Supported Housing

Debate between Robin Walker and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend goes to the nub of the issue. We are not talking about fiscal changes regarding general needs housing, which is a separate issue. We understand that there has been a significant increase in the housing benefit bill over the past number of years and we have to reduce that. We are talking here about young people who are fleeing violent backgrounds, women who are fleeing violent partners, and teenagers, children and young adults who have mental health issues—my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney alluded to this point. That situation is different, so the Minister needs to put a case to the Treasury that a much more long-term and sustainable funding regime should be put in place before we go any further.

I mentioned delayed discharge. If only we were in a position to plan these supported housing schemes properly—they are now under threat, as my hon. Friend so eloquently revealed—we would make a net saving. The process might take five or 10 years, but we must consider the number of older people who are admitted to hospital when they do not need to be in acute hospital beds, but instead need appropriate housing to deal with their specific individual needs.

[Mr Robin Walker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many elderly people and those with specific conditions might be able to avoid a hospital admission altogether if they had the right supported housing?

[Mr Jackson]

Absolutely. One of the great pleasures of being a constituency MP is that we get to visit some of these excellent supported housing schemes—these extra care centres—with Friary Court and the Pavilions being two that Axiom Housing Association has in the urban area of Peterborough.

May I allude briefly to the specific concerns that Mr Lewin raised about the impact of these changes in the Peterborough area? He said:

“Axiom has already felt one of the consequences of the proposed LHA policy—a flagship extra care scheme for 60 vulnerable people at Whittlesey is now on hold as we cannot commit to building these new projects when there is uncertainty surrounding the future revenue funding streams.”

Whittlesey is actually in North East Cambridgeshire, but the point is very reasonable. The policy has a particular impact when low-value land is involved, as is the case in our neighbouring authority of Fenland, although that also applies to other parts of the east of England.

Mr Lewin also mentions the services that are affected, which include young persons’ foyers, homeless hostels, specialist supported housing, extra care housing and sheltered housing. He goes on to detail the

“current impact on each of these schemes/projects based on current rents and service charges”.

For instance, the Peterborough Foyer and the Wisbech Foyer, which do a really good job for young people who want to get off benefits, find work, training or internships, and make something of their lives and improve themselves, will face a cumulative loss in annual income of £620,557. He said that our homeless hostels, such as Fairview Court and New Haven, would lose £461,735. The three Peterborough extra care schemes, two of which I have mentioned, will lose £794,704.

Part of the problem is that we do not get a generic service with such specialist housing. We have night porter services for safety and security, which is an enhanced service that has to be paid for. Losses will also vary according to the amount of Supporting People money that funds support costs. When there is little such money, the costs are included in the housing benefit element of the service charge, which will now be capped. Mr Lewin goes on to say that the projected lost revenue to Axiom for supported housing is £2.2 million.

Unless the Government have quite an innovative, forward-looking and visionary approach for how else that money can be made up, many of the registered providers that provide this much-needed housing for vulnerable people will find themselves in great difficulty, and that will clearly impact on work in the community and in general needs housing. A local housing association in my constituency, Cross Keys Homes, runs an apprenticeship school, which is a fantastic scheme. There will be a knock-on effect—a cumulative knock-on effect across the country—in terms of how individuals will have to be taken care of if they cannot be housed in the most appropriate way.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Robin Walker and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely; the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to create balance in the system. Speaking for my midlands constituency, we are somewhere in the middle and we face that issue. We want to ensure that the Government fund our local authorities properly and that the business rates base is not eroded. That is an important point that we need to consider as we devolve more business rates. I support the strong bid from Worcestershire, combined with all the district councils, for greater devolution of business rates. I think that it could deliver well for my constituents if that bid was listened to.

I am delighted to welcome the focus in the Queen’s Speech on supporting aspiration and promoting home ownership, and I support the ambitious commitment to build 1 million homes. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who said that he could not see any scope for more homes in his constituency, I welcome more affordable homes in Worcester. There have been some great developments in recent years on brownfield sites and record numbers of affordable homes have been delivered in the past year in Worcester under a Conservative council.

A lot of people have talked about the local elections. As has been widely spread about by the media, we were not as successful in the local elections in Worcester as I would have liked. The Greens won a seat and Labour regained a seat in which its councillor had defected. The Conservatives remain the biggest group on Worcester City Council but, unfortunately, we have seen similar shenanigans to what has gone on in Wales. Instead of being propped up by Plaid, in Worcester Labour is propped up by the Green party. I worry about that, to be honest, but I will work with whoever is in control of our city council, as I have in the past. When the Liberal Democrats reneged on a deal with the Conservative party and went in with Labour a few years ago, I worked very effectively with the Labour leadership on the council.

