Homelessness Reduction Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 28th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I can confirm that the Bill does include priority for the armed forces and for people leaving the armed forces.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill and I wholeheartedly support it. I am glad that he has referenced the absurd situation whereby people have to wait until the bailiffs arrive to evict them before they can get help from the housing department. That is one reason why private landlords are so reluctant to take on housing benefit tenants as well. Will my hon. Friend reference another particularly vulnerable set of people he has not mentioned so far: children leaving care? It can be ridiculous when such people can be evicted even from council-owned housing only for the council then to have to pick up responsibility for them at greater cost and with huge social implications for those vulnerable children.

[Bob Blackman]

I can confirm that the Bill will deal with care leavers. They are included in line with one of the suggestions made during the pre-legislative scrutiny process of the draft Bill.

The Bill will help to stimulate partnerships between local authorities and other public bodies by making sure that key public services are part of the process and have a duty to refer anyone identified as homeless to the responsible local authority. It also creates a power for the Secretary of State to introduce a statutory code of practice, providing further guidance on how local authorities should deliver their homelessness and prevention duties. This will be amendable and helpful when it comes to raising standards or sharing best practice. I do not want us to stifle local authorities that have creative schemes, but I want to make sure that all local authorities are brought up to the standard of the best.

In acknowledgement of the point raised by the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), the Bill will help to make sure that private sector accommodation has been checked by the local authority when the authority secures accommodation for vulnerable households, ensuring that it meets the specific suitability requirements, including the legal checks required of properties, before being offered to people.

I have now described the ambit of the Bill, and it would be fair to say that it has been a long process to get to this stage. Crisis convened an expert panel of council representatives, lawyers and housing experts as well as others from the charity sector to look at ways to update homelessness legislation in England. I want to put on record my particular thanks to Jon Sparkes, Matthew Downie and Maeve McGoldrick from Crisis, particularly for their exceptional support throughout this whole process and for working with me to put this legislation together and help it reach this stage.

We drew on the Select Committee report and the work of the expert panel, publishing a first draft of the Bill in August. It was then put through pre-legislative scrutiny. The Select Committee on Communities and Local Government held an inquiry and produced a report on the draft version. The Bill is complex and it is unique in that it originates from a Select Committee report, has been scrutinised by the Select Committee and has been substantially amended as a result.