Supported Housing: Benefit — House of Commons, 2016-07-20
Topic: Housing
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and that is exactly the case. As has been outlined, the reduction will result in people being left in the accommodation of unscrupulous housing providers where we do not want people to end up, and I am sure every single Member knows about these providers. Housing benefit currently pays for things such as CCTV, security support and all the extra stuff that we perhaps take for granted because we do not have it in our homes— but then we have not been repeatedly raped for the past six months of our life. That is what housing benefit pays for. I cannot say this with any more dramatic effect: half of the bed spaces in the refuges where I worked would not be there without housing benefit. Already, 115 women and their children are turned away from refuges every single day in this country. Already this year, 50 women are dead There are also very real concerns about the mooted housing benefit changes for those aged 18 to 21. Perhaps the Minister could update the House on that, and the bearing it will have on a place like Birmingham, where 25% of the women living in refuges last year came from this age group. Ministers will be shutting off the route to safety for these women if the changes in housing benefit come in, and I am at a loss as to what is going on—whether that is part of this review or was just something floated around If the DWP does not want to play its part and the Treasury values its bottom line so much, the Government must look at a different approach to funding refuges and other supported accommodation. This review is not about sustainability; it is about cutting costs The decimation of local authority Supporting People budgets has already led to the closure of more than 30 refuges in the UK. I am not just shouting or shroud-waving or scaremongering against cuts; I am willing to engage with Ministers across Government to talk about other sustainability models for refuges. I have just a few suggestions for today. We could ring-fence national budgets, and make providing accommodation for victims a local authority statutory duty. At the moment local authorities have that duty only for adult services, children’s services and bins. I think providing a safe place for children who have been raped to live is more important than the bins The model of commissioning that the Home Office has used for accommodating victims of modern slavery completely eliminates the need for housing benefit, and I have set up refuges for victims of trafficking with this model. No housing benefit changes hands. We could only do that because this Government—the Government in front of me—recognise the importance of a national funding framework I am happy to work with the Government on any of those solutions, but to pull the rug from underneath refuges, homeless hostels and older people’s care services without first putting in place a system that will work and is sustainable and offers a future for these victims is both stupid and cruel So let me go back to the words of the Prime Minister. She said that "awareness of" and "response to" violence against women and girls was "everyone’s business". Will the Minister promise to make it hers?