I was disappointed, however, that when Labour took the leadership of the council at that time, 100 affordable homes were being delivered every year, yet it managed to reduce the number of affordable homes built in Worcester during its one year in office by a third. That was terribly disappointing and it went against the party’s manifesto commitments that it was elected to carry out. I hope that it does better this time around, because, as I said, with the Conservatives in control of the council over the past year, there has been record delivery of affordable homes. This issue matters. As the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said, this is something that comes up regularly at our constituency surgeries. It is essential for any Government to deliver new homes. I am very happy to compare the record of this Government on delivering new homes with that of the last Labour Government.

On houses and homes, I hope that we will take further measures in this Parliament to prevent homelessness. I welcome the launch of the all-party group on ending homelessness, which was set up by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh), and the widespread cross-party support it has received.

We have heard a lot about the prison reform aspects of the Gracious Speech and I could not describe them better than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). I agreed with everything he said about that point, even if I disagree with him about the case for a British Bill of Rights. We need to see the sort of cross-party consensus that is driving prison reform forward on many more issues in the years to come.

The Gracious Speech talks about tackling

“poverty and the causes of deprivation, including family instability, addiction and debt”.

In the last Parliament, I joined colleagues from both sides of the House, including many Labour Members, in campaigning for more action against high-cost debt providers—the likes of a certain firm beginning with W. The Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, who is on the Front Bench, was very involved in those campaigns. I was pleased that after much campaigning, we moved the needle and more action was taken to support greater financial education, to support financial advice services such as Citizens Advice through a levy on high-cost lenders, and to regulate some of the bad practice that was going on. I hope that that work continues.

I am pleased to welcome measures to help the lowest income families to save through help to save and the creation of the lifetime ISA. I have asked before—I take the opportunity of the Queen’s Speech to ask again, on behalf of Members on both sides of the House—that we look at how we can involve credit unions in that process. Credit unions have immense support across the House and do incredibly valuable work in all our constituencies. As chairman of the all-party group on credit unions, I am keen for them to play a central role in the delivery of help to save.

As a Parliamentary Private Secretary, I cannot say much about the parts of the Queen’s Speech on education, but I look forward to working on their implementation. All I would say is that, having spoken about the need for a national funding formula in every year of the last Parliament, I would be delighted to meet Ministers from other Departments to educate them about how that could be applied, particularly in health and social care.

It is, of course, good news that the Gracious Speech refers to a seven-day NHS. It is very good news from my perspective, having spoken to concerned constituents and junior doctors, that an agreement has been reached. I hope that the agreement holds and that, as happens so often in this place, through talking we can take relations to a better place.

I was interested to note the focus in the Gracious Speech on

“mental health provision for individuals in the criminal justice system.”

We have discussed in this House over the past few years how there needs to be a greater focus on mental health across the whole NHS and beyond. I hope we can continue that progress in the years to come.

One thing that I would have liked to have seen in the Queen’s Speech—I have asked for this to be included in previous Queen’s Speeches, but I am afraid that we have not seen it yet—is delivery on the Dilnot reforms. I recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Health about a tragic case from my constituency in which somebody lost all their family assets as a result of an elderly relative needing care. That is unfinished business, frankly, and I will push for greater delivery on that front, as well as on the Government’s response to the Choice review on end-of-life care.

Like other Members, including the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who spoke for the Democratic Unionists, I welcome the decision to invest in our armed forces to honour the military covenant and meet the NATO commitment to spend 2% on defence. I welcome the fact that we balance that with our investment in the wider world through the development budget. It is vital that that money is spent well and that we have the right goals when investing in international security, and in economic and humanitarian challenges.

I am pleased that the Gracious Speech spoke about bringing peace to Syria and a lasting political settlement. I hope that we can also make progress, although much of this it is not within our power in this House, on the other great issues of contention in the middle east. In this anniversary year of the Balfour declaration, I hope that we can meet all its obligations, including those to the Palestinian people.

I welcome the upcoming visit of the President of Colombia. Having chaired the British Argentine all-party group in the last Parliament and having been involved in Latin American affairs, I think that our country neglects its Latin American relationships at its peril. There is much that we need to do to build them up and to engage with everyone in Latin America. We must build on the amazing legacy of Canning and of our being the first country to recognise and support the Latin American republics. There is huge good will towards this country across Latin America, particularly among business people.

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend is making a fine speech, but he tempts me in a way that I cannot resist. He will know that a senior politician in Mexico, which has a population of 120 million, said recently that it would be delighted to enter into a bilateral trade agreement, should Britain leave the European Union. That would help greatly in cementing our relations with Latin America and other countries.

[Mr Walker]

I am delighted to have that reassurance from my hon. Friend. I just hope that he could offer the same reassurance in respect of the President of the United States and the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I fear that some of those people value us more as a member of the European Union that can get them access to a market of 500 million people than they would if we were outside it. I think we ought to be friendly with all our friends around the world. I respect the arguments that are made about the European Union by my hon. Friends who want to come out, but I have concluded that it is in the interests of my constituents for Britain to remain in and to continue to fight our corner.