Teresa Pearce
Main Page: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)Supported Housing
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Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to have this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) for securing this debate. There does seem to be cross-party support for and interest in this issue, because it affects every constituency. My right hon. Friend mentioned how it affects the north-east, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris). I was very interested in what the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said about how different the situation is outside London. Local housing allowance in London is at a completely different level from what it is in some rural areas. That important point must not be forgotten.
Supported housing means that no one is left behind. It is what makes a civilised society. We have heard passionate speeches today about how in all areas, people will be affected in different ways. The majority of supported housing tenants depend on housing benefit to cover the cost of their housing. The proposed application of the local housing allowance rate in social housing would have a significant impact on the most vulnerable residents in all our communities. The decision is already having a devastating effect before it even comes into force: the building of thousands of vital supported homes has been delayed or scrapped altogether because of uncertainty over future funding.
The National Housing Federation estimates that 82,000 specialist homes will be forced to close. That is 41% of all specialist housing. Last Friday I visited Emmaus Greenwich along with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). It does a fantastic job. It does not just house people; it rebuilds lives. The introduction of the local housing allowance cap would mean a reduction of 40% of its housing benefit income, leading to a local shortfall of an estimated £86,000 a year. Nationally, Emmaus would lose around £3 million a year.
We have heard many passionate speeches today, and I would like to set out some questions for the Minister. We have the Housing Minister in front of us, but I understand that the decision is pretty much led by the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, so he may not be able to answer the questions today. If he cannot, I ask him to commit to writing with the answers. Will he commit to working with the sector to try to understand the impact of the decision? Has he had conversations about that? There is some uncertainty. It has been mooted that only new tenancies will be affected. Does that mean new claimants, or does that mean new tenancies? If an existing claimant has to move from one property to another, does that mean that they then lose out? That clarification would be welcome.
Why is the evidence review into the decision not completed yet? It started in December 2014, I think, and should have been completed last year. It is still not complete. Is there a reason for that delay? When will the review be finished? Will the Minister announce a full exemption from the LHA cap for all tenants in supported housing? Has a cost-benefit analysis of the decision and the delay taken place? The impact of the decision has one cost and the impact of the delay has another.
Has anyone looked not only at demand now, but future demand? For instance, has there been any review of how many women applied for housing because of domestic violence, whether nationally or locally? Does the Minister know what the figure is for his constituency? We need to look at future demand. We are making decisions now when demand is growing.
Yesterday, a written response came back to a parliamentary question. The question was:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of disabled people living in social housing who will be affected by the cap to local housing allowance.”
The response was:
“The information requested is not available. As such it is not possible to accurately estimate the number of disabled people living in social housing that will be affected by this policy”.
How can we have a policy that is costed when we do not know how many people it affects?
The hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Peterborough said that this is a cross-party and cross-agency issue. It will affect the NHS, the courts and the probation service, so it needs an in-depth look. David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, is a man I do not agree with on everything, but he has said:
“This decision must be made and it must be made quickly.”
I agree, and I look forward to the Minister’s answers.