Asked by
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to
tackle homelessness following the launch of the Prince of Wales’s
Homewards initiative.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Levelling Up, Housing & Communities () (Con)
We welcome the Prince of Wales’s Homewards initiative and his
interest and support in tackling homelessness. The Government
have made the unprecedented commitment to end rough sleeping. In
September 2022 we published our cross-government strategy,
setting out how we were investing £2 billion over three years to
tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
I thank the Minister for that helpful response. Sheffield is one
of six places where the Homewards initiative is being piloted,
and in South Yorkshire it seems to us that two things make this
new venture distinctive and highly promising. The first is that
funding is secure over the medium term, and the second is a
partnership approach which encourages local agencies to
co-produce solutions with built-in flexibility to allow for
ongoing learning. Does the Minister think that this longer-term
and partnership approach is one from which the Government might
learn in their own support for homeless people?
(Con)
The right reverend Prelate is right; Sheffield City Council has
been allocated over £4 million through the rough sleeping
initiatives, which will run from 2022 to 2025, to help end rough
sleeping in the city. It has also been allocated £2.4 million
through the rough sleeping accommodation programme, again until
2025. So these are not annual nor short-term amounts of money.
The right reverend Prelate is right; these things cannot be done
by government alone. We know that individual local authority
areas have specific problems and that is why we are asking them
to deal with these issues. I will also say that the third sector,
in particular churches and community groups, are absolutely
necessary in a city such as Sheffield.
(Lab)
During Covid, there was a massive reduction in the number of
homeless people on the streets. Why does the Minister think that
this has been reversed?
(Con)
I think that over Covid, the issue was that people were
frightened, scared and did not want to stay out. Since Covid, we
have gone into a further economic downturn, particularly because
of the dreadful war in Ukraine—
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Con)
No; it has affected the economic stability of the whole world. We
are working continually to try to get back to those Covid
levels.
(Con)
My Lords, like the right reverend Prelate, I very much welcome
the commitment of the Prince of Wales to help end homelessness,
particularly as the numbers of those sleeping rough are beginning
to creep up again, having been reduced to near zero during Covid.
I particularly welcome the commitment to make Duchy of Cornwall
land available for affordable homes. Is this not an example that
could be followed by government departments and other public
bodies that have surplus land available?
(Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right, and I welcome the Prince of
Wales’s initiative. Maybe other larger landowners across this
country could also look at those initiatives, as well as
government. We have been working to release public land for new
houses through the Public Land for Housing programme which ran
from 2011 to 2020. By March 2020 over 60,000 homes had been
brought on to the market on surplus government land. In October
2022 the Cabinet Office published the Government Property
Strategy, which intends to drive efficiency in departments’
estates to look at surplus land that can be used for housing,
particularly affordable housing.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, it is great that the Prince of Wales has turned the
spotlight on this very important issue. Pilots are all well and
good but is it not a damning indictment of this Government’s
failure to tackle the housing crisis that between July and
October last year, 1,210 homeless families spent longer than the
six-week legal limit in hotels and bed and breakfast
accommodation—the highest figure in six years? How will the
Government respond to this growing crisis across the country and
the impact it is having on children’s development?
(Con)
We are responding by offering support through initiatives such as
spending £500 million on rough sleeping initiatives between now
and 2025. Under the ending rough sleeping for good initiatives,
£2 billion is going to local authorities over three years to look
at their issues. Your Lordships need to understand that the
increasing numbers are only in 5% of local authorities in this
country. We need to target and help those local authorities, both
with support and with money, which is what we are doing.
(LD)
My Lords, last year, 129,000 young people facing homelessness,
aged between 16 and 24, tipped up at their local council asking
for support—which is undoubtedly an underestimate. Currently,
universal credit levels for young people living independently are
more than a quarter lower than for those aged over 25. Can the
Minister say by what logic we financially penalise young people,
whose bills, including rent and essentials, cost exactly the same
regardless of their age, and does she agree that this shortfall
will make them even more susceptible to eviction and
homelessness?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is right, which is why, in the Government’s
strategy Ending Rough Sleeping for Good, which was backed by £2
billion last year, we recognise the particular challenges facing
young people with regard to homelessness. We have a single
homelessness accommodation programme, which will have delivered
nearly 2,500 homes by March 2025. There is also the £2.4 million
for rough sleeping initiatives going towards youth services in
local areas that have an issue with youth homelessness.
(Lab)
My Lords, there is a very high proportion of hidden
homelessness—hidden but none the less very real—among Gypsies and
Travellers, who do not have enough authorised sites to camp on.
What are the Government doing about encouraging local authorities
to fulfil their obligations to assess the lack of sites and to
act on that to provide enough?
(Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that—I know her passion for that
particularly vulnerable community. Local authorities do have a
responsibility to find those sites; we will continue to ensure
that they do so. However, I will look at the latest figures and
let the noble Baroness have them, and will let her know what we
are doing extra to make sure that they are being delivered.
(Lab)
My Lords, in April, 8,000 Afghans were still living in hotels, 18
months after they were evacuated from Afghanistan. They have now
been told that they have to leave that hotel accommodation and
find private rented accommodation. If they are unable to find
rented accommodation, will they be homeless, and if so, what are
the Government going to do about them?
(Con)
We have announced £35 million of new funding to enable local
authorities to provide an increased amount of support for Afghan
households and to move them from hotels into settled
accommodation. At the same time, we have announced a local
authority housing fund of £750 million, which will provide
capital funding to councils in England to allow them to look at
creative ways of getting more housing stock in, which will help
the Ukrainian and Afghan arrivals. Together, therefore, we hope
that we can get Afghanis into proper suitable accommodation as
soon as we possibly can.
(Lab)
My Lords, this is a welcome initiative. Has the Minister
suggested to the Prince of Wales that he should allocate some of
his extensive landholding to help this initiative, and possibly a
little of his £24 million-a-year income?
(Con)
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that the Prince of Wales
announced at the same time that he would undertake to make some
of the Duchy of Cornwall land available for affordable housing.
