Homelessness Reduction Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-28
Topic: Housing
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. I hope that the cross-party spirit in which we tackle this Bill may, in due course, lead to more of a cross-party spirit in tackling the bigger housing challenges that he mentioned I return to our two tests. First, the Government must fund the costs. The Minister told the Select Committee that he hoped to complete a costs estimate of the Bill before Second Reading. He has not, but in answer to a parliamentary question this week he confirmed to me: "The Government will fund any additional costs in line with the longstanding ‘new burdens’ arrangements." The work to assess and agree the extra costs of the new duties or, if we like, burdens on councils that are in the Bill must be done urgently and openly. It cannot be done in some backroom deal between the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government. Local government must have confidence in and involvement in the process. That is the first commitment that we want the Minister to give the House today. Beyond that, councils rightly want to know that any additional funding of the costs really will be additional, not taken off some other part of the funding due to go to local government. We look for that commitment from the Minister today as well. First, fund the costs in full; secondly, tackle the causes Homelessness is not inevitable. It is not necessary in a country as well off and as decent as ours for people to have no home. Cutting all types of homeless was one of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour Government. At the time, it led the independent homelessness monitor produced by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to declare "an unprecedented decline in statutory homelessness". As my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said, homelessness, rough sleeping and people on the streets all fell by three quarters while we were in government I regret the fact that, since 2010, we have seen that trend go into reverse. Rough sleeping has doubled, statutory homelessness is up by almost half, and the latest official figures show that, each night, nearly 115,000 children are sleeping in temporary accommodation. Those are young lives blighted by transience. They are often in temporary bed and breakfasts and hostels. Their belongings are in their bags. They are often sharing bedrooms with siblings and bathrooms with other families. These are the children who cannot go home. These are the children with no home in our country today. That is a scandal that shames us all I say as gently as I can to the Minister that many of the housing policy decisions and failures we have seen over the past six years have led directly to the current homelessness crisis. There have been 13 separate cuts to housing benefit, including the bedroom tax, and, of course, the breaking of the link between housing benefit or local housing allowance and the rise in private rents. In the previous Parliament there was a 45% cut to Labour’s Supporting People programme, which provides vital funding and support to homelessness services. We have seen soaring private rents. Rent in the private sector is now on average more than £2,000 a year more than in 2010 Councils cannot help the homeless if the Government will not build or, indeed, let councils build the homes that are needed. The number of new social rented homes started in Labour’s last year in government was 40,000; the number started last year was just 1,000.