Temporary Accommodation — House of Commons, 2017-11-07
Topic: Housing
Siobhain Ann McDonagh (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my right hon. Friend and thank him for all his work over the decades for the most forgotten in our society. The truth is that universal credit will be yet another driver that forces families out of the private rented sector, which is not where most of them should be in the first place The staggering number of homeless families is rising fast, with an additional 960 households in temporary accommodation in the last quarter alone. Incidentally, that figure has risen quarter on quarter since 2010, with the number of children in temporary accommodation increasing by 66% since the Conservatives came to power. Despite public misperception, housing benefit data suggests that a third of householders in temporary accommodation in England are in work, with the proportion rising to half of householders in temporary accommodation in London. Three quarters of families in temporary accommodation in London have been there for more than six months, with one in 10 there for a not-so-temporary five years. That is without mentioning cases in Harrow and Camden involving households in temporary accommodation for a baffling 19 years. Of course those are extreme cases, but the fact is that more than 100 councils across the country have households who have been living in temporary accommodation for more than a year May I make it clear that the purpose of this debate is not to bash local authorities, which are dealing with very difficult situations as best they can? I give particular praise to the head of Merton’s housing department, Steve Langley, whom I have known for more than 20 years. I have seen the distress that it causes him to place families hundreds of miles away from home and in accommodation that he would not accept for his own family. I thank him for his public service There is a cost to the taxpayer. In November 2016, the BBC reported that councils in Britain had spent more than £3.5 billion on temporary accommodation over the past five years. The net cost has tripled in the past three years alone Now that the scene is set, I will deal with three main reasons why I applied for the debate. I will start with out-of-borough temporary housing. I will then move on to the need to enforce legislation, and finish by assessing the standard of temporary accommodation for the 78,000 families affected More than 28% of households in temporary accommodation are housed outside their local authority area. That represents a remarkable increase of 248% between March 2011 and March 2017. The figure for London boroughs increases to a staggering 36% of households, and there has been a fivefold increase in households placed outside the capital since 2012. Last year, the London borough of Harrow temporarily moved residents as far as Bradford, Wolverhampton and even Glasgow Birmingham is a regular recipient of residents, and the scale of the problem is illustrated by a letter from Birmingham City Council to all London councils that calls for the practice to end because its resources are at breaking point. For the families, that is 140 miles away from their homes, their children’s schools, and their friends, families and communities. Only last Thursday, my office took a call at 5 pm from a lady who was told she was to go off to Birmingham with her four children under the age of eight. It took a collection from the parents at her children’s school to pay for a Travelodge that night before she was offered a one-bedroom flat for herself and her four children the next day Similarly, at my advice surgery last Friday, I met a full-time nurse at St Helier Hospital who had just been offered temporary accommodation 44 miles away in Luton. Meanwhile, for a homeless resident in Kensington and Chelsea, there is a remarkable 72% chance that their temporary accommodation will be outside the borough. It therefore might seem odd that a Communities and Local Government Committee report states: "Housing people away from their homes and support networks should be an action of last resort."