Housing Supply and Homelessness

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe on securing this debate and on her powerful opening speech. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and to have been here for the valedictory speech of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, with his brilliant description of why housing is so important to society. It was also a pleasure to hear the tribute from the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port. I am a newbie to this House, but, having heard the most reverend Primate’s speech, I can absolutely see how much his contributions will be missed.

I will focus on the plight of young people facing homelessness or struggling to get on the housing ladder and, in doing so, I pay tribute to the work of the organisation Doncaster Housing for Young People. I was patron of the organisation when I was an MP and saw at first hand many of the challenges faced by young people in Doncaster, which were exacerbated by cuts to local authority budgets and a shameful lack of social housing, not just in Doncaster but nationwide. That is why I particularly welcome this Government’s strong focus on a cross-government homelessness strategy and commitment to build 1.5 million homes in England, which was reiterated by the Prime Minister this morning, with a focus on building new social homes for rent and protecting existing social housing, driven through by the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner.

A cross-government approach is so important because the experience of people such as Stuart Shore and Michéle Beck from Doncaster Housing for Young People is that so many problems for young people start if they grow up in poverty and have little family support around them. Growing up in poverty, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, does not necessarily mean that people will inevitably become homeless, but virtually all the young people who Doncaster Housing for Young People supports come from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why the Sure Start programme of the last Labour Government was so valuable and why the emphasis on pre-school support to families under this Government is going to be so important, bringing in with it the Department for Education.

Doing poorly at school and lacking skills has long-term consequences. It reduces employment prospects, which inevitably leads to difficulties in getting affordable and stable accommodation. Access to breakfast clubs, mental health support, mentoring support to equip young people —as the Government have promised through the Departments for Education, Health and Business, through the newly created Skills England agency—are absolutely crucial. The DWP goal of “earning or learning” might seem a tough message but is, in my view, essential.

As we follow the journey of a young person, we then come to the world of work. Too many young people are employed in low-paid jobs, often part-time, on zero-hour contracts with fluctuating incomes, which leads to them facing huge challenges not only in gaining tenancies but in maintaining them. The problems they face with instability of this sort are compounded when it comes to accessing universal credit, for example, which leads to further insecurity. That is why I welcome the changes to zero-hour contracts and increasing job security, as these will be vital to giving young people security at work and helping them get into rented accommodation or on to the housing ladder.

For many young people, navigating systems such as the jobcentre can be particularly daunting due to the reliance on online platforms. A young person who loses access to the internet can lose access to their universal credit portal, leading to sanctions, delayed payments and mounting rent arrears. That is where I think an enhanced role for jobcentres, as proposed by Secretary of State Liz Kendall, is absolutely right. There has been some very good work done in Doncaster to give wraparound support to young people, tailored to their individual needs. Again, that is incredibly important, so, if that role of jobcentres can be expanded, it would be very welcome.

We have to recognise that single individuals under 35 face significant housing challenges with the capping of the housing benefit for under-35s. I know that this is a matter for the Treasury, but I hope the Minister will consider this in developing the homelessness strategy. My noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, in his tribute, gave some erudite quotations. My quotation is from a musical that I think might well have been written by some Member of your Lordships’ House:

“All I want is a room somewhere


Far away from the cold night air”.

I fear that, for too many young people at the moment, this is out of their reach. But I firmly believe that, if the Government work across departments, they can, and should, make a difference that will benefit not just young people but all of society.