National Plan to End Homelessness

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the welcome national plan identifies newly recognised refugees leaving asylum support accommodation as being particularly vulnerable to homelessness, yet says nothing about the 28-day move-on period, although local authorities and voluntary organisations have criticised it as a key cause of homelessness because it does not give newly recognised refugees long enough to find independent accommodation. Will my noble friend therefore impress on the Home Office the importance of reverting to the 56 days it piloted and emphasise the importance of this to the Government’s homelessness strategy?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

What my noble friend says is indicative of the issues we have in this area of making sure that we work across government to solve some of these problems. The Home Office has committed to strengthening data-sharing processes with councils for 100% of newly granted refugees at risk of homelessness within two days of a discontinuation of asylum support notification. This supports early intervention by enabling councils to commence homelessness assessments. We will continue to monitor the impact of all the policies, including refugee move-on, hotel occupancy, asylum accommodation costs, local community impacts and pressures on local authorities and public services. It is important that we work across government and with our partners to improve that move- on support and reduce the risk of homelessness.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to everybody who spoke. I will not go into any great detail in response, given the late hour. I do not think that my noble friend the Minister answered the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, which was on whether the right to rent has had any effect in reducing illegal migration. I do not know if she would care to answer that question now.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not have any statistics in front of me, but I will come back to noble Lords on that point.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. I am grateful for the support that I received. I was slightly confused, I must admit, by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, because I was not sure whether he was supporting my amendments or not. He said that they were ambiguous, but I think his approach was perhaps a bit ambiguous—and I cannot resist pointing out that right to rent was introduced by his Government, and we are now saddled with it.

I am disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, that my noble friend said that there is no plan to be shot of it especially, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, in the light of today’s White Paper. It is not exactly conducive to it, but it is important still to come back to the point.

I was also a bit disappointed that my noble friend did not feel able to give a bit more on the question of guarantors. She said that the proposed amendment would inadvertently block certain groups and could have unintended consequences. Everyone who spoke to this amendment accepted that it may be that it is not quite right, but that it is aiming to do something that in fact supports what the Government are trying to do.

Although she very kindly said that she is willing to discuss it, I did not get the sense that there is a willingness to discuss it in terms of perhaps bringing forward a government amendment that would achieve what we are trying to achieve but without the unintended consequences. Given the late hour, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Local Authorities: Temporary Accommodation Costs

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The provision of affordable housing is vital, and that is why the Government have made a huge commitment to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housing, including in the social housing sector through housing associations. Since taking office, we have announced a number of changes in planning policy which will support the delivery of affordable homes, including the new “golden rules” for grey belt land release and two immediate one-year cash injections of £800 million to top up the existing affordable homes programme. That will deliver up to an extra 7,800 homes. I hope that will start to make a difference, but we have a long way to go.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the HCLG Committee’s recent report on temporary accommodation highlighted the impact of refreezing the local housing allowance. It warned that this is a “false economy” because it will increase the risk of homelessness and reliance on temporary accommodation among families. What assessment have the Government made of these risks?

Council Tax

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Baroness Lister of Burtersett

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the party opposite had 14 years to sort this out and did nothing about it. Council tax levels are decided by each council. We maintain the previous Government’s policy on the referendum levels. We are tackling the fair funding that was started off by the last Government but never finished. That will level the playing field for areas that need more funding support.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, local authority council tax support schemes are failing to provide adequate protection for many low-income council tax payers, either because of their restrictive nature or because of low take-up. Will the Government therefore consider increasing and ring-fencing the funding for these schemes, and look into introducing an automatic trigger for a council tax support application when a universal credit application is made?