regime and creates a professional culture in the construction and development industry, focused on high-rise buildings, the definition of which is in the legislation.

As the Minister rightly said, the context is the learning from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, where 72 people lost their lives, and earlier fires such as Lakanal House fire. It must be acknowledged that progress has been made. A new landscape of regulation has been created. The Building Safety Regulator is now alive, although not quite kicking; we certainly have a shared interest to get that going in the right direction. Practical remediation has started on a considerable number of buildings, but there is more to be done. Far too many buildings are still not remediated, and some developers are not doing what they should be doing. The Chair of this Committee is very familiar with that, and has spoken powerfully to challenge that in Runcorn in his constituency, as Members across the Committee have done in theirs. There are still issues around insurance and the broader financial sector—mortgages and so forth—that the Minister has been addressing.

Let me turn to the regulations. As the Minister said, they are about the golden thread of information, the principal accountable person and any other accountable person for what is classified as a high-risk building. It is vital that all leaseholders and residents are given a voice and empowered by this new regime, through that critical information—we have spoken about the previous learning. The Minister also referred to the emergency services and other key stakeholders in the building safety regime.

A concern that has been raised with me by the UK Cladding Action Group and some notable lawyers—the Minister will be familiar with some of them—is the cost of the cladding scandal potentially being passed on to leaseholders. There is reference to industry, but the Minister and Members across the House will know from experience that the magic, non-transparent money tree is tucked away in service charges. I would like the Minister to elaborate on that point.

Regulations 7 and 8 and schedule 2 require paper copies, potentially of three different documents, given to everyone over the age of 16. At large sites, that may involve giving multiple copies to multiple residents and, across hundreds of flats, that would be thousands of copies. The regulations state that those should be paper copies, so the cost of servicing that could be quite challenging. Again, there could be an opportunity for a managing agent, who may be the principal accountable person, to put that on to a service charge. We have seen some evidence of that from early regulations in the not-too-distant past, which I will happily present to the Minister.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wholly unacceptable if the costs of additional paperwork that has to be filed were passed on to leaseholders in their service charges? They have already suffered enough. As we know only too well, 72 people lost their lives at Grenfell through no fault of their own. We have to do everything we can to protect these individuals.

[Mike Amesbury]

That principle has been debated at length. Various Government Ministers, including the Minister here today, have spoken about the fundamental principle that it should not be the innocent leaseholder who pays, but those who were responsible for this toxic mess in the first place. I would be interested to hear the Minister elaborate on that in his response.

It has been put to me that regulations 15 to 19 could be open to abuse. The only way to challenge service charges is to produce comparable evidence. As I have stated, most accountable persons will be managing agents, and they will grab every opportunity—we have lots of evidence of this—to give no details of their charges. There is another piece of legislation going through the House as we speak that might address some of those concerns. An example is the commercial confidentiality exemption in regulation 17, which managing agents could use to avoid being transparent and open about increasing—and at times, astronomical—costs. That could be an unintentional result of the regulation. I would like to hear the Minister’s assurance and elaboration on that point.

In summary, this is a technical and necessary statutory instrument, but the fundamental principle is that further costs should not be passed on to leaseholders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

I welcome the new Minister to his place. In the Secretary of State’s address to his party conference there was barely a mention of levelling up, and no mention whatsoever of the Government’s 12 missions, which were central to the original White Paper designed to tackle regional inequalities across England. There now exists a gaping chasm between a transformative change promised by the rhetoric of levelling up and the actual reality. Is the truth of the matter not that Downing Street has totally lost interest in that agenda, while the Department’s leadership bumbles on directionless and toothless, its bold promises unfulfilled and, in many cases, utterly disregarded?

[Jacob Young]

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words and her question, though I completely disagree with her. At the party conference we announced £1 billion for our long-term plan for towns, which will help us level up towns right across the country. I hope she welcomes that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a testament to the good work of Bromley Council that he can demonstrate this and talk about it with knowledge and experience. Multi-year financial settlements are something that we all aspire to. One of the reasons we brought forward the policy statement for financial year 2024-25 was to ensure greater clarity for councils at the end of this spending review, and we hope to be able to return to multi-year settlements in future Parliaments.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

Discretionary housing payments administered by councils are a vital resource in staving off homelessness. The figures—£140 million in 2021-22, £100 million in 2022-23 and remaining flat for the next two years—show a £40 million cut and further cuts owing to increasing demand and inflationary pressures. Section 21 evictions are not slowing down, the number of households facing rent arrears is soaring and the number being forced into temporary accommodation is skyrocketing. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has ultimate responsibility for homelessness, so when will Ministers at the Department tell their colleagues in the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions to wake up and smell the coffee?

[Lee Rowley]

One of the reasons why we have given local government additional funds in this financial year, as I just told the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), is precisely that we recognise that there are challenges. The Government have also allocated an additional £100 million for the most vulnerable households, to be administered through local authorities, which demonstrates the commitment to both local authorities and the most vulnerable in our society.