Rough Sleeping — House of Lords, 2020-02-27
Topic: Housing
Dorothy Thornhill (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I echo much of what my fellow local government vice-president has said. This is a huge public concern, and on these Benches—particularly from within the local government family—we have always had a "credit where credit is due" policy. On this occasion, however, we have to say that so far, it is not good enough. Context is all, and as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said, we need to be careful with the interpretation of the figures. Any decrease is welcome, so let us not be churlish about that, but in reality, according to the Government’s own figures—and they are surely not challenging their own figures—rough sleeping is still 141% higher than it was in 2010 We all knew—those of us who have been out on the local authority counts night, searching under every flyover and in every station and shelter to make sure that we had an accurate count for the night—that we were underestimating the number of people because we knew all the homeless people in Watford by name. So where was Fred that night? That night he was probably sofa-surfing with somebody he had managed to get into a house with. I hope we can all agree, at least, that the current figures are inevitably an under- estimate Likewise, we hear that local authorities have suffered considerable funding loss in their budgets, but that is particularly so in relation to homelessness funding: £1 billion less was spent on these services last year than a decade ago. If that level of funding had been sustained—not increased, but just sustained—there would have been £6.2 billion more in services. On a very practical level from the homeless charity that I am involved with, all the funding is short-term: it is one-year funding. This gives charities and councils great difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, as well as in sustaining long-term delivery. It is essential for these groups of people that we know that we can provide the services for the longer term. My question to the Minister is: is all the funding ring-fenced? Is there any chance, now that the Government are more stable, that they will look at three- or even five-year funding I particularly welcome Dame Louise Casey’s role. I think that she is a Dame who is prepared—as we northerners would say—to call a spade a shovel and that she will lift up stones. Can the Minister reassure us that her role will be to look holistically, compassionately and, particularly, cross-departmentally about the issues that affect homelessness? Let us take universal credit. Sanctions are automatic—we know this—but they do not take into account an individual’s circumstances or their vulnerability. Sanctions being implemented can make their situation more perilous. Delays in the housing element of universal credit being paid directly to the landlord lead to further issues. Issues around zero-hours contracts—if they eventually get work, it is very often in that area—can lead to a fluctuation that puts their situation in peril. As a direct consequence of all these things, private landlords are extremely reluctant to take these people on as tenants. That puts all the pressure back on local authorities to house people. The logjam is very much in move-on accommodation, which this money is for, which is why, on these Benches, we welcome it However, we see the issue as being the lack of social housing. It is noticeable even in the Statement that the terms "social" and "affordable" are being used inter- changeably all the time. Affordable is 75% of market rate and social is 50%. Can the Minister explain the Government’s policy? Is it to provide more affordable homes and have they given up completely on social homes to rent? Are they relying on councils to build social homes to rent? The unfreezing of the local housing allowance part of housing benefit is welcome, but in high-rent areas such as Watford and most of the south-east, it is still considerably less than the average rent. The shortfall is too great. It is certainly too great for this group of vulnerable people to make up the shortfall, so the private sector is largely out of the question Will Dame Louise also be looking at policies such as the Government’s Housing First initiative? When I saw this, it was about developers giving priority to veterans as one group, but when I looked at it further, I realised that it actually meant that there would be even fewer social homes available to vulnerable people. It sounded really noble and people agreed with it, but the actual reality of it will mean fewer social homes. A colleague on the Benches opposite—the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—actually mentioned last week in Oral Questions what we have come to know as the viability loophole. We have been letting developers off the hook from providing social housing for years. As a result, social housing in this country has been decimated. Social housing is what this group of vulnerable people and others need. Surely, if the Government’s own side is saying that it is time to close the viability loophole, it must be time. Finally, is it not time to stop making homelessness a crime and to repeal the Vagrancy Act?