Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take any action to ensure that local authorities comply with their legal duty to provide to homeless families temporary accommodation that is safe and suitable.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
The Housing Act 1996 requires that local housing authorities must ensure that all temporary accommodation they secure is suitable. Not to do so is unlawful. Households in temporary accommodation have the legal right to seek a review of any decision to place them in unsuitable accommodation. If households are unsatisfied with the response then they have redress to the courts.
To help frontline decision makers make those decisions right first time DCLG fund the National Homelessness Advice Service to provide free expert advice, training and support to homelessness professionals. In December 2015 Government also provided a £5 million fund to help the 25 councils facing the most significant homelessness pressures to ensure people are moved from temporary accommodation and into suitable homes as soon as possible.
Households leaving temporary accommodation now spend, on average, less time in temporary accommodation than they did in 2010. The numbers of households in temporary accommodation remain well below their peak, when they hit 101,000 in 2004.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - 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 implications for social and community cohesion of people living in poverty.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Building a strong economy and increasing employment are the surest way to lift people out of poverty and build strong and cohesive communities. The latest figures show a record 31.6 million people are now in work making a real difference to families on the ground with the number of children in workless households at a record low.
Britain has a claim to be the most successful multi-faith, multi-racial democracy in the world. The Community Life Survey 2014-15 shows a well-integrated society with 87 per cent of people reporting they belong strongly to Britain and 86 per cent that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together. But we know deep seated inequalities remain between some minority groups and the majority population, and have set in train work to address these inequalities:
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - 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 levels of social cohesion in towns in Britain, such as Boston in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Over generations, we in Britain have built a successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. According to the 2013/14 Community Life Survey, 85 per cent of people agreed that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together. But the job of building a more cohesive country is never complete and we recognise the scale of the challenge in some communities. That is why the Prime Minister has charged Louise Casey to carry out a review of how to boost opportunity and integration in these communities and bring Britain together as one nation. We will use her interim report to inform our plans for funding a new wider Cohesive Communities Programme, focusing resources on improving integration and extending opportunity in those communities that most need it.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent study by Shelter, what steps they are taking to address the problems faced by tenants in privately rented homes infested with vermin.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Local authorities have a power under section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 to require owners of premises infested by mice or rats to eradicate the problem and failure to do so is a criminal offence. Infestation by such pests is also a hazard under the housing, health and safety rating system in Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. Where the infestation is a category 1 hazard the local authority must require the landlord to take action to eradicate the infestation or it may prohibit the property (or the affected part) from being occupied until the hazard has been eradicated. Through licensing schemes under Parts 2 or 3 of that Act an authority can impose licence conditions relating to privately rented homes that require landlords to take measures to prevent infestation of pests and a failure to do so would be a criminal offence.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the constraints preventing the achievement of the 200,000 annual housebuilding target.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
The Government has no annual housing target but is taking action through a wide range of programmes to boost housing supply and to increase home ownership.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - 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 implications for meeting the housing needs of homeless people and those living in overcrowded conditions of social housing stock being sold off.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Since 2010 the Government has invested over £500 million to help local authorities and the voluntary sector prevent and tackle homelessness, enabling local authorities prevent over 935,000 households from becoming homeless.
The Government wants to help hard working families achieve their dream of home ownership. But not all tenants of housing associations are able to benefit from the discounts the last Government introduced. That’s why this Government want to give housing association tenants the same home ownership opportunities as council tenants. Each housing association home sold under the Right to Buy extension will be replaced.
Local authorities should use resources effectively and efficiently and those with a Housing Revenue Account will be required to sell vacant high value housing in order to help fund the building of more affordable homes and the extension of Right to Buy to housing association tenants.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - 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 levels of hate crime in the United Kingdom; and what assessment they have made of the implications of such crimes for community cohesion.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
The Government is committed to providing robust and transparent data on hate crime. We have seen significant improvements to hate crime data including the inclusion of hate crime in National Crime Statistics and the Crime Survey of England and Wales.
The Government funds the National Community Tension Team which analyses hate crime, together with a wide range of information from local police areas and international events. They produce ‘Operation Element’ reports weekly to inform targeted threat assessments which inform the decisions of local managers. At times of increased tension this analysis will be boosted to produce more regular or detailed products. This process has been enhanced by national Information Sharing Agreements which allow for the mutual transfer of anonymous hate crime data with some civil society organisations.
As well as the need to reduce the harm caused to victims, we recognise such crimes also have an effect on broader communities and can lead to community tension if not addressed early. In order to address these issues all relevant Ministers are represented on a cross-Government Hate Crime Programme which includes criminal justice agencies and an Independent Advisory Group made up of victims, advocates and academics.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the implications for the education, health and well-being of children in homeless families; and what actions they propose to take to reduce the number of children in homeless families in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Placing families in temporary accommodation avoids a homelessness crisis and means no child will end up on the streets. However, the Government has been clear that placing families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than 6 weeks is both unacceptable and unlawful and we recognise the disruption this can have on children. Authorities must by law consider the impact any change in the location of accommodation will have on a household such as proximity to education and medical facilities. A small number of authorities (5%) account for 80% of cases where the 6 week limit is exceeded. The use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families with children is less than a third of the peak it was in 2002.
We provided funding to authorities so they could test innovative and sustainable approaches that would tackle this issue. The lessons learned have been disseminated to other authorities across the country.
Households leaving temporary accommodation now spend on average 7 months less than they did in 2010.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what analysis they have undertaken to determine the ultimate costs of remedial action necessary to deal with the effects of withdrawing funding for local welfare assistance schemes and the fall in the spending on care for people aged over 65 years.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government has not withdrawn funding for local welfare assistance. In this regard I draw attention to my speech in reply to the question for short debate of 10 February 2015, Official Report, Columns 1188-1192, which sets out what the Government is doing to support local welfare provision.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take following the High Court ruling that they have discriminated against Travellers by automatically banning them from pitching camps on Green Belt land.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government makes no apologies for seeking to safeguard Green Belt protection and trying to bring a sense of fair play to the planning system. The Government’s planning policy is clear that both temporary and permanent traveller sites are inappropriate development in the Green Belt. The judgment does not question that principle.
It is quite wrong to say that the High Court ruled that the Government discriminated against travellers by automatically banning them from pitching camps in the Green Belt. The Court’s Judgment is around a technical matter, namely how policy relating to the recovery of appeals for Ministerial decision was operated with regard to traveller appeal cases in the Green Belt. The Judgment did not criticise the Government’s policy stating that traveller sites in the Green Belt are inappropriate development in any way.
Indeed, there have been a number of recent legal cases where the courts have upheld the planning appeal decisions of the Secretary of State in relation to traveller development in the Green Belt, dismissed the claims, and awarded costs in favour of DCLG, including: