argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on the way he has piloted the Bill through its initial stages and prepared it for Second Reading. He worked with outside agencies and ensured pre-legislative scrutiny by the relevant Select Committee, of which he is a member. That scrutiny has resulted in a better Bill. With 18 pages and 13 clauses, this ain’t no ordinary private Member’s Bill. He has secured the support of outside agencies, with a public campaign and the lobbying of Parliament. I pay tribute to those from The Housing Link in my area who came down for that. That work has paid off this morning No one can be in any doubt that homelessness is a real problem. The Department for Communities and Local Government’s rough sleeping statistics for England estimate that the number of people sleeping rough has increased from 1,768 in 2010 to 3,569 in 2015. In my own local authority area of Bury, the figures have varied from a peak of 10 in 2013 to a rather doubtful zero in 2014, and to nine last year Of course, no legislation of itself will solve the problem of homelessness. Many people volunteer, and many people work in charities, the third sector and local authority housing departments, striving day and night to help those who find themselves either homeless or under threat of being made homeless. For example, my own church of St Anne’s in Tottington regularly collects for, and provides help to, the Booth Centre in Manchester. I place on record my thanks to them all for their work I support the proposal to ensure that single people who are homeless or facing homelessness are not discriminated against simply because they are single and do not fall into one of the priority groups. It must make sense to extend the time period during which help can be offered. The old adage that prevention is better than cure is no truer than when it comes to homelessness One of the underlying causes of homelessness is, of course, the supply of homes. It is therefore incumbent on all social housing providers to keep their voids to a minimum. The other side of the equation, however, is something we have not really heard about this morning: demand and the effect that immigration is having on the supply of housing. A net figure of 300,000 people coming into the country every year, all of whom need a home somewhere, must be having an effect on the number of homes required. It must be having an effect on homelessness. It must also be having an effect on rents. Nevertheless, I support the Bill.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
William James Quince (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. Every Member in this Chamber will have had such an experience, which is exactly why it is so important that this Bill enters the statute book. Ironically, all those negative social costs and the adverse advice being given to our constituents come with a financial cost. It costs the council more to wait three to six months, because it has to put the family into temporary accommodation. It cannot get them into private sector rented accommodation because of the CCJs against them; no landlord will take those families. By acting at the point at which the family rightly comes to ask for help, the council would save money. Councils up and down the country that act like Colchester Borough Council are acting negligently. They are giving terrible advice that is against Government guidance and, I think, unlawful In the interests of time, I will conclude. I fully support this Bill, particularly because the definition of homelessness applies to households served with a notice seeking possession. Really importantly, the Bill contains strengthened advice and information, and a personalised plan, which means that every single family that comes forward has to be assessed and looked after on an individual basis. I urge all colleagues to support this Bill.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. Before I call anyone else to speak, it surely must be obvious that this Bill has support from all around the House. There is very little disagreement and argument going on among Members. Therefore, I must urge Members to speak for fewer than five minutes. If everyone who has indicated to me that they wish to speak, and who has just stood wishing to speak, speaks for as long as the average speech so far, the Bill will not receive its Second Reading, because it will be talked out. The point is to raise your issues in the House, not to keep repeating what everyone else has said, thereby putting the Bill in danger. I implore Members to think not of their own press releases or the pieces of paper that they have in their hands, but of the point of getting the Bill through. I implore Members to think about other people as well as themselves.