§ Mr. John Fraser (Norwood)I wish to raise the issue of homelessness this winter. It is particularly relevant to our series of Christmas Adjournment debates, as the rigours of winter are now upon us, as we felt last night, and the exclusion of people from the security of a home and from family ties is particularly poignant at this time of the year. Indeed, the story of Christmas is in part about homelessness, and an expectant mother in Bethlehem who had no roof over her head.
That plight and that lack of shelter will affect thousands of people at the turn of the year. Later today, Shelter will hold a candlelight vigil at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and will protest and plead for permanent, affordable and decent housing for rent. This morning, I plead for that, and for the flocks of people who do not have roofs over their heads or secure and affordable homes this winter. The number of people has shamefully increased since 1979, just as the number of those unemployed has.
Ten days ago, in a written answer, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment gave us the figures in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). They can be found in column 30 of Hansard for 8 December 1986. In 1979, 57,000 households—I emphasise households—were accepted as being homeless. In 1982, 75,000 households were accepted as homeless, and in 1985, 94,000 households were so accepted. In the first six months of 1986, 51,000 households had been accepted as being homeless and without shelter. Thus the figure is running at a rate of well over 100,000 a year, which is about double the level accepted as homeless in 1979.
Of course, if one includes the number of households that are homeless but are not accepted as being in a vulnerable category, the figure stands at over 200,000 a year. I have laid stress on the term households as an even greater number of people are really affected. The figure for the number of those rendered homeless each year is probably equivalent to at least the entire population of Croydon. Moreover, if one takes the slightly higher figure, it is probably equivalent to the whole population of Bristol being made homeless during the course of 12 months.
Many more people could be added to those statistics. I am talking about single people who may be too desperate or hopeless to figure in the statistics. They may sleep rough or in wholly unsatisfactory accommodation. They are commonly called down and outs, because they are down the social and economic scale, and out of the statistics. They seek temporary refuge, even at the entrances to our tube stations, in order to have the benefit of some of the warm air that comes up, or they may sleep on the embankment because they prefer that to staying at common lodging houses. Of course, that is the extreme, and it is not the plight of many of those who become homeless, and who are accepted as such by the local authorities. However, those people still tell us something about the nature of the problem that we face.
Some of those at the extreme of homelessness, who are single and rootless , would prefer at this time of year to go to prison for a month for committing a petty offence than to endure the rigours of the open air or the problems of a common lodging house. It is not unknown for such people to plead in the magistrates' court that they should 1496 be put in prison. That is what they want when faced with the choice of going behind bars or sleeping under the stars. It is extraordinary that people should have to end up preferring the consequences of petty crime to the alternatives facing them.
Even in the mainstream of homelessness, there have been recent cases of ordinary, respectable families who have never been involved in any kind of petty crime—I do not wish to give the impression for one moment that all single homeless people are involved in crime—having to be accommodated overnight in police stations and police cells because no other shelter was available for them. Many of those who are accepted as being homeless are not immediately and quickly allocated a home. They are put up in bed and breakfast accommodation. But bed and breakfast accommodation is a continuing form of homelessness. It is often overcrowded and insanitary and has insufficient cooking facilities. It removes people from their natural ties with the community. A minority of bed and breakfast accommodation, which is the lot of many who are accepted as being homeless, is a death trap.
I have received a note from the Home Office adjusting the figures that were given to me in a parliamentary answer on 23 June 1986. I am now told that 90 people died in fires in bed and breakfast hotels, hostels and multiple occupied properly in 1984, which is the latest year for which figures are available.
This Christmas, in Hounslow 1,000 homeless people will spend Christmas in a hotel that has been classified by environmental health officers as below minimum standards. Nevertheless, it is used by some local authorities for the placement of the homeless. In Greater London alone, on the latest available statistics for September 1986, supplied by the Association of London Authorities, 13,000 homeless households were living in temporary accommodation. Of those, 1,773 households were living in hostels, 4,128 were living in short-life accommodation, and an amazing 6,142 households were living in bed and breakfast accommodation. The total number of people would fill an empty Wembley arena three times, yet, over these winter months, they will live in another form of homelessness, in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Not all these statistics are for the hard-pressed London boroughs. Recently, I went to a Labour party meeting in Carshalton. Carshalton and affluence almost seem to go together. I discovered that, in the London borough of Sutton, about 90 families were living in bed and breakfast accommodation or temporary accommodation. Incidentally, that number is about three times higher than the number of starts of rental housing accommodation in that London borough which certainly is not deprived.
