Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation — House of Commons, 2022-02-23
Topic: Housing
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), who represents the constituency I grew up in. More importantly, she made such a powerful point to illustrate the importance of this debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who is temporarily not in her place, for bringing this debate about, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who is also not here at the moment, for his response. I listened to him carefully. He certainly understands the issues, because of his former roles at Birmingham YMCA and in the housing movement before he entered this House, but we need more than his understanding and his pilots MPs have raised so many examples of the poor standards, the poor support and the lack of regulation faced by too many tenants living in exempt accommodation or supported housing across the country. We must not forget that almost all those living in exempt accommodation are the most vulnerable and the most in need of care and support, almost by definition. They include those with mental health needs, those recovering from serious addiction, those fleeing domestic abuse, those leaving prison or the care system and those with other vulnerabilities. What they have in common is that they need and deserve to get their lives back on track and to move on, but for many, the abuses of exempt accommodation prevent that from happening There are many good examples of supported housing and exempt accommodation, such as Look Ahead, which provides housing and support for 18 to 25-year-olds with complex needs in my constituency. When I visited last autumn, the residents told me about the help they were getting from Look Ahead staff with their benefits, with getting on courses and into work, with having meaningful activities to occupy them when they were not able to study or work, with support with parenting and with the other basics of day-to-day life that these young people are not able to get from their parents for a variety of reasons. Look Ahead, like other charities and community interest companies, is set up to support vulnerable people, as well as to provide a roof over their heads, and not to make a profit. Staff told me that cuts to funding and universal credit mean that they struggle to provide the level and quality of support that they are set up to offer and want to be able to provide for these youngsters There are also rogue landlords, however, who exploit the system permitted by the exempt housing benefit provisions. They are making obscene profits at the taxpayers’ expense and then costing taxpayers more in the long run through the price of neglect of those vulnerable people. We have heard many examples in the debate Not all exempt accommodation has been exported from London. I am aware of several such houses in my west London constituency. A constituent with mental health problems was placed in a run-down house with no support for his needs and was living in fear of another resident with aggressive and violent behaviour. Constituents living near such supported accommodation have been affected by antisocial behaviour and racist, sexist and homophobic abuse from the residents. Those residents have no meaningful activities to keep them occupied or sanctions on their actions, as they would if the supported accommodation was properly run This is yet another example of the wider trend that we have seen under the Government of the most vulnerable people in society being a mere afterthought. The sweeping cuts to local authorities such as Hounslow, which has lost £150 million in grant funding since 2010, have had an impact. Funding for social housing nationally has seen huge cuts, as has already been raised today. Support services have been shredded before our eyes The safety nets provided by local authorities, Government agencies and the always-valuable third sector have fallen away. The cumulative effect of those cuts has had an impact that hits the most vulnerable hardest—including those living in exempt accommodation owned by rogue landlords. We are talking about people who are vulnerable now, some of whom are a risk to themselves or perhaps those around them. Most want to move on with their lives, but the support that they need to do that is no longer there Exempt accommodation appears to exist in a vacuum largely outside regulations or the control and influence of local authorities. We have the Care Quality Commission to regulate the quality of care in our health and care settings, and the prisons inspectorate for those in custody, but nothing to ensure that such landlords are providing the care and support that the residents badly need. The limited powers that councils have to regulate HMOs do not apply to exempt accommodation and the schemes that we have heard about from the Minister are merely discretionary My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who is no longer in her place, reminded us of Supporting People, which was a good model of providing support for people in need. It was introduced by the Labour Government and ended by the Conservative Government. Now, 11 years later, the Government must act, and soon. We need stronger regulations, not just discretionary standards. We need a social housing regulator with powers to deal with rogue landlords who are not only ripping off the taxpayer but putting the most vulnerable people in society at risk. We need providers to pass a fit and proper persons test before they are allowed to provide exempt accommodation. We need a stronger inspections regime to keep providers on their toes and a regulator that has full powers of enforcement to clamp down on those who still flout the system. That is the least that the vulnerable residents of exempt accommodation and their neighbours deserve. When I intervened on the Minister, he conceded that he would not shy away from further regulation if a case was made, and I hope that he does not shy away from it.