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall endeavour to follow the brevity of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). At the risk of repeating others, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on introducing this essential Bill. This is the most significant legislation on homelessness since the Housing Act 1996, and I am pleased that the Government are joining me in supporting it I am abandoning all my notes, probably much to the disappointment of the researchers in my office, but I will make a couple of points. Before becoming an MP I visited a couple of organisations for the homeless. One was called the Cyrenians but is now known as Changing Lives—Members from the north-east will know that organisation—and the other is St George’s Crypt, which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) mentioned earlier. Those remarkable organisations are doing terrific work, and visiting them was a wonderful opportunity to learn a little more about the issues around homelessness and the need for the extra support and advice that those organisations provide. This Bill will go a long way towards addressing some of the issues that those two organisations, and others like them across the country, seek to address My husband spent 12 years serving in the Royal Navy, and we often hear statistics about the high proportion of ex-forces people who find themselves homeless. A lot of work has gone into reducing that number, and charities such as the Royal British Legion, the Salvation Army and others are doing tremendous work on that issue. I am pleased to hear references to the armed forces covenant, which is another area where we must continue to seek further improvements I will wrap up having spoken for just over two minutes—I hope that others will follow my example—by saying that I welcome this Bill. I look forward to following its progress through Committee and the other place as it hopefully becomes law.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Felicia Jane Beatrix Drummond (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to speak in support of the Bill, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on bringing it forward. I thank Crisis for giving us so many updates Although I welcome the Bill, it is important to recognise the work our local authorities already do to help the homeless. Portsmouth City Council deserves praise for the way it works with the homeless across the whole spectrum. The number of families in temporary accommodation has fallen. The council’s housing options team already assigns a caseworker for each family at risk, but as other Members have mentioned—in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince)—our concern is that people have to go all the way to the point of eviction before an authority can help them Last week I saw three examples of people in that situation at my constituency surgery. One was a serving member of the armed forces. I therefore welcome clause 1, which redefines homelessness and gives protection to those at risk at an earlier stage than is currently the case under the 1996 Act. Replacing the current 28-day period with a 56-day period will give more reassurance to those in difficulty, and more time for preparing a plan of action. I hope that that will be of help to the people I have been seeing in my surgery, and in particular people affected who are in the armed forces; it is a disgrace that someone in the armed forces had to come to my surgery because he does not have somewhere to go when he leaves the forces next month I am also pleased that clause 2 reinforces the duty to provide advisory services, but it is not only the local authority that can provide advice; there are plenty of charities in the sector, such as the Roberts Centre in Portsmouth, which provides a tenancy support service. Last year the centre helped 86 families, and I am pleased that it is funded by the Government’s supporting people service Finally, as others have mentioned, clause 8 gives greater protection to care leavers, but I would like it to go further. I believe the state should be taking a parental role by looking after care leavers until the age of 25. Many parents, myself included, have children in their 20s who are still living at home. The state ought to do the same for care leavers. Care leavers should also be supported to move outside their local area if seeking work or educational opportunities. Those vulnerable young people need support wherever they go and live. I hope that will be taken into account in Committee. We know that they face many risks, and we can do something to reduce one of those risks with the Bill The charity Crisis estimates that reducing homelessness could free up £370 million a year of public spending. We also know from the Welsh experience that early action can prevent homelessness. I am therefore really pleased that the Bill enjoys support from all parties, and hope we can send a unanimous message from this House that we are all backing it today.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Before I call the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I must congratulate the last few speakers who have been very brief and to the point. We can relax a little now. Five to six minutes is fine, but no more than that. The trouble is that if I say five minutes, those five minutes will become seven, so I am still saying five. Those who have taken two or three minutes should take the brownie points.