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- House adjourned at four minutes before nine o'clock.
Official Report of the Grand Committee on the
Homelessness Bill
Monday, 10th December 2001.
The Committee met at half-past three of the clock.
[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale) in the Chair.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale): Before I put the Question that the Title be postponed, it may be helpful to remind your Lordships of the procedure for today's Committee stage. Except in one important respect, our proceedings will be exactly as in a normal Committee of the Whole House. We shall go through the Bill clause by clause; noble Lords will speak standing; all noble Lords are free to attend and participate; and the proceedings will be recorded in Hansard. The one difference is that the House has agreed that there shall be no Divisions in a Grand Committee. Any issue on which agreement cannot be reached should be considered again at the Report stage when, if necessary, a Division may be called. Unless, therefore, an amendment is likely to be agreed to, it should be withdrawn.
I should explain what will happen if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, which seems fairly likely. This Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and then resume after 10 minutes.
Baroness Maddock: Before we proceed, there is a mistake in the list of amendments for today. Under the name of myself and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, are Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9. In fact, I only tabled Amendment No. 6; Amendments Nos. 7, 8 and 9 were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I was aware of that but it may or may not be, looking at the list of groupings, that these amendments will be called at all. So perhaps we can start with Amendment No. 1 in Clause 1, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham.
Clause 1 [Duty of local housing authority to formulate a homelessness strategy]:
Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 1:
- Page 1, line 6, at end insert—
The noble Baroness said: I disown completely Amendment No. 9, which I do not recall having seen before and which seems to replicate Amendment No. 8 almost in its entirety. Wherever it came from it did not necessarily come from me. I wish to speak to all the
All these amendments are related to the review of homelessness and the subsequent strategy which local authorities will have a duty to prepare. Amendment No. 1 would make it a requirement that any such review should form part of a wider ranging housing strategy and should not be a stand-alone exercise. It will be apparent from the most cursory examination of this Bill that it places a duty to house a much wider range of those in priority need than in the past. It also gives almost unlimited time for decisions to be made and agreed by homeless people. Moreover it takes a very cursory examination of the statutory housing figures available to each authority to realise that they are faced with an almost impossible task in trying to provide all the accommodation predicated as being necessary for those in priority need.
There are already over 11,000 people in bed and breakfast accommodation alone and those who are currently defined as a priority of the homeless amounted to 114,350 in 2000–01—a rise of 11 per cent over the previous year. By definition, before adding any further categories there is a need for as many permanent units of accommodation as possible, but between 1997 and 2000 the amount of new social housing built amounted to just 95,000 units, which does not in any way match the numbers required.
In many cases, the extra duties in this Bill will make an impossible task worse for many authorities, even those with the ability to co-operate with other authorities. It must be right, therefore, that all housing authorities' requirements are set alongside the availability of both current and future accommodation so that realistic planning can be carried out. For this reason, it would seem only sensible for there to be a full housing strategy to incorporate the homes review.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 4 would add a reference to rough sleepers to the requirement to ensure that accommodation is available for the homeless. The Rough Sleepers' Unit is currently responsible for helping people who sleep rough, but it is clear from the debate in the other place that the unit's long-term future is by no means settled and that, in due course, the responsibility may fall back to individual local authorities. For that reason alone, each individual local authority ought to be aware of how many rough sleepers are in its area. In any event, it should be co-operating fully with the Rough Sleepers' Unit to identify and help people. There is no mention anywhere in the Bill of rough sleepers. There must be some recognition of their existence, because in many instances they require permanent rather than just temporary help. As I have already said, the accommodation to which they and other homeless people require access will always be limited and they should be recognised as being part of that need.
Amendments Nos. 3 and 5 would define those who would be deemed to be strategic partners of local authorities in the provision of housing and help to the homeless. It is inconceivable that any review of homelessness could be undertaken without all those who have either responsibility for, or a means of, providing housing for the public sector being included as an integral part of the strategy.
In many authorities, housing provision now relies heavily on approved landlords in the private sector—not only those with houses in multiple occupation, but others who work at the local authority on a regular, if ad hoc, basis who will be part of a landlords forum. Without such co-operation, there would be an even greater deficit of housing than there currently is. No review would be meaningful or accurate without their interests being represented.
