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.

Voter Registration and Participation

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase voter registration and participation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, as set out in our manifesto, this Government are committed to improving electoral registration and democratic participation. We will lower the voting age to 16 for all UK elections to widen democratic participation and encourage a lifelong commitment to voting. We are also exploring options to improve registration, including using data and online services to facilitate registration and increase registration rates. Changes will be informed by evidence and user research.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer, especially regarding data sharing. Can he assure me that he will give serious consideration to the Electoral Commission’s recommendation that there should be a requirement on public bodies to share data with electoral administrators? Will he also look at allowing young people to use, for example, student cards and travel cards as ID when voting, following the very welcome change to the use of veteran cards?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. We are exploring options to utilise data held by public bodies to encourage electoral registration, including what more can be done to enable electoral administrators to obtain local data. We are working with the Electoral Commission on this. On voter identification documents, as part of our commitment to expanding the voter franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds, we need to consider whether the requirements and patterns of ownership of identity documents for identification differ for younger voters. If we find that the list of accepted identification documents needs to be revised, the Government will bring forward proposals in due course.

Social Housebuilding

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I welcome the noble Baroness back to her place. I have set out our views about delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing. We have asked Homes England and the Greater London Authority to maximise the number of social rent homes when allocating the remaining affordable homes programme funding. Significant sums of that funding have indeed been dedicated to London. We are extending the programme’s completion deadline for all schemes in London from March 2029 to March 2030, and we are enabling the Greater London Authority to fund intermediate rent homes, within the 2021-26 programme, at a maximum of 80% of market rents. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness that we take the issue of housing in London seriously.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the consequences of a lack of social and council housing has been the growth of houses in multiple occupation? Can she assure me that she will look at giving councils adequate powers to deal with houses in multiple occupation, which can cause problems not only for those living in them but for local communities?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree that some houses in multiple occupation cause problems, but they can also provide a low-cost housing solution at certain times. However, it is important that local authorities have the powers to deal with this in their own areas. Following the recent consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework, we will look carefully at councils’ responses to see whether they have requested further powers to deal with HMOs.