Homelessness

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate about homelessness and I thank the Labour party for bringing it to the House. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) on his contribution. It is a pleasure to follow my parliamentary football colleague, the Minister. The thoughts of all those on the SNP Benches are with the families of the victims of the Croydon tram crash on the day of the memorial service.

Although we would prefer it if the motion focused more on the causes of homelessness, including the brutal benefit sanctions regime and the years of imposed austerity, we will support it tonight in solidarity, as we believe that action must be taken by the UK Government to drive down homelessness. That must include moving urgently to address the regressive cuts to the system that is supposed to support, not punish, the disadvantaged.

Before I begin, I wish to highlight one aspect of the Labour motion that is particularly troubling for me and for others across the House: the prospect of children being without safe, warm and secure housing at any time, but particularly at Christmas. Before we retreat into our party political trenches, I hope we can all agree that that is unacceptable and must be addressed. In Scotland, the number of children living in temporary accommodation has fallen since 2007.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman said that the Government should be doing more to reduce homelessness. Does he accept that we are working on a cross-party basis to reduce homelessness at the Committee stage of the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which is supported by the Government?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely, I acknowledge that. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) sits on the Bill Committee, so it is something that we are working on constructively. I will come on to other areas where I believe the Government should be doing more to address the issues we face.

Housing matters are devolved to each nation of the UK, so this debate offers me the chance to focus on what actions the Scottish Government have taken, using those powers, to address the problem of homelessness when it arises and to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Although housing policy is devolved, the reasons for homelessness are largely, in the public policy sense, the result of decisions taken here.

Homelessness can take many forms and has a variety of causes and consequences. Although it is sometimes thought of as referring only to those sleeping rough on the streets, an assortment of circumstances can lead to an individual being classed as homeless. Many live in temporary accommodation or stay on friends’ floors or with family, sometimes in precarious arrangements. Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, a person should be treated as homeless even if they have accommodation if it would not be reasonable for them to continue to occupy it.

Just as countless types of people can find themselves forced to seek asylum or to migrate to another country when their circumstances change, homelessness can affect almost anyone, and for a number of reasons, such as domestic abuse, marital breakdown, disputes with neighbours, bereavement of a family member and loss of income—those are among the many reasons why someone could find themselves unable to remain in their current property and in need of support.

The key difference in the approach to homelessness prevention in Scotland from that in the other three nations of the UK is that local authorities have a duty towards all unintentionally homeless households, irrespective of whether they are classed as being a priority need. Clearly, for any individual or family, regardless of any other criteria, the prospect of losing the roof over their head means they should be entitled to all possible support in finding alternative accommodation. The abolition of the priority need criterion was described by Shelter as providing

“the best homelessness law in Europe.”

According to figures from Crisis from April 2016, homelessness in Scotland has been on “a marked downward path” for the past five years. Crisis has attributed that decline to the introduction of the housing options model, a process in Scotland that starts with giving housing advice to someone with a housing problem who approaches their local authority, to look at an individual’s options, given their circumstances, so as to match things up best and spot any warning signs for potential problems at an early stage.

In that regard, the most significant action has been the abolition of the right-to-buy scheme in Scotland. Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, argues that

“as the decades passed, it became clear that the impact of right-to-buy was to create more losers than winners in our housing system, significantly undermining wider efforts to improve social justice in Scotland…The initiative saw three social homes being sold for every new one built, representing poor value for increasingly limited public money…During the right-to-buy era, homelessness numbers soared and today still remain at levels far beyond those in 1980.”

By abolishing the right to buy the Scottish Government will help to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of local authority housing stock, at an affordable rent and with secure tenancies, to help alleviate some of the causes of potential homelessness that come with expensive private rents and the uncertainty about the long term that short-term tenancies can bring.

The Scottish National party is already committed to investing more than £3 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes, with 35,000 for social rent. Housing supply is key to the matter before us today, which is why I am heartened by the statistics released as national statistics for Scotland this week showing that social house building is up in Scotland by 77% in April to June this year, with a 26% increase in starts on council homes to September.

As well as dealing with the right to buy, the SNP Government have attempted to address another factor behind homelessness by using their limited powers to mitigate the impact of the Tory bedroom tax. Numerous homelessness charities, including Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have said that that hated policy is partly responsible for the rise in homelessness across the UK since the start of this decade. The UK Government’s own research from December 2015 found that on average only 0.5% of those affected by the bedroom tax have been able to move from their home; the vast majority of those affected by the cut have had to live with a reduced income, unable to move because of family proximity, school, work and the shortage of appropriate housing.

Last year the Scottish Government provided an additional £35 million fully to mitigate the cost of the bedroom tax, with £90 million invested in that mitigation since 2013. Around 72,000 households in Scotland have been helped through this additional funding, with about 80% of recipients being disabled adults and about 11,000 of them being households with one or more children. Abolishing the bedroom tax in full will be one of the first priorities once the transfer of limited social security powers to the Scottish Government is completed.

The recent debate on the state of the social security system, particularly as it affects those unfit for work, provoked by Ken Loach’s film, “I, Daniel Blake”, casts our minds back to his earlier televised play, “Cathy Come Home”, which the Minister mentioned, and which, in a similar social realist way, helped to highlight the problem of homelessness in 1960s Britain. There is clearly a connection between these two works. Both highlight the importance of a strong social security system to helping avoid such problems, and both illustrate what happens when a Government’s approach to an issue fails fully to take into account people’s individual circumstances.

