Homelessness

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the number of homeless households rose by 44 per cent between 2009-10 and 2015-16 to almost 60,000; further notes that the number of people sleeping rough doubled between 2010 and 2015; notes with concern that across the UK 120,000 children will be homeless this Christmas; recognises that between 1997 and 2010 there was an unprecedented fall in homelessness; and calls on the Government to end rough sleeping and take action to address the root causes of rising homelessness.

With 10 days to go to Christmas, a record number of homeless people are sleeping on our streets, in shop doorways and on park benches. More than 100,000 children will spend Christmas day in temporary accommodation—children with no home, young lives scarred by insecurity and impermanence. That shames us all. Homelessness is not inevitable in a country as decent and well-off as ours. It is a problem that we can solve. We know what works, because we have done it before. The Labour Government reduced rough sleeping by three quarters, and cut statutory homelessness to levels that led the independent audit by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to declare “an unprecedented decline”.

I had hoped that this debate, called in the face of rapidly rising homelessness on all fronts, would be the basis for fresh thinking and a new national will to put an end to the scandal of people sleeping rough on the street for want of somewhere to stay. I still do, but I am disappointed that the Government have rejected our motion, which simply sets out the facts. I say to Ministers and to Government Members who may support them today that they can delete our motion but they cannot deny the facts.

The facts speak for themselves. Rough sleeping fell by about three quarters under Labour; it has doubled under the Conservatives since 2010. The number of households accepted legally as homeless fell by two thirds under Labour, but has risen by nearly half since 2010. The total number of children in temporary accommodation has risen every year since 2010 to over 100,000 in England and 120,000 across the UK. For the avoidance of doubt, the source of these facts and figures is the Communities Secretary himself. If he or his colleagues on the Front Bench need to check, the figures are from Tables 1, 770 and 775.

Let us compare the feeble facts and figures in the Government’s amendment. The Government are pleased with the provision of temporary accommodation, when this can mean whole families sleeping in one bed. It can mean lights that do not work, no fridge, no cooker, no locks on the doors. The Government are spending more money on homelessness. The sums of £315 million, £149 million and £50 million are totals over a full year of Parliament and are dwarfed by the scale of cuts— £5 billion of cuts to housing benefit, and the Supporting People funding halved. Finally, the Government say they are committed to building more homes, when the number of affordable homes being built has hit its lowest level in 24 years, and the number of new social rented homes is at its lowest level since the second world war. In case Ministers have any doubts, the figures are from Table 1000 published by the Communities Secretary.

I warn Conservative Members to take with a large pinch of salt whatever their Front-Bench team say about housing and homelessness. Simply ask, “Is it working?”

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that we should take with a pinch of salt what those on the Government Front Bench say. What does he have to say to the Labour Mayor of London, who says that this Government have just given London a record level of funding for affordable housing?

[John Healey]

I would say two things. First, a large part of that is underspends from the previous period, simply rolled over. Secondly, this year the Government are spending in total about £1 billion on building the new homes that we need in this country. In the last year of the last Labour Government, when I was the Housing Minister and in the hon. Gentleman’s place, it was £3 billion.

I said earlier that the rapidly rising homelessness shames us all. It does, but it should shame Ministers most of all. The hard truth for Tory Ministers is that it is their decisions since 2010 that have caused the homelessness crisis. There are record low levels of affordable rented housing—last year the lowest since 1991. There is a lack of action to help private renters, while eviction or default from a private tenancy is now the biggest single cause of homelessness. There have been deep cuts to housing benefit and charity funding that helps the most vulnerable people, including the homeless.

The amendment mentions the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I am disappointed that he is not in the Chamber. We back this cross-party Bill, but we set two tests for the Government on which we will hold Ministers hard to account: first, fund the costs of the new legal duties in full; and secondly, tackle the causes of the growing homelessness crisis in this country. I welcome the Bill because it draws on similar legislation that the Labour-led Government in Wales introduced in 2014. It is early days, but it seems successfully to have prevented two thirds of all households assessed as at risk of being homeless from losing their home. That is what good councils are doing, day in, day out, across the country, despite the toughest funding cuts and the toughest service pressures.

Exeter Council has cut the number of rough sleepers, against the national trend, with a new street needs audit and a firm approach to street outreach to make sure people cannot opt out of help. Manchester Council has brought together charities, faith groups, businesses, universities and residents’ groups in a new partnership to end homelessness in the city. Enfield Council has set up a council-owned company to purchase 500 properties over five years to house homeless Enfield residents and, of course, to act as a model landlord.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

In the right hon. Gentleman’s contacts with those councils, have they highlighted what they think the impact might be of withdrawing housing benefit from under-21s?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

It is a very good question. I have not met or talked with anyone who believes that such deep cuts, targeted so harshly on young people, will do anything but compound the growing crisis of homelessness in this country. The issue is one of the causes of the spiralling scandal we see, and it is one of the things Ministers really must tackle.