I found that, in many other parts of the country, bed and breakfast homelessness would have been unthought of a few years ago. Now, for the first time, because of the policy of cuts in housing allocations, against their better judgment, and certainly against their will, local authorities have to place homeless families in bed and breakfast accommodation. Bed and breakfast homelessness destroys, sometimes literally when children die in accidents on stairs or when people die in fires. It also destroys in another sense. It destroys the personality of the people involved. The absence of possessions brings about a different attitude towards society. There is resentment.
1497 Recently the magazine, "Roof" quoted two examples of the effect of homelessness on children. One research worker said:
Hotel children were often late walkers, late talkers and slow in keeping themselves clean. You often see children still walking around in nappies at three years old.Another research worker found that there was a link between speech delays and the lack of play experience. She said:When children begin to get mobile they develop their motor skills. Lack of play opportunities plus a depressed mother leads to an understimulated child who is slow to develop.Homelessness also destroys in that manner. One sees the consequences of it sometimes only 10 or 15 years later. In Bayswater, there is a hotel in which 100 people are reported to share five cooking rings and one oven, and in which a 13-year-old child, instead of eating food cooked in the hotel, has taken to eating the cockroaches off the floor. In Streatham, in my constituency, there are 35 homeless people in the Gleneldon hotel. That hotel has no toilet seats, the wash basins are cracked, and bannister struts are missing, causing danger. In another hotel, two or three people share rooms as a result of the depressed rates of payment made by the DHSS. The Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless has informed me of a hotel in Lambeth which is now sleeping four people to a room. They are the only three hotels in Lambeth known to the Threshold Advice Service with accommodation within the new board and lodging limits.Bed and breakfast homelessness is exploding. It is not a static figure. It is as expensive as it is debilitating. Of course, the costs paid by local authorities vary from one place to another. The Department of Health and Social Security estimates the cost of keeping families in bed and breakfast accommodation at £136 a week. That is an extraordinarily high amount being spent on the consequences of homelessness. I was provided with figures on the net revenue expenditure on bed and breakfast hotels for the homeless in London. One can get some idea of how these figures are escalating. In 1981, in Greater London, the cost of this phenomenon was £4.3 million. By 1984–85, the latest date for which I was able to obtain figures for the whole of London, that expense had risen to £12.4 million. This winter, bed and breakfast homelessness will make a bonfire of public funds, while some people will freeze because of the lack of shelter.
The 16 members of the Association of London Authorities maintain that that experience is enormously expensive and a scandalalous waste of public money, when one could engage on a programme of home purchasingve and repairs. They calculate that such a programme would bring about a cumulative saving of £45 million of public money by the financial year 1988–89. They estimate that that amount would cumulatively be saved by providing the homeless, who now go to bed and breakfast accomodation, with permanent secure homes.
This winter, the lack of shelter that will engulf so many people mainly in London, but also in other parts of the country, is a direct result of the cuts in funds that were made available for local authorities to invest in their housing programmes. That is an overall cut of about 70 per cent. in housing investment since the Government came to office. A comparison for Greater London between the cuts that took place between 1979–80 and 1984–85, adjusted for inflation, show in real terms a reduction of 1498 expenditure on housing that was permitted by the Government in Greater London of £ 1.48 billion in 1978–79 to £58 million in 1984–85. That is a considerable cut.
That is not a natural disaster or something beyond our control. It is a disaster manufactured by the policies of 10 and 11 Downing street, abetted by the Department of the Environment. The cuts will be continued next year. It is no good the Government telling us there will be an increase in housing expenditure next year. The basic housing investment programme will suffer a further cut. The Government are only dressing up the figures with the increased receipts that will be available to some authorities to spend on housing, but only 20 per cent. of the capital receipts will be from the sale of homes. This does not help the homeless, first, because big capital receipts do not arise in the hardest-pressed boroughs; secondly, because even if receipts became available for those boroughs—such as Lambeth, Southwark and Camden—little land can be used to provide additional homes; and, thirdly, because there is generally an overall loss on rented accomodation because of the exercise of the right to buy in London where the housing is not being replaced.
The Government recently announced two initiatives which have been concentrated on London and the homeless. I shall not quibble or be resentful about those programmes. One involves the I-lousing Corporation—in the jargon, the 30 per cent. HAG scheme and a combination of public and private money. That will not be enough. It will provide 500 temporary—I emphasise the word temporary—dwellings by 1987–88. The homes will not be of the right type. Permanent homes are needed for people to rent.
