Supported Housing

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

And we would need an additional 300 to get anywhere close to dealing with the problem.

[Rachel Maclean]

I have worked in Birmingham for over 25 years and can confirm that the problem to which the hon. Lady refers has existed for a very long time.

[Jess Phillips]

I have lived there all my life and have worked in homelessness services for most of my adult life, and I can absolutely guarantee that right now it is worse than I have ever known it. For me to say otherwise and be positive about the situation would be to tell a lie, and I am not willing to do that.

Given my own experiences, it will be no surprise that I am going to stick up for refuge accommodation. I take issue with the Minister’s assertions that no one is turned away, because currently in this country one in four women are turned away; that is 78 women every day and 78 children every single day who find that there is nowhere for them to live. That is what is happening now. So the future assertions about refuge are very welcome, but, as was stressed in the brilliant report by Members, which has been mentioned already and is worthy of praise, women’s refuge needs a specific and different model taken off-stream, and it needs sustainability. I want to talk a little bit about why sustainability matters.

After the most recent general election—there have been more than there should have been in the time I have been here—I recall the Prime Minister commiserating with her colleagues who had lost their seats. How difficult that must have been for her, having caused the demise of their jobs. However, where I worked, I had to put every single member of staff on notice every January. Everyone was given a notice warning that their job might not be there in March because we lived hand to mouth on year-on-year funding. That is not the way I would operate my household income, and it is not the way to operate an organisation. It is not what the Government should want for the most vulnerable people in society, but that is what is happening in every supported housing charity in the country at the moment. Every single year, we had to put people on notice, and sometimes we would find out only on 30 March what funding we were going to have for the next year. There needs to be a sustainable funding pot.

I want to pick up on another thing the Minister said in his opening speech. He said he knew that demand was going to get higher. It is utterly shameful for him to stand at the Dispatch Box in this building and say, “We know it’s going to get worse. We know that more people are going to need supported accommodation.” There is one reason why the Government will need more supported accommodation for the people I have been dealing with: universal credit.

At the moment, if a woman is receiving benefits through tax credits, the money goes to her. There are lots of women across the country saving up money and putting it away, so that they can escape and will not need a refuge bed. However, under the new universal credit system, every single penny going into that household will be paid to one person. It does not take a genius to work out who usually gets the money in a household, so that money will now be going to the man. The woman, whose financial constraints are already so severe, will be limited even further by the Government’s proposals, which will not allow women to break free when they need to.

I have asked the Department for Work and Pensions whether it is monitoring who is getting the money in split payments, why people are asking for split payments and whether anyone has even asked for split payments. I have asked what data it is collecting about split payments and, funnily enough, the answer is always, “I’m sorry, we don’t collect that data.” The Government are not collecting data, and they are turning a blind eye to a group of people who are so vulnerable that they will be turning up on our doorsteps, at our surgeries and at our refuges, where they will be turned away because there is nowhere for them to go. On Tuesday, I want to see a sustainable plan that lasts for a term that is longer than five years. We have just been given another five-year term here, so how about we give that to them? We need a specific funding model for refuge services because, without it, people die.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the contribution from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and I thank her for taking my intervention. Members on both sides have made some excellent points today and I really hope that the Ministers are listening; I am confident that they are. It was also a great pleasure to listen to the Minister’s opening remarks, in which he outlined the extensive investment and support that has gone into this sector over the course of this Parliament and the last one. This demonstrates the seriousness with which the Government are treating this critical issue for our communities and our society. Let us not forget that this has been achieved against a challenging and difficult financial backdrop. When we talk about what we are hoping to hear, let us look also at the record of investment that we have already delivered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) suggested.

I saw this provision for myself when I visited Dorothy Terry House in Redditch on one of my first constituency visits. It provides incredible enriching care for elderly and complex-needs patients, including people with dementia and a number of other needs. It has 42 highly specified one and two-bedroom apartments and communal areas designed to ensure that residents can lead an enriching life and have access to all the local amenities of Redditch on their doorstep. It has welcomed the announcement that the Prime Minister made at the Dispatch Box today. During my short time in Parliament, I have engaged extensively with representatives of the housing sector, including the National Housing Federation, which I am glad to see has welcomed this announcement. I am glad that the Government are listening, and I have seen Ministers taking extensive notes about the points made today, so I look forward to hearing about what they will bring forward on Tuesday.

I know that Government will be doing this, but I call on them to consider the recommendations of the report by the Communities and Local Government Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee, to which many Members have referred and which contains some excellent points. It is important to have a separate funding model for refuges and hostels, because they play an important role for women and children who are the victims of domestic violence, as we have heard already. We take that seriously, and we want those important services that play a vital role in our communities to be protected. Our Prime Minister also takes it seriously, and when she was Home Secretary I went with her to a supported facility that puts on treatment and programmes for women in Birmingham. I saw how she listened to the families and women and how much she took from that meeting.

As a new Member, I am glad of the opportunity to take part in Opposition day debates, and I think I have taken part in every single one. I do not always agree with the Opposition motion, which is why I choose to exercise my right to vote or not to vote, as the case may be—[Interruption.] I think that is democracy. I am here to decide after taking part and sitting and listening to the debate and the arguments.

The Opposition Front-Bench spokesman came up with four tests for the Government’s consultation that he expects to see next week, but I want to ask him about one thing. He will obviously be critical of what comes forward, but I would like him to take the proposal seriously and to engage in a serious discussion about the necessary funding and about how he and his party would fund the need in this area without racking up more debt or increasing taxes.

[Several hon. Members rose—]