argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I recently held a series of events in my constituency called the "Big conversation", and I was pleased to visit an open day on supported housing at the Salvation Army hostel in Hull, with representatives from Emmaus and the Hull Resettlement Project, among others. The real impact these organisations have on people’s lives is heartening. One companion from Emmaus described what Emmaus had given him as "a life package". He said that it had given him more than a home—it had given him work and a family, too—and without it he would again be on the streets The very idea that such incredible organisations could be at risk because of delays and uncertainty is abhorrent. Yes, the cost of supported housing is greater than that of rented property, but supported housing is cost-effective. The National Housing Federation says that supported housing actually saves the public purse an average of £940 per year, and, depending on the type of scheme, the savings can be even greater—for example, for people with learning disabilities it could be £6,000 per year. Yes, although it is great that the Prime Minister is giving in to Labour party pressure and abandoning the Government’s plans to cap housing benefit at LHA level, the devil will be in the detail on this. She has not told us what the Government plan to replace that funding with, and they must get the plans right I have a few questions for the Government. Do they still want to make their proposals fit in with universal credit, as they promised in 2011? If so, how are they going to do that while abandoning the local housing allowance cap? Do they still wish to make their proposals fit with a locally based fund? If so, how will they ensure that investment does not gravitate towards areas with higher property prices and that those in supported housing in places such as Hull are not punished for living in areas with low property prices? Do they accept that any funding formula must provide for choice, control, equality and independent living and ensure that the real costs of supported housing are met? If so, when will they offer the certainty that the supported housing sector needs and publish plans for a supported housing funding formula to do just that? Will they please review the local housing allowance rates for the private rented sector to prevent homelessness and reduce the need for supported housing in the first place All societies should be judged on how they treat their most vulnerable and needy. The whole country will judge each and every Member who fails to support those who need us the most.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I will endeavour to be brief. First, let me thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and the Select Committee members for all their work on this issue It was a qualified relief to hear earlier that the Government have, to some extent, listened to sense and will not be going ahead with their original plans to restrict the funding for supported housing to LHA rates only. Many have already talked about the impacts that the original changes would have had on their constituencies. Certainly I calculated that, within Oxford East, we would have seen around a third of supported housing provision wiped out because the LHA rates are around a third below the average private rental cost. That would obviously have had a very negative impact on my constituency One point that has not come up so far is the need for any future funding solution to be ring-fenced. There was a difficult situation with another relevant funding stream, Supporting People funding. Some hon. Members have touched on that, although they did not name it per se. Supporting People funding was devolved to an extent, but it was not ring-fenced. Many local authority areas, including my area of Oxford, which is covered by Oxfordshire County Council, have faced the removal of all support for facilities such as homeless shelters. That has resulted in a reduction of about half of all shelter places—that is an accurate headcount—for homeless people in places such as Oxford in a time of record levels of rough sleeping We need to ensure that any future funding system is locally responsive, potentially reflecting regional costs, as many have advocated and as the Joint Select Committee report suggested. But we should also ensure that the funding is ring-fenced, because we really do not want it to leach away into other areas when local authorities are under such enormous pressure owing to cuts from central Government Many speakers have said that there is no relationship between the local housing allowance and the cost of supported housing. Of course that is the case, but it is also the case that in many areas the LHA bears very little relation to private rented costs per se. In my city of Oxford there are no—none, zero—family homes that are affordable under the current LHA. Home rental websites show that there is not a single one. I hope that the Government’s reflection, albeit a rather tardy one, on supported housing will lead them to think more carefully about the nature of calculation of the LHA for all rented accommodation.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the announcement made by the Prime Minister at lunchtime and the assurances from the Minister in his speech. I give thanks to Members on both sides of the House for their work—in Select Committees and individually—in pushing forward these issues, and especially to the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), whose Westminster Hall debate I attended on 10 October. As colleagues have said, the Government need to recognise the impact of their policies on long-term sustainable funding for supported housing. I would like to emphasise the supported aspect of that housing, and we have heard many moving stories from Members on both sides of the House about the amazing work organisations in their constituencies do. That work is done by individuals who are often working on the minimum wage with some of our most vulnerable citizens and in some of the most difficult and patience-trying jobs we could imagine. This is really a vocation, not just a job, but those working in supported accommodation at the moment unfortunately often earn only the minimum wage. I really hope the Government will look at making sure that the funding supports quality of provision, as well as quality of employment and real careers for people who support those in supported housing May I propose one method of moving forward that will actually assist with the cost? I live in northern Derbyshire, in an area where we have a multitude of small borough councils, each with its own housing area. People in supported housing often wish to move into socially rented accommodation outside the area. That is particularly the case for women fleeing domestic violence—it is very important for them that they do not end up in the same community with the same problems. When the Minister looks at the new scheme, will he therefore see whether it will be possible for people in supported housing to apply to move into social housing and to get support in a different borough? That would save money, assist people and help free up places. At the moment, there are women in refuges in my constituency who would love to move over the border to where they have more support from friends and family, but they cannot do so, because they do not qualify for social housing in that area. I hope Ministers will look at that The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is not in his place, said new Members often seem not to understand the importance of working across the House, but I can assure him that, as a new Member, I absolutely do. I have just sent out to all Members an email about an all-party group on universal credit. I very much hope that we can all come together, look at our experiences in our constituencies and work to get some movement on that issue as well.