The other initiative is the urban renewal housing unit scheme—the estate action unit—which will be concentrated on London boroughs. But, in most of the London boroughs where there have not been acceptances of the scheme, there has been a history of indecision and refusal. I believe that only Greenwich has been able to take advantage of the scheme.
If the Government are not keen on these measures, why do they not give a direction to the London Docklands development corporation to provide homes to rent? The one large vacant space in London is being disgracefully misused in housing terms by inadequate provision of homes to rent which could deal with some of central London's problems. We demand a reversal of fie escalating pattern of homelessness. The difficulties will 'De only slightly ameliorated by the present crumbs from tie Treasury table. We demand a programme of affordable homes to rent—some by new building, some by modernisation and some by repair. We must set local authorities with these problems free with the resources and the powers to provide the homes needed to cope with the enormous and rising tide of homelessness.
We must give new rights to bring empty properties into use, whether public or private. I hold no brief for any home that can be adapted for living which is unnecessarily left vacant. That is why, during consideration of the recent Housing and Planning Bill, the Opposition proposed a form of right to rent even of public dwellings left empty for more than six months. The Government resisted that proposal. We need an initiative that is applied in empty homes, whether in the public or the private sectors.
It is an obscenity day after clay as I drive through London to see homes that have been empty not just for a few months, because of a change of hands, but for years. 1499 There should be power of requisition to make those homes available to a local authority, to a private individual or to a housing association to provide housing to rent. We need new rights that will make more homes available for renting.
We need a strategy for London and the other conurbations. It is no good expecting each London borough or each hard-pressed district outside London to cope entirely with its problems. If we did, the problem of dealing with homelessness would be like a number of people trying to chip their way out of their prison cells without a concerted effort to bring them liberty. The greatest contribution would be for the Government to give way to those who have the political will to deal with the appalling problem of homelessness. That is what counts and what will bring results.
This might be an appropriate time at the turn of the year for the Government at least to resolve that they will allow the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless to embrace Britain. The Government talk about that year as though, somehow, homelessness and lack of shelter were matters unknown in Britain but simply matters to be dealt with beyond this country's shores. I hope that the Government will take seriously in the forthcoming year their responsibilities to their citizens, because the numbers of homeless are growing rapidly. They deserve at least the token of Government care and compassion. However, we want not just tokens, but a new effort to provide decent, affordable housing for rent which will eliminate the problem and enormous cost of homelessness.
What is so wrong with housing for people at the extremes? It is not as though we lack the people to work on homes or the money. The building societies, the City and some local authorities are awash with funds. Sometimes, the funds of local authorities are in the wrong place, but, in the aggregate, there is not a shortage of resources and materials. With some training we can find the necessary skills. What is lacking is the political will. The Opposition resolve that the political will will be translated to deal with homelessness. It is a pity that that vigour and commitment are lacking from the Government.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Richard Tracey)The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) has given me a good opportunity to spell out the Government's deep and detailed concern for the homeless. At this time of the year, homelessness is a subject that is particularly on our minds, although it is on the Government's mind at all times. The details will become apparent as I continue my speech. Topically, outside we have the activities of Crisis at Christmas and a candlelight vigil outside St. Martin-in-the-Fields this afternoon, as the hon. Gentleman said. The vigil will attract press, television and radio attention and will focus the attention of the public as well as hon. Members on homelessness. It is natural that those with roofs over their heads should think particularly of those less fortunate during this festive season.
The cold is another reason why we should be particularly concerned about people sleeping out in the winter months. But some people evidently prefer the freedom of sleeping out to the restrictions which have 1500 often in the past been imposed in emergency accommodation—dislike of available accommodation was the most commonly noted factor associated with sleeping rough in a 1984 central London report. The aim must be therefore to see there is enough acceptable emergency accommodation to meet people's needs. I welcome the progress that is being made in many areas towards this goal, assisted by the impetus being given by the proposals to close DHSS resettlement units and the Government funding being made available in that context. In so far as limited periods of particularly cold weather make temporary extra provision desirable, it is open to local authorities and the voluntary sector to consider what can be done by opening up churches, schools and other public buildings as a temporary measure if satisfactory arrangements can be made.
