Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on children's services of the overall reduction by 29 per cent of Government funding for local authority children's departments since 2010.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Local government services, including children’s services, are funded through the local government finance settlement. Funding is generally unringfenced to allow local authorities the freedom and flexibility to set their own service budgets to meet local needs. Spending Review 2015 made available over £200 billion across this five-year spending period.
In recognition of the pressures on services such as social care, at Autumn Budget the Chancellor announced an extra £410 million to address pressures on adult and children social care services. In total local authorities have been given access to £46.4 billion in 2019-20; a cash-increase of 2.8 per cent from £45.1 billion in 2018-19.
Central government funding in isolation cannot provide a true representation of local authority finances, much of which is locally raised such as council tax. Furthermore, since 2010 the responsibilities of local authorities and the makeup of their funding streams have changed significantly, for example, with the introduction of the Business Rates Retention Scheme in 2013/14 which allows local authorities to keep local growth in their business rates income.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many homeless people and rough sleepers were (1) refugees, and (2) asylum seekers in (a) 2013, (b) 2014, (c) 2015, (d) 2016, (e) 2017, and (f) 2018.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The number of households accepted as statutorily homeless, in England, who have been granted refugee status are provided in the table below. 2018 data is not yet available.
We do not hold the specific breakdowns requested for asylum seekers or rough sleepers.
Year | Total number of households accepted as statutorily homeless and granted refugee status (England) |
2013 | 690 |
2014 | 790 |
2015 | 1,000 |
2016 | 1,080 |
2017 | 1,350 |
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) refugees, and (2) asylum seekers were included in their most recent rough sleeping statistics.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The annual single night snapshot of Rough Sleeping in Autumn 2018 was published on January 31 2019 at the link (attached) below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2018.
This includes figures from all English local authority annual rough sleeping snapshots since 2010. Where appropriate, local authorities do capture some demographic information on those they identify sleeping rough including on gender, age and high level nationality (UK, Non-UK EU and Non-EU). This does not include refugee or asylum seeker status.
However, this does not mean that we are not focused on these cohorts, and all those who are vulnerable and sleeping rough. London’s CHAIN data, which provides information on the individuals seen sleeping rough by outreach teams in London throughout the year does contain this information in order to better understand each individuals unique circumstances. Their latest data can be found at the link below.
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports.
This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. Already, this has provided over 1,750 new bed spaces and 500 staff. In all, the Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and its operation in regard to (1) asylum accommodation, and (2) refugees who are homeless.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Homelessness Reduction Act is the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades and placed new duties on local housing authorities to take reasonable steps to try to prevent and relieve a person’s homelessness. Acting earlier and for a broader range of people means more people will get the help they need before they face a homelessness crisis. We have committed to reviewing the implementation of the Act, including the resourcing of it and how it is working in practice for a wide group of people, by March 2020.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many local authorities have received funding from the Controlling Migration Fund to help refugees find permanent housing.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has awarded £1.75 million from the Controlling Migration Fund to support 35 new Local Authority Asylum Support Liaison Officer (LAASLO) pilots. These will operate across 19 local authority areas with some of the highest numbers of asylum seekers, and will offer tailored support to newly recognised refugees. This will include working closely with other agencies during the 28-day move-on period, to secure accommodation for new refugees following a successful asylum decision.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the £1.75 million allocated to the Controlling Migration Fund has been distributed to local authorities to help refugees find permanent housing.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has awarded £1.75 million from the Controlling Migration Fund to support 35 new Local Authority Asylum Support Liaison Officer (LAASLO) pilots. These will operate across 19 local authority areas with some of the highest numbers of asylum seekers, and will offer tailored support to newly recognised refugees. This will include working closely with other agencies during the 28-day move-on period, to secure accommodation for new refugees following a successful asylum decision.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the quality of social housing used for refugees.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Successful asylum seekers who are granted refugee status are eligible to be allocated social housing. Where they apply for social housing, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other eligible applicants in accordance with the local authority’s housing allocation scheme.
The Regulator of Social Housing’s standards (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulatory-standards) include a requirement for tenants’ homes to meet the government’s Decent Homes Standard. In the Social Housing Green Paper, we asked whether the Decent Homes Standard should be reviewed. We also invited views on whether new safety measures introduced in to the private rented sector should apply in the social rented sector. We expect to set out the government’s response to the Green Paper in Spring 2019.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has had with the Home Office about extending the 28 day move-on period after refugee status has been granted.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
MHCLG continues to work closely with Home Office on ways to improve the support to newly recognised refugees, but there are no plans to extend the 28-day move-on period.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of rogue landlords that will be included in the rogue landlord database; and how many have been registered to date.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
A Justice Impact Test was prepared to accompany the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to support the Ministry of Justice in its planning. At that time it was estimated that local authorities could enter up to 5,000 rogue landlords and property agents onto the database, including up to 600 (12%) mandatory entries for those in receipt of a banning order and so banned from letting. The government does not have a current estimate of the number of rogue landlords but expects the number to be decreasing because of the strong enforcement powers that we have introduced since 2015 to enable local authorities to drive criminal landlords out of the market.
There are no entries to date on the database. This was expected as an offence must have been committed on or after 6 April 2018, a conviction secured and the period for an appeal passed, before an offender’s details can be listed on the database.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what financial support they have provided to local authorities to address the issue of rogue landlords.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Government believes that the cost of enforcement should be borne by rogue landlords themselves and has introduced penalties of up to £30,000 for landlords who break the rules, and measures that force them to repay rent when they break the law. Local authorities are entitled to keep this money which is ring-fenced to fund their enforcement work.
Between 2011 and 2016 the government provided £12 million of enforcement funding to local authorities to tackle rogue landlords. In addition, we have recently made available £2 million in funding to local authorities to support their efforts to innovate, improve and share best practice in enforcement work against the minority of rogue landlords who make tenants’ lives a misery.