Asked by Baroness Gardner of Parkes To ask Her Majesty’s Government
what steps they are taking to support councils to provide emergency
housing to help those who have been made unintentionally homeless.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) My Lords, I beg leave to ask the
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Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are
taking to support councils to provide emergency housing
to help those who have been made unintentionally
homeless.
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my
name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my
interests as declared in the register.
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My Lords, homelessness prevention is at the centre of our
approach to protecting the most vulnerable. That is why
we are implementing the most ambitious legislative reform
in decades: the Homelessness Reduction Act. We have also
allocated more than £1 billion to tackle homelessness and
rough sleeping through to 2020. This includes providing
more than £402 million in flexible homelessness support
grant, which local authorities can use more strategically
to prevent and tackle homelessness, including for the
provision of temporary accommodation.
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I welcome the announcement that the Minister has made,
but I am very concerned about the loss of housing in
London. The Mayor of London wrote last year to the Home
Affairs Select Committee raising concerns that letting
properties in the capital on a short-term basis all the
year round could lead to a loss of accommodation. We
admire the work done by organisations such as Crisis and
The Passage and those that look after people for
Christmas only, but does the Minister agree that this is
a much greater problem than just at Christmas?
Homelessness has become desperate. I have come into
contact with people recently and tried to help them, and
I know that it is extremely difficult.
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My Lords, my noble friend is right about some of the
particular challenges faced by London. She is also
absolutely right to pay tribute to Crisis and Shelter,
both of which are represented on the advisory board that
we have just set up in relation to tackling the problem
of rough sleeping. We have put £28 million into that and
are funding three pilots in the country, as well as the
£20 million rough sleeping grant that already exists.
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My Lords, I have by sheer coincidence this week been
approached by a young woman in my ward in Newcastle, a 22
year-old with a small child, who has been the tenant of a
property for three years, paying her rent regularly and
actually improving the property. She has now received
notice to quit within three months from her landlord.
What advice does the Minister suggest that I give to her
and what action will the Government take to protect
tenants in such a position from landlords taking action
of this kind?
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My Lords, I am not acquainted with the case that the
noble Lord mentioned, but I would be very happy to have a
look at it if he wants to share the details with me. We
are spending an awful lot of money on homelessness
prevention, which is important in this regard. We have
trailblazing areas—I think from memory that Newcastle may
be one of them. Certainly Gateshead is—but that might not
be music to the noble Lord’s ear. I will gladly look at
the case that he refers to if he would like to share it
with me.
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Is it possible that we could something more along the
lines of an emergency? Wherever you go in our cities, and
whatever Crisis and Shelter do, there are people out
there who are distressed and many of them are mentally
ill. It is an absolute disgrace and it has nothing to do
with human rights. We really have to move very quickly
because these people are dying before our eyes.
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My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the massive work that
the noble Lord does in this area. He and I visited
Sheffield together to see some project work that was
going on there—the Cathedral Archer project and others
are considerable projects. I agree that there are complex
problems attached to this; it is not straightforward.
Some of these pilots will look at the complex nature of
the problem, with wraparound help for example for people
who have left the armed services, who are often homeless.
We are working with the Ministry of Justice as well in
relation to ex-offenders who have a homelessness problem
and are often rough sleeping. The noble Lord is
absolutely right in the points that he makes.
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My Lords, it is the Liberal Democrats’ turn.
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My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests.
May I remind the Minister that in the Budget, the
Government committed themselves to eliminating rough
sleeping only by 2027? Why will it take 10 years?
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My Lords, the noble Lord is right about that. We have
committed to halving it by 2022. It is a massive and
complex problem, as I have indicated. I think it is a
realistic timetable for a national problem—it is not just
associated with our cities—but obviously we will be
watching it. The noble Lord will hold our feet to the
fire to make sure that we have halved it by 2022—but it
is a realistic timetable.
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My Lords, we have heard a great deal about urban areas in
cities and the capital, but what about rural areas? What
are Her Majesty’s Government doing to address the issue
of homelessness in the countryside, where there has been
a 52% increase in rough sleeping in our rural areas?
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My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for
mentioning rural Britain. He is absolutely right that it
is an important issue outside the cities and suburbs. We
have trailblazer areas in relation to the prevention of
homelessness throughout the country: I can think, for
example, of Ryedale in Yorkshire and Uttlesford in rural
Essex. There are certainly pockets—more than pockets:
they are areas—of rural England where this is a real
problem. We are putting in resources and are well aware
of the problem. I thank the Church and in particular the
cathedrals for all that they do in relation to
homelessness and for the help that they provide. I have
had the opportunity to see that at first hand over the
last year and I thank the right reverend Prelate for his
question.
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As the Minister who set up the rough sleepers’ allowance
almost 30 years ago and, as it happens, having helped to
set up Crisis—Crisis at Christmas as it was then
called—around 50 years ago, I must confess that I have
reservations about our policy of giving out cash on the
streets to almost anybody who asks for it. Will my noble
friend therefore say what controls there are on this
policy? Who gets the money, how much and why?
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First, my noble friend will be aware that the why is
because there are many people who are homeless or rough
sleeping who need it. The projects are very carefully
monitored and chosen. The projects that have been
selected for the rough sleeping grant, for example, are
very carefully monitored. They are providing a good
service in helping people who are, through no fault of
their own, sleeping rough to ensure that they get
somewhere on a temporary, and then hopefully a permanent,
basis. I applaud the work that the noble Lord did in
setting this up, particularly in London where it was
first a problem before it spread more nationally. Some of
that early pioneering work has helped us concentrate
resources and improve on what was done initially.
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Does the Minister agree that one of the major causes of
the rise in homelessness is the shortage of supply of
housing and the huge rise in the cost, particularly in
the rented sector? Will the Government try to address at
least that part of the problem by engaging in a programme
of massive building of prefabricated housing? As someone
who was brought up very happily until my late teens in a
comfortable and affordable prefab, I strongly recommend
to him that that is a rapid and effective way of
addressing a fundamental problem of this 21st century.
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