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Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I reassure the Minister that I have no intention of asking any questions and, therefore, do not in any way oblige him to rise again but I postponed my remarks until after he had spoken. My remarks will be brief and relate to Amendment No. 1. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, made reference to housing history with which we are all familiar. It has always seemed to me that since owner occupation has so steadily crept up towards 100 per cent, the minority of housing that is not in the owner-occupied sector has received both diminished attention and, to some degree, concentrated attention because of its significance and also because it was falling as a percentage.
In contrast, the underlying description of the problem given by my noble friend Lady Hanham and the Minister concerned the real problem we have now in terms of priority demand on the one hand and inadequate supply on the other. The consequence of that is that, whereas in terms of the general picture the non-owner-occupied sector is a small part of the proportion, in terms of what we are now talking about,
those who are homeless constitute quite a large proportion as regards the remaining stock of housing in the country.Where the demand is very high in comparison to the supply—and there is no question at all that there are parts of the capital and, indeed, of other areas of the country where that is true—that problem is particularly acute. It is, therefore, particularly important for those who are in housing need in those places to understand why it is that they are being denied housing; that is, because the statutorily homeless and those in housing priority need take so much of the stock.
If I may illustrate my point briefly with a local example. A few years after the Brixton riots, the Peabody Trust, under the admirable George Barlow, introduced regulations that removed the principle that had given people who had grown up on Peabody housing estates some priority in terms of continuing to live there on the grounds that there were others in statutory need who had to be put first. That was a severe disadvantage in areas where there was a high concentration of Peabody communities and estates, because they were clearly going to be dissipated and broken down by that and the social coherence of the neighbourhood would be reduced.
My question—this is a rhetorical question and a paving observation rather than a question to which I am seeking an answer—is whether the issue of communicating to the rest of the community why the homeless take up such a large proportion of the available housing should be part of a homelessness strategy or whether it should be addressed from a wider perspective so that it can be positive rather than negative. I dare say we shall be returning to these questions before the Committee stage is over.
Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for what he himself admitted was a dense reply. I do not mean dense in the sense of stupid—and I do not believe that he did either. We are talking about weaving our way through the thicket. To some extent that is the result of the way the amendments have been grouped, because they do not necessarily follow on one from the other. We could have had interesting debates if they had been carved up. I shall consider carefully the denseness of the reply before deciding what to do about the amendment. However, I should like to throw up one or two other points that have arisen out of the thicket.
My noble friend Lord Brooke has highlighted a major issue on whether there should be housing strategy that encompasses the homeless review. The more we go through the Bill, the more one sees that very little housing will be available to allocate to anybody who is not on the priority list or vulnerable list of homeless. Somewhere along the line, someone is going to have to prioritise and decide how those priorities are to be recognised. Who is more vulnerable than the vulnerable? I am not sure that that can be done without having some housing strategy that takes into account the amount of housing that is available to any local authority within its own boundaries and
externally, now that one can woofle around in other people's housing areas. The requirement must be married up against the actuality. If the housing strategy is not linked to the homeless review, an authority will miss out on what the actuality is. There may be a huge gap in what the local authority will be able to provide or a reasonable match. The one should not be done without the other.I shall also refer briefly to the Minister's comments about rough sleepers. Like everyone else here, I am well aware that the Rough Sleepers' Unit is doing an enormously good job. I do not dispute that at all. However, I am not so clear that Section 175 covers the situation as was suggested. It says that a person is homeless if he has no accommodation available for his occupation. We all know of rough sleepers who have accommodation. They have left home and the comforts of home. They have walked out on their families. For some reason or another, they have decided to abandon the accommodation that they had. I would therefore be very tentative about taking Section 175 as a rationale or absolutely assuming that rough sleepers' well-being will be taken into account. I should still like to see that included. We have so many categories bobbing up in this Bill now, one or more less would not make much difference and it would be helpful to keep that in for the time being.
On the question as to whether we ask or suggest that the strategic partners are identified, I understand that you can identify some, identify them all or identify some and miss some. As the Bill stands at the moment, Clause 3(3)(a) and (b) touch on the matter but do not help. Clause 3(3)(a) states,
- Xby any public authority with functions".
It is clear, as the Minister himself admitted, that many housing authorities now do not have any housing. Some authorities have transferred everything and they are working by influence as well as by co-ordination with other bodies. The matter is pretty vague. Clause 3(3)(a) refers to Xany public authority" and Clause 3(3)(b) refers to Xany voluntary organisation". Therefore I still hanker after having a little more direction within that.
I would like to go through the Minister's reply closely, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.15 pm
Clause 2 [Homelessness reviews]:
[Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]
Clause 3 [Homelessness strategies]:
[Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 not moved.]
Baroness Maddock had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 6:
- Page 3, line 12, at end insert—
The noble Baroness said: I thank the Minister for his reply and say that I may come back to him. I shall not move the amendment.
[Amendments Nos. 7 to 9 not moved.]
Clause 5 [Provision of accommodation for persons not in priority need who are not homeless intentionally]:
Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 10:
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 11. Clause 5 brings us, under subsection (1), to the new provision for securing that accommodation is available for occupation by those who are homeless but not in priority need or considered to be intentionally homeless. The provisions go well beyond the duties in Section 192 of the 1996 Act, which are to give advice and help to someone who is in danger of becoming homeless.
By the addition of subsection (3) of Clause 5 to Section 192 of the 1996 Act there is a further category for whom the local authority may potentially have to provide or ensure that housing is available in addition to those under this Bill who will be considered as being in priority need or vulnerable. It starts to beg the question that we have just touched on about how local authorities are to exercise their new discretion so far as this is concerned and balance that alongside those already included later, under Clause 15(3).
The mind boggles as to how local authorities are to begin to ascertain who will have priority under the new provisions because prioritisation there will have to be. Indeed, the Bill is so far silent on how councils will be able to do this.
Amendment No. 10 will amend proposed new subsection (3) to Section 192 of the 1996 Act by giving local authorities some room to decide that to help by providing accommodation to a person who was not on the priority list was likely to put into jeopardy their responsibility to others. Therefore in consequence, there would be discretion as to whether or not they could or should be given preferential help beyond the advice available under the current Act. Subsection (2) of Clause 5 amends the duties owed in section 195 of the 1996 Act to those who are not in a priority category
Amendment No. 11 would provide some safeguard for the interests of either the registered social landlord or private landlord in the case where efforts are being made to protect such accommodation, since it may be that they have a justifiable reason for trying to repossess the property. However, in any event they must be given an opportunity to be party to any agreement rather than having one forced upon them, which could be construed as being an outcome, under these provisions. I beg to move.
X( ) In particular, the authority shall have regard to their Supporting People strategy (or shadow strategy, if appropriate) when formulating their homelessness strategy and ensure that, as far as is practicable, each strategy is complementary to and consistent with the other."
Page 4, line 2, at end insert Xprovided that the authority are satisfied that the exercise of this discretion shall not significantly reduce their opportunities to offer accommodation to such persons as are mentioned in section 167(2)(c), (d) and (e) of the 1996 Act (allocation in accordance with allocation scheme), as amended"
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