| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, this kind of debate is always a sensitive matter. I understand when your Lordships feel that the Government are not doing all that they could or should to deal with homelessness, asylum seekers, or people who require housing.
Any government which takes on those responsibilities and makes changes is inevitably construed as being uncaring, unhelpful, and not having regard to the people who are most affected. Whenever one makes the changes some people are likely to be affected beneficially and some people will not be so affected. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is concerned about these things, but she went, if I may say so, just a little bit over the top when she said that after 17 years of Tory government we are so poor that we are prepared to see people starving on our streets. That is not the case. It does not help her case to put it as dramatically as that. When she went on to say that the Government finger the homeless as a result of government inadequacies, that is just not true or fair. I hope to be able to explain to her what it is that we are trying to do.
The noble Baroness asked why the regulations have been brought in as quickly as they have been. Well, the Housing Act received Royal Assent on 24th July this year. Local authorities were informed on 31st July that the commencement date for Parts VI and VII would be in January 1997, and that guidance would be issued well in advance of that date. The code of guidance was sent to all local authorities on 31st October. Many local authorities did not start serious planning on how they were going to implement Parts VI and VII until the autumn. Obviously it would not have been in the interests of applicants for a house were authorities to operate ill-prepared allocation schemes or to make allocations which were outside the law. We have therefore deferred the bringing in of Part VI until 1st April 1997 in order to give local authorities more time to prepare their allocation schemes and to adjust their computer systems. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that if one has computers, good though they are, at some juncture they run one into trouble, and very often when one starts using them.
To give authorities more time to prepare the schemes, we have delayed the bringing in of Part VI until 1st April 1997. However it is reasonable that Part VII should commence on 20th January, as planned, because the homelessness provisions build on existing legislation. The commencement order for Parts VI and VII was made on 26th November this year, and guidance was issued to all local authorities last week. The Government hope to make all the major sets of regulations under the Act before the Christmas Recess.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that certain statutory instruments had not yet been made. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made the same point and asked why we could not put out all the regulations together. The regulations we are now considering are the main ones for implementing Parts VI and VII. We needed to make them in October. We hope that all the remaining regulations will be made within the next few weeks. So that should overcome that problem.
This all comes down to what we are trying to do over housing and the allocation of housing. It is a fundamental change in practice but not in intent. There is a change in practice, but there is no change in intent because we are committed to a fundamental principle; that is, that a decent home should be within the reach of every family. That is best achieved by having a choice of the numbers and types of houses which are provided. We want to have a healthy and deregulated private rented sector, and we want to encourage affordable home ownership.
In order to complement what is a flourishing private housing sector, we want to see a strong social rented sector--one which has good quality homes at a reasonable and affordable rent for those who are in genuine need. The reforms in the Housing Act 1996 mean that a new approach is possible to the way in which the demand for social housing is met.
The noble Baroness said that housing allocations had been slashed in the Budget, but the Chancellor announced in his Budget that public investment in the Housing Corporation will exceed £2.5 billion over the next three years. That is sufficient capital resources to enable an average of about 58,000 to 60,000 new and additional social houses to be built per year over the decade 1991-92 to 2000-01. That is in line with our estimates of social housing need. The £2,500 million-worth of public investment is expected to bring with it £1,800 million-worth of private finance. It is right that public investment should be what is necessary to enable housing associations to provide social housing at sub-market and affordable rents with an increased private-sector investment.
We continue to address the needs of the most vulnerable in society both by helping the homeless and by promoting a fairer scheme of access to social housing. The noble Baroness hoped that we would not end up by silting up the hostels, for example, for rough sleepers. We are conscious of the need to ensure that hostels do not silt up. We expect to cover the scope for the allocation of accommodation for those people outside the housing register in regulations which we will make soon.
The old arrangements are unfair to those people who are in genuine need but who use their own initiative to find some kind of home for themselves and their families. I refer to those people who spend months or even years sitting on waiting lists simply because they have found some accommodation for themselves. However, those who have done nothing for themselves but have gone straight to the local authority for assistance will have been classified as statutory homeless and so have gone straight to the top of the queue. In many ways that is not fair.
In a few areas, more than 90 per cent. of long-term family housing goes to those who are described as "statutory homeless". Other families who may not be statutory homeless but who may nevertheless have similar long-term housing needs are not subject to the same treatment under the old system. Under the new Act we have introduced new arrangements for the way in which housing is allocated and that will help to ensure that fair treatment is available to everyone.