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): You gave us the four-minute warning earlier, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will stick to that. There are many points I would like to make, but I will focus on just one as it is important that we proceed to the key moment of letting the Bill, which I support in principle, go forward to the next stage. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests I want to focus on how the measures in the Bill will be paid for. Like many hon. Members, I have the concern that while the Bill is very fine in principle, there is a danger of passing it into law and finding that our local authorities do not have the resources to implement the duties it puts on them. I am sure the Minister will tell us that he has put his hand down the back of the sofa in Marsham Street and come up with the money we need to support this—I hope he does—but I would like to suggest one way we might consider paying for the measures in the Bill This is about intervention in the housing market. We should remember that the Government already intervene in the UK housing market to the tune of many billions of pounds. We should consider ring-fencing some of the profits from the Help to Buy scheme. At the moment, the Government’s stake in residential property from all equity loans, going right back to those under new Labour such as HomeBuy Direct and First Buy, is £4 billion. That cash is not sitting there available for us to spend. However, it is being redeemed at an increasingly fast rate Last year, redemptions on equity loans—money to the Exchequer—amounted to £183 million. From a social point of view, when somebody redeems an equity loan from a scheme such as Help to Buy, they will do so because they have benefited from Government money to get on the property ladder. At that point, they will have either sold the property or re-mortgaged it and become a fully fledged 100% property owner—a part of the property-owning democracy to which we all aspire. It would be a very powerful signal if, at that point, we were to share some of their success with the people at the sharp end. That would be a more holistic housing policy We could still repay the Government debt and Government interest. In the time that the £4 billion has accrued, house price inflation has, since 2013 alone, been 23.3%. Even if 10% of that was profit, that is still £400 million, or £150 million a year for the rest of the Parliament. That is my main point. I hope the Minister will at least give consideration to having a joined-up housing policy, so that schemes such as Help to Buy in effect become a social impact bond. The whole of society will benefit from this way of robustly funding the commitments in the Bill, and councils will not be left out of pocket.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss). I share her support for the Bill, but I could not help noticing one or two specific points that she made. There was, for example, her talk of local government funding. My memory goes back reasonably well over the last two years, and I am reminded of what the current "Strictly Come Dancing" star and former shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said about the extra funding that Labour would make available to local government. It was a round figure, to say the least, and it was not the figure 10 It has been interesting to hear some of the comments that have been made today, but I want to return to the welcome and genuine cross-party spirit that produced the Bill. As a constituent pointed out to me on Twitter a few moments ago, we need to be clear about the fact that homelessness is not always visible. It is not just about people sleeping rough on the streets. Indeed, most homelessness is not about someone sleeping in a shop doorway, although that may be the most visible manifestation of it, and obviously the most concerning. Much of it involves people who are not in appropriate accommodation, such as families who are living in houses that are too small for them and their needs, or people who are sofa surfing. Some people do not have a home of their own, and would be out on the street but for a kindly family member or friend who says, "Here is the sofa"—or the floor—"and you can at least be somewhere warm and dry." That, however, is not much of a step up from being out on the street.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Wendy Morton (Conservative, Centre-right): Could not those sofa surfers, and others who are not actually visible to us when we walk around our constituencies or around London, be described as "the hidden homeless"? Does that phrase not encapsulate their situation?
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): Was my hon. Friend as startled as I was to discover that in the last quarter, nearly 5,000 people were judged to be homeless but not a priority case? Does he welcome the changes in the Bill to address those extremely vulnerable people who are not covered by the existing legislative framework?