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Charalambos Charalambous (Labour, Centre-left): While I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today that the local housing allowance cap will be lifted, I fear that the damage has already been done to supported housing providers, including women’s refuges I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips): housing benefit is vital to women’s refuges. As non-profit organisations, they rely on the rental income from the women who stay with them to fund their services. However, LHA is set in line with the lowest 30% of market rents in a given area, and the rates will often not even meet the refuge’s rent charges, let alone provide the additional funds needed to maintain specialist emergency accommodation. The capping of LHA led to uncertainty and fear for women’s refuges, which are designed specifically to keep women safe and to offer them shelter and support until they can live independently without the threat of violence. This morning, I spoke to Mary Mason of Solace Women’s Aid, which is a fantastic organisation that runs a women’s refuge in my constituency and in other areas of London. She told me that women seeking help in the refuge she runs face the most appalling danger and have been forced into homelessness. She further told me that any decrease in funding, including through the LHA cap, would have a very negative impact on women and children in danger. It was therefore entirely inappropriate that services like the Solace women’s refuge should have been subject to the LHA cap While I welcome today’s announcement from the Prime Minister about the lifting of the LHA cap, I await the detail next week and hope that all vulnerable people in supported housing receive the funding they so desperately need.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): This has been a comprehensive debate with many good contributions from all parts of the House, if probably more so from the Opposition. There has been a cautious welcome for the Prime Minister’s announcement that there will not be a cap in relation to supported housing and LHA—an issue of real concern Among the 25 speakers were my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—the Chair of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government —and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods). A lot of people identified that it was completely inappropriate in the first place to propose that supported housing should be based on an LHA rate, given that it meets very different needs. Several key themes emerged. On the need for sustainability around the funding, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) mentioned the importance of ring-fencing it, and the need for greater co-operation between Departments. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who organised the Westminster Hall debate on this issue a few weeks ago, has probably contributed to the position that we are in now Many Members wanted to thank local providers and charities. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) said that what providers do is more of a vocation—that they do it out of love for it. However, we cannot take advantage of that, and we must recognise it in the support that we give them.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Mary Theresa Glindon (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister give an assurance that the YMCA, the largest charitable provider of young people’s supported housing, which has expressed lots of concerns, has been given a full hearing and that its suggestions have been taken fully on board in the review?
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
Christopher Paul Farrelly (Labour, Centre-left): In my area of Newcastle-under-Lyme, our local housing association, Aspire, is not building affordable or supported housing at all. It is developing in higher property price areas in Cheshire to recycle the money to support its existing estates because of the squeeze on its finances and income from Government policies. Is there not something fundamentally wrong when a local housing association cannot build affordable housing at all?
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. After the Prime Minister made an announcement at Prime Minister’s questions, ahead of our Opposition day debate today, that the Government will drop their plans for a crude cap and cuts to supported housing, have you or Mr Speaker had any indication that Ministers, when they make the full announcement next week, which the Minister has just mentioned, will come and make the announcement to the House with an oral statement? In the light of the unanimous support for our motion tonight and the widespread concern about the Government’s plans over the past two years on both sides of the House and across the sector, it is clearly really important that Members can question Ministers on the announcement in full that they make.
Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2017-10-25
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): The one thing we can be sure of is that I have been given no notice that anybody is coming forward and I do not think Mr Speaker will have been given notice at this stage. What I would say is that the right hon. Gentleman has certainly put on record his concerns. His views and opinions have been recorded. As he would expect, it is not for the Chair to look at the decision on the vote. That is a matter for the House and certainly not the Chair.
Landlords and Letting Agents — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Under Newham Council’s excellent landlord licensing, working with the police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs the council has issued 2,834 notices since January 2013 to address and abate serious hazards. The decision on reauthorising the scheme was due seven weeks ago. Will the Secretary of State assure me that from 1 January he will not deny private tenants in my constituency the vital protection provided by this scheme?