The private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on 2 December, which the SNP supported, sought to do just that by establishing a sanctions review system whereby an individual’s circumstances would be taken into account before a sanction decision could be made. Such a review would include considering whether someone is at risk of homelessness and would go some way to personalising the sanctions system, although we would obviously prefer that it be scrapped altogether.

The Tory Government’s sanctions regime has had many catastrophic consequences for families across the UK, and clearly the increase in homelessness must be considered among the most serious. The regime has left individuals and families, often already vulnerable, without money for weeks on end, at a time when they are often being hounded by predators, such as payday loan companies, and can often lead to rent arrears and spiralling debt that can create a downward spiral leading to eviction.

In December 2015, research for the homelessness charity Crisis carried out by Sheffield Hallam University found that 21% of people sanctioned in the last year had become homeless as a result and that 16% of those sanctioned had been forced to sleep rough. Only last month, in response to the National Audit Office report that suggested there was no evidence that sanctions worked, Mr Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said:

“We know from our own research that benefit sanctions are a cause of homelessness and have a significant impact on vulnerable people – including those who are already homeless, care leavers and people with mental ill health”.

For anyone in such a position, losing the support of benefits can be disastrous and make it even harder to find work.

The SNP is clear about the damage caused by UK social security cuts and will keep working with stakeholders to understand the impact of the UK Government’s planned local housing allowance changes on social tenants in Scotland. The proposed capping will lock those who need support out of either seeking it or being able to afford it.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

On the point about sanctions for those with mental health issues and homeless people, does the hon. Gentleman welcome the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions of a discretionary fund to help support them when they are at their most vulnerable?

[Neil Gray]

Yes, but it is clearly an acknowledgement that the system has not worked for these people. With respect, any move to get rid of the sanctions regime is obviously welcome, but far more needs to be done.

The gap between the LHA paid and the price of supported housing could see many at-risk individuals not receive the support they need from a residential tenancy. A sample study carried out by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations found that associations in Scotland that provided supported accommodation could lose between £5.2 million and £14.3 million per year. From 2019, the resources for supported accommodation will transfer to the Scottish Government. We are left with great concern about the LHA levels.

The Scottish Government have said that, once they have further details, they will work with their partners to ensure that supported accommodation is put on a secure and sustainable future for the longer term. With the cost of living set to rise, damning forecasts for the UK economy and little cheer in the autumn statement for low-income families, as we heard in the previous debate, it is important that the UK Government realise the damaging impact that austerity is having up and down the country in a variety of ways. This debate has helped to highlight this damage in the crucial area of homelessness. The UK Government should have little to ponder when they consider the growing emergence of people just about managing.

In the time left, I wish to touch briefly on a more general discussion about homelessness, looking at things from the individual’s point of view and understanding both the underlying causes and consequences of homelessness, which can be harder to quantify and address.

Crisis has carried out numerous pieces of important research on the causes and consequences, which have uncovered some particularly depressing statistics. On average, homeless people die at 47 years old, 30 years before the national average of 77. However, poor physical or mental health, along with dependency issues, are problems for the entire homeless population, whether they are sleeping rough on the streets, in hostels or in temporary accommodation.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case, but just to correct that point, it is rough sleepers who are likely to die at the age of 46, which is a tragedy in this day and age. The figures that he is probably looking at relate to the problems of so-called sofa surfers, who are those sleeping with friends or family or anywhere else they can find. The figures for those people, although they are homeless, are not as bad. We need to narrow the focus on to the problems faced by rough sleepers on the streets.

[Neil Gray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am happy to confirm that, as I have said, homeless people die at 47 years old, and there are issues with life chances whether people are rough sleeping or living in temporary accommodation of varying standards. I think that is a point he will agree with—he is nodding.

Physical disabilities, mental ill health or dependency issues can also trigger, or be part of, a chain of events that lead to someone becoming homeless. Such problems can make it more difficult for people to engage with services and get the help and support they need. Too often services are not set up to respond to the particular, individualised needs of homeless people. Two thirds of homeless people cite drug or alcohol use as a reason for first becoming homeless and those who use drugs are seven times more likely to be homeless than the general population. There are high levels of stress and mental illness associated with being homeless, and it is not uncommon for those traumatised by homelessness to seek solace in drug or alcohol abuse thereafter. Indeed, 27% of homeless people surveyed reported having or recovering from an alcohol problem and 39% reported taking drugs or are recovering from a drug problem.

Although a small percentage of those classed as homeless are sleeping rough on the streets—it is all too high a percentage nevertheless—it is worth remembering the challenges and problems that such a dreadful situation brings and what needs to be done to address it. The 2011 report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, “Tackling homelessness and exclusion: Understanding complex lives”, helped to highlight

“extreme forms of homelessness and other support needs,”

and the

“nearly half of service users reporting experience of institutional care, substance misuse, and street activities (such as begging), as well as homelessness.”

In conclusion, the additional challenges and underlying issues mean that while everything must be done by both the Scottish and UK Governments to ensure that a strong safety net is in place for those facing the prospect of homelessness and measures to deal with it, as a society we must also understand and seek to address the underlying causes and consequences that some of those caught up in this horrendous situation face, by ensuring that all individuals can access support from the agencies best placed to assist them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]