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not have put it better myself. The excellent briefing note prepared by the House of Commons Library talks of the fear that a bit of "gatekeeping" is going on when people approach local authorities. It is hard to see how 5,000 people can be defined as homeless but not a priority. The changes proposed in the Bill are therefore very welcome It is also welcome that, as was mentioned earlier, the armed forces will remain a priority. Those who have put their lives on the line for this country should know that there will be a home fit for a hero awaiting them when they leave the forces. There are sometimes issues with locality, and I accept that there are unique issues if someone is looking to return to certain parts of London after their service. However, it is part of the duty we owe to servicemen and women who have put their life on the line that they know there will be a home fit for them and their family I welcome the debate we have had on the Bill today, and I welcome all the clauses in it. We will now move on to the detailed Committee process to finalise it and ensure that it tackles the issues we all wish to see tackled in order to reduce homelessness. That is why I think it is appropriate that the Bill receives its Second Reading, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for introducing this carefully considered Bill. As he is aware, this Government are committed to preventing homelessness. The number of people found to be homeless is down by 58% from the 2003-04 peak, but the Government remain absolutely clear that one person without a home is one too many We are supporting the largest house-building programme by any Government since the 1970s, but homelessness is not just a housing issue. Tackling it requires a collective response at national and local level, and an unrelenting focus on prevention. There are many examples of good early intervention around the country, and we want all areas to learn from the experiences of the best, driving good practice to help more areas to learn from effective ways to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place We are taking action, and we have already made significant progress. In 2010, we overhauled the methodology for counting rough sleepers, so every council now has to report the scale of the problem in its area. Since 2010, we have invested more than £500 million to help local authorities prevent almost 1 million households from becoming homeless Over the course of this Parliament, we are going further. The Government have protected the homelessness prevention funding that goes to local authorities, which will reach £315 million by 2020, and we have increased funding to tackle homelessness to £139 million over the course of this Parliament Just this month we have announced that we are going even further. We have launched our £40 million homelessness prevention package, which takes an end-to-end approach to preventing more people from becoming homeless and helping them to recover quickly when they do. It will mean quicker intervention with rough sleepers or people at risk of sleeping rough, and it will turn around the lives of some of the most entrenched rough sleepers in England. The £10 million rough sleeping grant fund, which forms part of this package, will enable local areas to intervene early with rough sleepers before their problems become entrenched, and to build better local multi-agency partnerships to address people’s underlying problems.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for bringing up a point that Members across the House have rightly raised today. I shall say more about this later, but I hope that I will be able to reassure her and other Members that the Government are absolutely committed to providing new funding to local authorities to allow them to discharge the new duties in the Bill As I was saying, preventing homelessness as early as possible is critical. Importantly, the Bill places a duty on local authorities to start helping applicants 56 days before they are threatened with homelessness. This doubles the current period for help and brings it more into line with the notice period for ending an assured shorthold tenancy, which is currently the lead trigger for statutory homelessness acceptances The Bill will place a duty on local authorities to take reasonable steps to prevent homelessness for eligible households threatened with homelessness. It will also ensure that other local services refer those who are either homeless or at risk of being homeless to local authority housing teams, and that care leavers are more easily able to establish a local connection and so are not deterred from seeking support, should they need it The Bill will make a real difference; it offers support to a much wider group of people who need it than the existing legislation, which is why I am today pleased to offer the House the Government’s full and unfettered support for the Bill. I can confirm that the Government will fund the additional costs of the Bill, in line with the long-standing new burdens arrangements As I said to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), there will be new funding for local authorities. We will work closely with local authorities and homelessness charities to ensure the successful implementation of the Bill. That includes a commitment to working together on any guidance and codes of practice that will be required to sit alongside the new legislation.
Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): We have had a passionate and well informed debate. With the leave of the House, I will briefly sum up the debate. First, may I thank the 32 Members who have taken part and the numerous others who have made interventions When we set out on this journey, the informal title of the Bill was the Homelessness Prevention Bill, but, as it was politely pointed out to me, that would mean that it would make it illegal for anyone to be homeless. We rapidly retitled it to the Homelessness Reduction Bill in the hope that we will eliminate homelessness in the long run I wish to place on record my thanks to Crisis for all the work that it has done on getting us to this stage, to St Mungo’s, which every day tries to take people who are sleeping rough off the streets, to the Minister and the Communities and Local Government team for all the help and advice they have given to get us to this stage, and to the Residential Landlords Association and the National Landlords Association, which have given their critical input. I wish to put on record my thanks to FirmFoundation in my constituency, which does so much work to get single homeless men off the streets and into appropriate accommodation. Equally, I thank Members on both Front Benches for their support and assistance in getting us to this stage Getting a Bill to Second Reading is a long struggle when one is doing something so important. We have taken a lot of time and trouble to get this right. Provided that the Bill receives its Second Reading, I look forward to it going through Committee, Report, Third Reading and the House of Lords. Out there today, people will be looking at this House and saying how proud they are that MPs from all parts of the House are taking the right sort of approach to ending completely the social disease of homelessness Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).