Supported Housing

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, too, am now aware of that convention, although the hon. Gentleman’s point was a good one.

The development of new supported housing schemes using innovative models is of vital strategic importance to councils providing adult social care services. It will help them meet the care and support needs of an ageing population, making the best use of limited budgets. Such models provide people with greater independence, meet the support needs of individuals and are more cost-effective than residential provision.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I apologise for missing the first few words of my hon. Friend’s speech. He is making a strong case.

Worcestershire County Council, which has contacted me, fears that some of the schemes on which it is working with Fortis Living and the Rooftop Housing Group may be under threat as a result of this application of the cap. The council wanted me to ensure that my hon. Friend expressed those concerns this evening.

[Peter Aldous]

The position in Suffolk is the same as the position in Worcestershire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend goes to the nub of the issue. We are not talking about fiscal changes regarding general needs housing, which is a separate issue. We understand that there has been a significant increase in the housing benefit bill over the past number of years and we have to reduce that. We are talking here about young people who are fleeing violent backgrounds, women who are fleeing violent partners, and teenagers, children and young adults who have mental health issues—my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney alluded to this point. That situation is different, so the Minister needs to put a case to the Treasury that a much more long-term and sustainable funding regime should be put in place before we go any further.

I mentioned delayed discharge. If only we were in a position to plan these supported housing schemes properly—they are now under threat, as my hon. Friend so eloquently revealed—we would make a net saving. The process might take five or 10 years, but we must consider the number of older people who are admitted to hospital when they do not need to be in acute hospital beds, but instead need appropriate housing to deal with their specific individual needs.

[Mr Robin Walker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many elderly people and those with specific conditions might be able to avoid a hospital admission altogether if they had the right supported housing?

[Mr Jackson]

Absolutely. One of the great pleasures of being a constituency MP is that we get to visit some of these excellent supported housing schemes—these extra care centres—with Friary Court and the Pavilions being two that Axiom Housing Association has in the urban area of Peterborough.

May I allude briefly to the specific concerns that Mr Lewin raised about the impact of these changes in the Peterborough area? He said:

“Axiom has already felt one of the consequences of the proposed LHA policy—a flagship extra care scheme for 60 vulnerable people at Whittlesey is now on hold as we cannot commit to building these new projects when there is uncertainty surrounding the future revenue funding streams.”

Whittlesey is actually in North East Cambridgeshire, but the point is very reasonable. The policy has a particular impact when low-value land is involved, as is the case in our neighbouring authority of Fenland, although that also applies to other parts of the east of England.

Mr Lewin also mentions the services that are affected, which include young persons’ foyers, homeless hostels, specialist supported housing, extra care housing and sheltered housing. He goes on to detail the

“current impact on each of these schemes/projects based on current rents and service charges”.

For instance, the Peterborough Foyer and the Wisbech Foyer, which do a really good job for young people who want to get off benefits, find work, training or internships, and make something of their lives and improve themselves, will face a cumulative loss in annual income of £620,557. He said that our homeless hostels, such as Fairview Court and New Haven, would lose £461,735. The three Peterborough extra care schemes, two of which I have mentioned, will lose £794,704.

Part of the problem is that we do not get a generic service with such specialist housing. We have night porter services for safety and security, which is an enhanced service that has to be paid for. Losses will also vary according to the amount of Supporting People money that funds support costs. When there is little such money, the costs are included in the housing benefit element of the service charge, which will now be capped. Mr Lewin goes on to say that the projected lost revenue to Axiom for supported housing is £2.2 million.

Unless the Government have quite an innovative, forward-looking and visionary approach for how else that money can be made up, many of the registered providers that provide this much-needed housing for vulnerable people will find themselves in great difficulty, and that will clearly impact on work in the community and in general needs housing. A local housing association in my constituency, Cross Keys Homes, runs an apprenticeship school, which is a fantastic scheme. There will be a knock-on effect—a cumulative knock-on effect across the country—in terms of how individuals will have to be taken care of if they cannot be housed in the most appropriate way.