Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
18 FEBRUARY 2008
Q100 Mr Mitchell: That overrules
it?
Mr Baker: Yes. The issue here
is that they are waiting for evictions from MoD property.
Q101 Mr Mitchell: It is not that;
it is a question of where that right can be exercised. If a soldier
comes from Grimsby, wants to go back there and has a family, he
is homeless there, the council has a responsibility to provide
accommodation of some kind.
Mr Baker: That is true.
Q102 Mr Mitchell: Does that then
operate in the place they came from or the place they are discharged
to?
Mr Baker: This is where an amendment
to the Housing Act is relevant because what was happening was
that people were being passed from the local authority where they
were serving in the Armed Forces back to their place of origin,
if you like, and there was a difficulty in establishing a local
connection where they were serving with the Armed Forces.
Q103 Mr Mitchell: You said to Mr
Davidson that you would go away and look at it but we would like
a list of these few local authorities which are behaving in that
kind of fashion so they can be named and shamed. It is disgraceful.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I take delivery
of that and, before we name and shame, we probably ought to consult
our colleagues in DCLG.[8]
Q104 Mr Mitchell: There is also the problem
of accommodation on the last day of service for people who have
made themselves "intentionally homeless". Is that happening
on a large scale? Who is doing that?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I do not think
that is happening on a large scale. The intentionally homeless
point is really that these authorities that are doing this are
treating those who we have not evicted from our property—
Q105 Mr Mitchell: That only applies
to people who the authorities require you to evict?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Yes.
Q106 Mr Mitchell: At paragraph 3.20
it mentions the Housing Act which Mr Baker referred to, 1996.
I do not quite understand it. They can take account of a local
connection when considering the level of priority to give social
housing with applications from people on the housing waiting list.
Most housing waiting lists are redundant nationally. About 1,600,000
people on housing waiting lists at present have no chance of getting
a house at all. What is the position? I do not quite understand
the way it is phrased. Is it that discharged Army and Navy personnel
can go on the housing list or can be put on the housing list for
the period they are in the services, so they can go back to it
afterwards, or what? Is it saying that local people on the housing
list have a priority over Army personnel? Which of those?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: The amendment
to the Housing Act does not bear on the issue of absolute priority.
What it does is to prevent local authorities from taking account
of the fact that the ex-service person presenting themselves to
them does not have a local connection.
Q107 Mr Mitchell: Is that only for
those who leave early?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: No; it is for
all.
Q108 Mr Mitchell: It can adversely
impact on serving members who apply for social housing before
they leave the service. Does it only apply to them?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It applies in
the terms of the discussion we have been having this afternoon
both to those who are Early Service Leavers and to those who are
eligible for the more extensive package of support that the Report
examines. It is any of them in that position where they go to
a local authority with whom they do not have a longstanding connection
but it may happen to be close to where they were discharged. At
the moment the local authority can say, "Go away. You do
not have any connection here." Once the Bill is enacted,
they will not be able to do that.
Q109 Mr Mitchell: Having been a Member
a long time in this place, to my recollection, there used to be
no problem with Grimsby at any rate with housing Army personnel
who wanted to come back there or who wanted to settle there. They
used to automatically get put on the list and automatically rehoused.
That duty has now broken down, has it?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: No. You say:
"coming back to Grimsby." If they are coming back to
Grimsby, they have the local connection that the existing legislation
envisages. The issue is more about those who are not going back
to their city or town of origin. There, there has been evidence
of them having difficulties.
Q110 Mr Mitchell: Paragraph 3.20
says that you are discussing it with the Department. " ...
the Government announced that it had decided to change the housing
legislation, at the earliest opportunity ... ". They have
an opportunity now because there is a kind of mish-mash Bill called
the Housing and Regeneration Bill which carries a lot of dead
ideas from the basement of the Department of Communities and Local
Government into legislative form. Are they doing what you want
in terms of housing? Is there a provision in that Bill?
Mr Baker: Section 270 of that
Bill.
Q111 Mr Mitchell: Is there a provision
in that Bill which will satisfy what you think are the needs of
the Army personnel?
Mr Baker: It will allow servicemen
to establish a local connection through service in the Armed Forces.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: This Report
was published six months ago and since then the government has
included in the Bill a provision that does precisely what you
have just been talking about.
Q112 Mr Mitchell: You are happy with
the Bill?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Entirely.
Q113 Mr Mitchell: It is nice to meet
somebody who is. The provision for helping military personnel
with housing—it says that they are helped because they are
given key worker status and they are helped with shared equity
schemes. Is that while they are serving or when they leave?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I am sorry.
I did not quite catch that.
Q114 Mr Mitchell: It says that help
is provided for those who want to buy through key worker status—that
will be for rented accommodation—and for shared equity.
Is that help provided while they are in the forces or is it help
provided when they leave?
Mr Baker: Whilst they are in the
Forces. We have managed to include the Armed Forces now in the
list of key workers who qualify for the key worker living programme
and, as I said earlier, we have just managed to extend the number
of products for which the military are eligible, including the
open market home buy scheme which we think will be the most attractive.
We have extended eligibility across the whole of England.
Q115 Mr Mitchell: Can you give us
some figures? Not many people have been housed under that scheme.
Mr Baker: Not many people have
been housed under the more restrictive elements of the key worker
living programme which we were previously eligible for. We have
housed about 25 altogether under the initial market home buy but
the open market home buy we think is the key to opening this up
to a much larger population.
Q116 Mr Mitchell: Can you give us some
figures on those who have opted for shared equity and been helped
in that way?
Mr Baker: I do not have those
figures immediately to hand but we can certainly provide a note.[9]
Q117 Mr Mitchell: They do not get
any help on leaving. It seems to me from the figures here that
chaps buy—that is officers—during service but other
ranks do not, which will put other ranks at a particular disadvantage
when they leave the service because they are facing the need to
buy or get rented accommodation which is difficult on a rising
market. They do face a particular problem. Do they get any help?
Mr Baker: I do not think it is
true to say that other ranks do not buy. Senior, non-commissioned
officers do buy, not quite to the same level as officers but to
comparable levels. Junior ranks leaving the forces do not buy
but, as we have discussed slightly earlier, I think you can attribute
that as much to their age profile as to anything else. The help
that they get within the service is as we have described. As they
leave, the Joint Service Housing Advisory Office is giving them
briefings on their options. It is giving them signposting to the
various alternatives they have. We have a nomination scheme that
runs with 40 local housing associations with which we have placed—
Q118 Mr Mitchell: The amount of help
that is given in paragraph 3.15 through English Churches Housing
Group working with the Joint Service Housing Advice office is
quite small: 650 people leaving the Armed Forces and successfully
liaising with local authorities. The number leaving is a pathetic
number.
Mr Baker: That is not the totality
of the achievement. The nomination scheme has placed over 2,000
people with housing associations.
Q119 Mr Mitchell: Given the fact
that the other ranks will have a particular difficulty because
they have been renting accommodation and outside it is going to
be difficult to get rented accommodation—they might have
to buy—it does put them in a very difficult situation.
Mr Baker: It is possible, I agree,
but we do our best to signpost them to the available sources of
housing.
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