From 1st April next year, the priority for being accommodated and for long-term housing will go to those who have the greatest need for it, regardless of whether they have been assisted via the homelessness route. The new provisions draw the distinction between those who are homeless as a result of a short-term crisis which, with the right help, they can get through and those who have a genuine long-term need for long-term housing in the social rented sector. Local authorities will be obliged to house for a minimum of two years those to whom they owe a duty under the homelessness legislation. In order to do that, local authorities may use their own housing stock on a temporary basis, or they may use housing offered by other social landlords or housing which exists in the private rented sector. There is no reason to suppose that that will result in frequent moves for those people concerned.
The aim of the two-year duty is to provide a period of stability during which households can have a chance to sort out their own difficulties. Research shows that the average time for securing the tenancy of a council property is 12 months. Therefore, the chances are that during the two-year period the majority of people who have been housed as a result of being technically homeless will have found, or will have been found, a permanent home. One must remember that often people are homeless as a result of an immediate and short-term happening; for instance, a husband or a wife goes off, illness strikes, somebody dies, they no longer have a job and cannot keep up their payments or they have become financially embarrassed. Often those are the reasons for homelessness and that is why the homeless must be found accommodation. But that does not mean that they necessarily have to have long-term accommodation. Our experience shows that within about 12 months the majority of homelessness cases have been resolved. If no permanent home has been found within two years, and if the circumstances of the household have not changed, the authority will have a fresh duty to secure accommodation under the homelessness provisions.
The difference between the new system which the regulations helped to introduce and the old system is that everyone, whether he or she is technically homeless or has a long-term housing need, will be allocated long-term housing on the basis of the same criteria. The homeless will be properly and immediately catered for but no one will be able to gain a short cut into long-term tenancies at the expense of others who may be in equal or possibly greater need.
The Government believe that advice and assistance can help many households to keep their existing homes or to find suitable alternative accommodation. Local authorities will have new duties to ensure that this advice and assistance is provided to all residents who request it. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was concerned that the authorities will have less discretion in allocating housing. I do not believe that that is so. The language of the 1996 Act requires authorities to give "reasonable preference" to certain groups, which is no different from the language of the 1985 Act. Authorities will still retain considerable discretion.
The noble Baroness was also concerned that provision should be made to ensure that people of the same sex, or carers who are residing with tenants, should be given the right to succeed to tenancies as those accorded to a member of a tenant's family. She asked why a government Minister knows better than a local authority. Of course government Ministers do not know better than local authorities. Local authorities have a duty to carry out their responsibilities, which they know best, under a framework which Parliament provides to ensure the best available housing for the people in their locality. The code of guidance was issued by the department in October and it restates Circular 7/96. It encourages authorities to create joint tenancies and to grant tenancies to people who reside with tenants who have no succession rights. Therefore, the position remains the same. Such allocations are at the discretion of the local authority and it can continue to allocate its houses sympathetically in those cases.
The noble Baroness was also concerned about the housing benefit measures in the Budget. There is a need to constrain housing benefit expenditure and to ensure that social security benefits do not provide incentives to people to set up an independent home unnecessarily. The purpose of the housing benefit is to assist people to meet the cost of adequate accommodation, which this policy continues to ensure.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was concerned what would happen if the Government lost their appeal as regards the National Assistance Act. These regulations would not be affected. They restate the provisions on asylum seekers which were made in August under the housing provisions in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. I know that the noble Lord is concerned about asylum seekers but, as he said, we do not want to go over the details again. As he will remember from the debates, the fact is that a very large proportion of people who say that they are asylum seekers are found, when taken to have their case proved, not to be genuine asylum seekers. He will
know as well as any noble Lord that the whole purpose of what we are trying to do under asylum seeking is to grant asylum to genuine asylum seekers but not to grant the benefits of asylum seeking to those who are not genuine asylum candidates.Under the regulations, we are trying to ensure that a fair method is introduced--that is, a method by which anyone who wants long-term housing should be able to get it by being on the housing list and that the housing list should not be either circumvented or closed up by those people who have had a short-cut route into it. Those who are statutorily homeless will still be catered for and will be catered for properly and adequately.
I hope your Lordships will agree that that is the right thing to do. I have no doubt that, in the course of making such changes, there will be occasions--as, indeed, there always are when changes come about--where the shoe pinches. If that is so, it will be up to all of us to ensure that adjustments are made and that sympathy and understanding are given to those people. I do not believe that there is anything in the regulations that will prevent that from happening. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will agree to allow the regulations to proceed.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page