Residential Tower Block Safety — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): What redress will be available to private leaseholders in a private residential block that has failed fire safety tests where the company does not have the money to carry out that work or goes into dissolution?
Children in Temporary Accommodation — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): Three and a half billion pounds has been spent on temporary accommodation in the private sector in the past five years. Most of the cost of this is found from the Department for Work and Pensions, even for households that work. Would this money not be better spent on building and letting council homes whose rent would be less than half that of expensive, poor-quality, temporary accommodation?
Children in Temporary Accommodation — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Sarah Ann Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The number of families in temporary accommodation in Croydon has doubled in seven years. Right now, two thirds of families in Croydon in local authority housing are in debt and at risk of eviction directly because of universal credit. How will the Minister stop more families in Croydon on universal credit becoming homeless and spending the winter months in temporary accommodation?
Children in Temporary Accommodation — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Melanie Onn (Labour, Centre-left): Despite the shocking increases in homelessness overseen by this Government, the recent National Audit Office report found that the Department has not produced a strategy to tackle homelessness. When is it going to come up with a plan and publish it, so we can finally see some action for the 120,000 homeless children in Britain today?
Mayors: Economic Growth — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): Bristol is the only city outside London to make a net contribution to GDP, but we need money to invest in infrastructure if we are to make the most of that economic contribution. We now have a bid in for £250 million from the housing infrastructure fund. May I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State, who is very familiar with Bristol and the needs of the city, to look at that seriously, because the only way we can unlock the investment is to have that money?
Family Hubs — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Mixed Topics
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): On that point, of the 120,000 children in temporary accommodation across 77,240 families, 28% are housed in boroughs other than their own, and the receiving boroughs often have no idea that those children—many of them vulnerable—have entered their areas. Will the Minister consider the suggestion of providing family hubs at large-scale temporary accommodation centres outside home boroughs?
Assessment of Housing Need — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Ruth Stephanie Nicole George (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency is also a beautiful place to live, but homes are not being sold because they are under leasehold arrangements. Will the Minister let us know when his excellent consultation on the crackdown on unfair leasehold practices will announce its results, so our housing market can get moving again?
Affordable Homes — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister read something of the history of Harold Macmillan? He was a Prime Minister who actually built houses. This Government are not building houses and certainly not building affordable houses. When will there be an imaginative plan to build houses?
Affordable Homes — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): The City of York consultation on the local plan closes tonight, but it has failed massively on the tenure needed in the city and is 5,800 short of statutory guidance. Will the Minister ensure that if guidance is set it is followed?
Women on Local Councils — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Civil Rights
Victoria Jane Foxcroft (Labour, Centre-left): Women are disproportionately affected by services that are controlled by local government, but just one in four directly elected mayors and 17% of local authority leaders are women. In order to address that imbalance, will the Government now legislate for all-women shortlists in local government elections?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Daniel Joseph Carden (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State not understand that people outside this place simply cannot grasp his reluctance to accept that sprinklers in tower blocks are necessary fire safety works? Coroners for both the Lakanal House and Shirley Towers fires recommended them, yet his Department is turning down requests from councils and housing associations to pay for them. We do not need another review; we need common sense.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council. The acute funding pressures on Northamptonshire County Council could be helpfully and substantially addressed by imaginative reform of local government structures in the county, including, perhaps, the establishment of a combined social care and health commissioner. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he is open-minded to such suggestions?
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): Some 3.5 million families with a variable rate mortgage face higher costs if the Bank of England puts up interest rates this week, so why are the Government, at this of all times, scrapping support for mortgage interest payments?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-10-30
Topic: Housing
Questions: I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council. The acute funding pressures on Northamptonshire County Council could be helpfully and substantially addressed by imaginative reform of local government structures in the county, including, perhaps, the establishment of a combined social care and health commissioner. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he is open-minded to such suggestions?
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is flannelling. Home ownership is at a 30-year low, and he does not seem to appreciate that 126,000 households, including 60,000 pensioner households, get help from the current scheme. From April, they and anyone else struggling with their mortgage costs will be offered a loan, but a loan is no good for those already struggling with the cost of the loans they have. Under Labour, with our mortgage rescue scheme, help was there when it was needed for families facing repossession. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) is laughing; I ask this of the Secretary of State, who takes the subject more seriously: will he use the Budget to scrap the Government’s current changes and back instead a new home ownership guarantee scheme, as Labour proposed at the election?