Housing — House of Lords, 2016-11-03
Topic: Housing
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for jumping the gun. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, for securing this important debate. It is important because it is young people who are most important to the future success of any society. I remind your Lordships of my interests in property, as noted in the register. The noble Lord’s Motion emphasises the need to provide local housing to sustain communities. We are all becoming increasingly aware of the importance of sustaining relationships for the healthy development of children and young people. Continuity of relationship is the key to recovery from trauma for children and young people in care but it is vital for all our young people I hope I may thank the Minister for the priority that the Government have given to housing since the last election. We have had a housing Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, talked about the forthcoming White Paper. The coalition Government legislated in the area of looked-after children for staying put—allowing many care leavers to stay with their foster carers or close to home up to the age of 21. The Government are looking now at staying close—allowing care leavers from children’s homes to remain close to those homes and the important relationships there. In the Children and Social Work Bill, currently being considered, we are looking to support all care leavers up to the age of 25. Between 80% and 90% of care leavers aged 18 to 21 are now described as being in satisfactory accommodation, and Ofsted has recently begun inspecting care leavers’ services. These are all most welcome changes I should like to concentrate on housing for young people in care, care leavers, foster carers and families in temporary accommodation. The lack of affordable or suitable housing for care leavers is an issue of grave concern. Over the years, many of those in care and leaving care have expressed these concerns to me and I am particularly grateful to Jordan Morgan, a care leaver who produced his own report on care leaver housing issues from his own experience and those of others. He kindly wrote to and met me recently. I am also grateful to the charity the Who Cares? Trust for its work on the housing of care leavers Care leavers are suffering from the lack of affordable housing. They are often forced to rent in the private sector. They are dependent on benefits and can often be in worrying rent arrears, which can become exacerbated by the cut to their housing benefit that occurs at age 22, as they move into the shared room rate. No parent wants to see their child homeless or unable to afford to live safely in the area that they call home. However, many care leavers, unable to benefit from staying put, are facing real challenges in accessing safe, secure and suitable housing. Care leavers are offered homes that they will not be able to afford if they stop receiving benefits and move into work, particularly in London. This leaves individuals either reliant on benefits or facing a move when they find employment, adding increased pressure at an already stressful time. Care leavers are three times more likely to face benefit sanctions then their peers and two-thirds less likely to challenge those sanctions—yet when they do, most sanctions are overturned. Many continue to pay council tax and, too often, face the bailiff for failure to pay The tools and resources for individuals moving off benefits and into work are not often available to young people from care. Faced with anything of up to six weeks before their first salary payment and signed off from benefits, some care leavers still have to turn down employment opportunities. There is no consistency across the country for care leavers’ access to local authority accommodation, with some care leavers qualifying for a priority banding only if they have additional vulnerabilities. Fixed-term tenancies can act as cliff edges, forcing young people to move on regularly—often into accommodation of ever-decreasing quality, as the price of rent increases beyond their income In their strategy for care leavers Keep on Caring, the Government made a variety of commitments to improve outcomes for care leavers, including experiencing stability and feeling safe and secure, as well as achieving financial stability. I would be grateful to know how the Minister’s department is working with other government departments to increase the amount of suitable housing stock that is available for care leavers to access and how it plans to tackle some of the problems outlined above. I would also welcome an update on what the Government are doing to ensure that homeless young people aged 16 and 17 receive appropriate support during the crucial years of transition to adulthood. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on these issues. I would be grateful if he might consider sharing my concerns with the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and the Minister of State, Edward Timpson The charity Fostering Network has significant concerns about the impact of housing shortages and benefit cuts on foster carers. Staying put—allowing young people to remain with their foster carer to the age of 21—is most welcome but it puts pressure on the sufficiency of foster placements. Furthermore, two-thirds of foster carers report facing reduced financial support for their staying put role, while a quarter say that they cannot afford to provide staying put because of that lack of support. Local authorities are unwilling to assess families for fostering if they are in insecure housing, as they increasingly are. By far the majority of foster families are on low incomes. Foster carers’ homes are often of an inadequate size; this is exacerbated by the bedroom tax. The housing shortage prevents their biological children from moving on, so they lack the capacity to foster. The empty nesters are in decline. It has become more difficult to place sibling groups with foster carers. It is often important to keep together brothers and sisters who have been taken into care. It was reported to me that one foster carer had to sleep on the sofa to accommodate the sibling group of five whom she had felt moved to keep together I turn to families in temporary accommodation and their children. I am very grateful to Shelter for its campaigning in this area and its report on families in emergency accommodation, published today. There are 120,000 homeless children in Britain, the highest level since 2007. The number of families in bed and breakfast accommodation is 18% higher than last year—nearly 20% higher. The report looks at 25 families in depth. They all live in a single room, more than half of the parents have to share a bed with their children, three-quarters have to share lavatories and bathrooms with others and two-thirds describe their rooms as being in disrepair One family I have been in touch with over the past year began in Southwark, moved to a refuge from domestic violence in Hackney, then to a one-bedroom for the mother, her 16 year-old daughter and one year-old granddaughter, then, following eviction, to a bed and breakfast single room. In that period, the mother’s worst fear was of being rehoused possibly as far afield as Manchester, where she would know no one. This is a common experience nowadays. Thankfully, it now appears that Hackney will provide for her I should finish. Does the Minister share my concern for these families? What does he have to say to the increase in the use of bed and breakfast accommodation? When does he envisage the number of children facing homelessness declining? Will he bring forward a cross-departmental strategy on homelessness, as the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government in the other place recommended on 31 August? I look forward to his response.