In one of the media interviews I did today before the debate, the presenter said she was shocked the other day to see someone who was homeless pitching a tent in the middle of central London. That will not shock my hon. Friends, and many of them may remember the mass homelessness of the 1980s and 1990s, with tent cities in central London. However, one of the biggest forgotten successes of the last Labour Government was the reduction of rough sleeping to record low levels. We introduced the national rough sleepers unit, a comprehensive intervention plan, ground-breaking legislation, fresh investment and a target to cut rough sleeping by two thirds, which we hit a year early.

However, the time has now come to do better and to end rough sleeping so that no one need sleep on the streets. This is unfinished business for Labour, so today I have made a pledge on behalf of the Labour party that we will end rough sleeping within our first term back in government. This pledge is backed by a plan to double the capacity of the housing scheme ring-fenced for people with a history of rough sleeping. Yes, of course, more street rescue schemes, better access to healthcare and more secure homeless hostel funding are all needed, but we cannot help the homeless if we do not build the homes. Under Labour’s plan, 4,000 additional housing association homes would be earmarked for rough sleepers to help them move out of hostels and rebuild their lives, with Government funding new social rented homes to replace them.

That would be the first part of a new national rough sleeping strategy. It would, in fact, renew a stalled programme started by a Conservative Housing Minister, Sir George Young, in 1991. This clearing house scheme works across London, but it has never been set up in some of the other large cities in this country—cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Leeds.

In conclusion, a Prime Minister who promises on the steps of Downing Street a country that works for everyone simply should not tolerate the scandal of today’s spiralling homelessness. The Government could do these things now. They would have wide support. The National Housing Federation has said today of Labour’s new plan that it will enable housing associations

“to boost their offer to the increasing numbers of rough sleepers.”

St Mungo’s, the largest homeless charity providing support for rough sleepers, says:

“We strongly welcome this commitment to ending rough sleeping and the call for a national rough sleeping strategy.”

We, too, would back the Government if they acted on Labour’s plan. Tackling homelessness can and should be a cross-party commitment, with a new national will to solve what is a growing problem. Let us hope that this debate helps start to forge exactly that shared determination.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes that homelessness is lower now than its peak in 2003-04; further notes that England has a strong safety net, and that the provision of temporary accommodation means no family with a child ever has to be without a roof over their heads; notes that the Government is going further with legislative protection by supporting the hon. Member for Harrow East’s Homelessness Reduction Bill to ensure that everyone gets the help they need to prevent or relieve their homelessness; welcomes the Government's protection of £315 million homelessness prevention funding for local authorities and £149 million in central funding; notes in particular the recently launched £50 million homelessness prevention programme, helping areas all over the country to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping; and notes that one of the best ways to tackle homelessness is by increasing the housing supply, which the measures contained in the forthcoming Housing White Paper will address.”

Government Members welcome this debate. Nobody is hiding from the facts. Both statutory homelessness and rough sleeping are rising, and it is right that we discuss why that is happening and what we need to do to deal with it.

I want to start with a couple of party political points in response to some of the points that the shadow Housing Minister made, but then move on to talk about the substance of the issue and what needs to be done. The motion gives a slightly rose-tinted view of the record of the previous Labour Government. I am happy to give credit where it is due, and if Members will bear with me for a couple of minutes I will then happily take interventions. The motion would have us believe that from the moment the Labour party was elected, homelessness began to fall and continued to fall during its period in office. These are the facts.

In 1998, some 104,000 were people accepted as homeless. That figure rose throughout Labour’s first term in government until halfway through its second term, peaking at about 135,000 in 2003. Then, to their credit, the Government addressed it, and it fell significantly to 41,780 by 2010—[Interruption.] It is not insignificant at all, and I am happy to give credit for that.

[John Healey]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I will just finish the point and then I shall be happy to take interventions. The figure has risen since then to 56,500—not by as much as the motion suggests and certainly to nowhere near the record peak that it reached in Labour’s second term.

There are two other measures that we should look at, one of which is the measure of housing supply. The best measure of that is the net additions to the housing stock each year.