Amendment No. 7 would require the authority to refer in its homelessness strategy to its allocation scheme, including details of how it is drawn up, what is included and what its priorities are. This will become comprehensively important as the Bill progresses and as we see the number of people who will be included in the priority category and the very real difficulties that there will be in housing anybody else who is not within those categories.
Amendment No. 8 would make it mandatory for local authorities to consult with the Housing Corporation, relevant housing associations and registered social landlords. Without the amendment, the need to consult would be discretionary only. That ties in with other amendments in the group. I beg to move.
Baroness Maddock: I shall speak to my amendments in this group but, first I shall respond to the amendments spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. I understand her point about including homelessness strategies in the general housing strategy. The Government say in one of their draft codes of guidance that that could happen, if appropriate. It will become more obvious as we discuss the Bill that there has been a lot of bad practice by some authorities. When the Bill is passed, we should encourage local authorities to review their homelessness strategies thoroughly. They should not have to be part of the general strategy, but should be something better. My experience of the 1996 Act and everything that has happened since leads me to believe that this is the correct thing to do.
On the other issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raised, the matters of who local authorities consult with, this is quite important. My honourable friends in another place raised the issue of the role of registered social landlords. Since it was discussed in the other place there has been a good deal of discussion and some helpful letters and correspondence from the Housing Corporation. I hope we can deal with this issue but I am still not absolutely convinced that we have exactly what we need on the face of the Bill. I will be listening with interest to what the Minister says on this point.
I now wish to turn to my own amendment, Amendment No.6. I make no bones about it—this is an opportunity for me to talk about an issue that I have been concerned about ever since the Government proposed the Supporting People programme. From April 2003, the programme will totally re-organise support for people living in the community. This particularly affects support services for homeless groups and specialist homelessness groups.
The groups about which I am particularly concerned are the small voluntary organisations that give support to people who are perhaps going into tenancies, before they get into tenancies, or when they are between living in a group tenancy and then going into their own accommodation. That is the group I am particularly concerned about and I know that the Government, in their good practice guide, their homelessness strategy, point out that voluntary organisations will play an important role in some of these areas.
Having raised this issue when it was first announced by the Government, as time has gone on and I have increasingly read articles in the housing press, my fears about what might happen have not been allayed. The groups I am particularly concerned about are small voluntary groups. At the moment, a great deal of their revenue—and from my own experience I know this applies sometimes to women's refuges, for example—is based on the benefit that comes their way from the clients in that particular refuge. Organisations like that are often run by a few people on a voluntary basis. The work they are likely to do, to bid into this process, will be quite difficult.
The Government are continuing—and have been for some time—to send out a constant stream of consultation papers, through questionnaires, draft guidance and discussion papers. Local authorities have recently received their first round of implementation funding and they are now adding to this. They are recruiting teams and setting up new forums and preparing their own questionnaires and consultation papers for local providers. However, I wonder how some of the small organisations I have talked about are managing to deal with this and whether they are engaging properly in the programme. I would argue that it is difficult for many of these groups because they lack capacity within their organisation to do so. I would be interested to know if the Minister and his advisers have any advice to local authorities as to how they can protect these people and help them with the time and resources that will be required to take part in this process.
The next point I would like to make concerns what will happen after 2003. We know about the budgets until then and there is an interim housing benefit, which I welcome. However, if new schemes are to become available after 2003, it is by no means clear where that money will come from.
There are other Members of the Committee who will share my concerns, perhaps not here but later in our discussions. There are particular areas such as floating support for people who are in new tenancies for the
Nevertheless, to be positive, I welcome the fact that the Government have already announced funding this year to help councils prepare and some of that funding has been ring-fenced. Another helpful thing that the Government have done is to decide to pay people supporting grants a month in advance, rather than in arrears and that will help some of the organisations about which I have been talking. However, I have some concerns about this and have spoken to the Minister. I hope that he will be able to reassure me on some of these points.
X( ) Any such review or homelessness strategy shall be part of the wider-ranging housing strategy of each authority."
3.45 p.m.
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