[John Healey]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I will cover the three points and then take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

Over the course of the Labour Government, in the first year the figure was 149,000, then 148,000, and then 132,000, 146,000, 159,000, 170,000, 185,000, 202,000, 214,000, 223,000, 182,000 and 144,000 respectively. In not one year of those years did the previous Labour Government build enough homes, and in only three did they build more than the current Government are achieving—and that was at the height of an unsustainable housing boom that ended up crashing our economy.

The third measure by which we should assess the housing record of the previous Labour Government is affordability. In 1997, the ratio between median earnings and median house prices was 3.54. By 2010, it had increased to 7.01. I am happy to acknowledge that in the subsequent five years of the coalition Government it increased further to 7.63. Looking at all those three measures, while the Labour Government certainly did some good things, and I have no problem with giving them credit for that, the record is far less rosy than the motion suggests.

[John Healey]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He sounds as though he is rehearsing to become the Chancellor giving an autumn statement or a Budget statement. This Government promised in their 2015 manifesto to see 1 million new homes built in this country. They are so far off track, even at the current levels, that it could take until 2025—five years late—to build the number of homes that are needed. The number of new affordable homes built is the lowest on record.

We are talking about homelessness. It is absolutely the case that when Labour came into government in 1997 we were faced with a rapidly rising trend of homelessness, just as we are faced with a rapidly rising trend of homelessness now. The difference was that Labour acted. The figure peaked in 2003, and homelessness over the next period was cut by two thirds. The question for the Minister is this: is he going to act now? Are the Government going to do anything about the rapidly rising and scandalously spiralling level of homelessness we see today?

[Gavin Barwell]

That was a long intervention that did not refute any of the points, but let me deal quickly with each of them. First, on supply, the Government are behind but not way behind, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests they are. [Interruption.] In 2015-16, the first year of the five years of the Parliament, we delivered 190,000, exactly as the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) has just said, and to meet the 1 million target we need to be at 200,000 a year. I will return to the subject of affordable homes later, if the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) will bear with me. The fundamental point that I was trying to make is that we could do with a little less complacency from those on the Opposition Front Bench. [Interruption.] Bear with me for a second. There is no room for complacency on this side of the House, either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am very glad that I took an intervention from my hon. Friend, because he speaks with real authority on mental health issues. He is absolutely right that we need to look at ways in which we can achieve better integration of services. Many of the people we are talking about have profound and multiple needs, and we must ensure that all the relevant agencies are working together.

If the House will bear with me—I know many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate—I just want to make some final remarks to address the question asked by the hon. Member for Lewisham East. The fundamental thing we need to do is to drive up supply, and we will set out in a White Paper in the new year exactly how we propose to do that. Let me say a word specifically about affordable housing, on which the hon. Lady was pushing me. The autumn statement included three key announcements, one of which was about the flexibility of tenure. We inherited an affordable housing programme focused solely on shared ownership, but we have switched it so that housing associations can bid for affordable rent, rent to buy, shared ownership or whatever is most appropriate in their areas. The Chancellor has added an extra £1.4 billion to the affordable housing programme. As I made clear in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, we have also announced the London allocation of £3.5 billion, which is 43% of the national budget. As I said, if hon. Members do not wish to take my word for it, let me quote the Labour Mayor of London:

“This is the largest sum of money ever secured by City Hall to deliver affordable housing.”

He made that statement before London has got its share of the extra £1.4 billion that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement.

Let me end by dealing with the issue of affordable housing supply. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne was right on one statistic at least: the 2015-16 figures on affordable housing were very low—unacceptably low. That was because we finished one programme the previous year and the new programme was late starting. That is a feeble excuse, and the Secretary of State and I are determined to ensure it does not happen again.

To set out the facts, in three of the five years of the coalition Government, we built more affordable homes than in any of the last nine years of the Labour Government. The record of the Government since 2010—I am very happy to give some credit to our coalition partners—is that we have delivered significantly more affordable housing than was delivered, on average, over the last nine years of the Labour Government. I do not have the figures for before 2001. We have just put extra money into the budget, so we should be able to drive up supply.

I will end by making this point.

[John Healey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

No, I am drawing my remarks to a close.

What we need in this country—the hon. Member for Lewisham East was quite right—is more homes of every single kind. We need more homes for people to buy, more homes for private rent, more affordable homes at sub-market rents and more shared ownership homes. We need more homes of every single kind. We are determined to achieve that and, at the same time, to provide the crucial support on our streets to deal with the immediate acute crisis. To end on a positive note, I hope we can build a coalition around the vital change we need in our country to get us building the homes we so desperately need.