More generally, homelessness as a continuing and increasing problem is a matter of deep and serious concern. Not having a roof over one's head is obviously one of the most traumatic things that can happen to anyone. But it is no good Labour Members or anyone else saying that it is all the Government's fault or that the remedies lie in the Government's hands. Much of the reason for homelessness being such an intractable problem is that it reflects social factors. Of those accepted by local authorities as homeless, for instance, the proportion becoming homeless as a result of marital dispute has risen by 25 per cent. in the past seven years. To give a basis for action to help deal with this aspect we as a Government are planning to commission research on the housing consequences of breakdowns in relationships. We will also be setting up a working party with the local authority associations to consider the implications for housing management in the public sector. Young people are also, it seems, continuing to leave home without fully appreciating the difficulties of finding other accommodation. Here, as a preventive measure, the Government are helping to fund the production of a leaflet by the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless Trust for wide distribution in schools and youth clubs advising young people thinking of leaving home on other accommodation prospects.
Mortgage arrears as a proportion of homeless acceptances have also doubled over the past seven years. This is another area where preventive work can help. Mortgage arrears problems arise for a number of reasons, but whatever the cause the answer is fundamentally the same—go to the lender as soon as possible to explain the circumstances in which one finds oneself. Respectable lenders take most seriously the need to try to resolve these problems early and in the right way. They are often willing, for example, to reschedule the loan or allow interest-only payments until the borrower can afford the full repayment again. For our part we have given a grant to the Birmingham settlement money advice centre to set up a national telephone counselling service to advise people in difficulties with debt repayment problems.
We also give a good deal of support to other organisations concerned with preventing people becoming homeless. Our overall budget for funding those projects and other housing advice services provided by voluntary bodies to the general public or to particular sectors, for example, prisoners, or young people leaving care, has been increased by over 50 per cent. in the past year or so and is now in excess of £500,000 per year. Prevention of homelessness is an important area and it may be that some 1501 local authorities would find that greater attention to it—by counselling and in other appropriate ways—would represent good value for money.
As hon. Members will be aware, it is on local authorities that the primary responsibility for helping homeless people rests. Homelessness is a factor in our allocation of resources to individual authorities and for 1986–87 this was altered to give a better measure of homelessness problems in each area. It is for authorities to decide for themselves their priorities for investment, but we have asked them to concentrate their resources on the homeless and other groups in special need.
Given the inevitable limitations on resources, it is essential to see that good use is made of existing property. Authorities must of course look carefully first at how efficiently they are managing their own resources. Can they do more to reduce the number of their empty dwellings and to speed up relets? There were—in some ways it is unbelievable—113,300 empty council dwellings at 1 April 1986 including 27,100 which have been empty for over a year. We have taken a number of steps over the past year or so to encourage greater use of empty properties. We issued advice on this in July last year and extended grant to properties awaiting major repairs. We are currently consulting the local authority associations about a proposed general consent to authorities disposing to housing associations of an interest in such properties by way of leases of up to five years. And we help fund the empty property unit which gives advice on the use of empty housing.
Our most substantial recent measure has clearly been our offer of direct help through the estate action unit for authorities with the most acute homelessness problems. Extra resources as well as the unit's knowledge and expertise, which are considerable, have been offered to authorities which can take immediate advantage of them to bring empty dwellings back into use for homeless families. We have already announced approval of projects in London in Newham, Greenwich and Islington, and today I am happy to make the first announcement that we have now also approved projects for five authorities outside London—South Tyneside, York, Woodspring, Rushmoor and Milton Keynes. In all, this involves extra resources of £1.25 million with 130 dwellings being brought into use for the homeless. I hope that other authorities with similar problems will also now be able to take advantage of our offer.
Increasing the use of existing housing to benefit homeless people is an area where a number of authorities are beginning to show imagination. Bromley, Brent and Croydon, for instance, are providing financial incentives to encourage existing council tenants to move out and buy in the private sector. We are watching these schemes closely to see what lessons may emerge. Brent has had some success in persuading owners to lease empty flats above shops to provide interim accommodation for the homeless. Bexley has, with our financial support, launched a campaign to encourage owner occupiers to take in lodgers. Other councils perhaps need to consider more imaginative ways of encouraging futher use of their properties and of concentrating tenancies on those in the greatest need.
At the same time we are discussing with the Housing Corporation how to target its resources more on homelessness both inside and outside its housing stress areas. We are also taking action to make its resources go 1502 further by bringing in private finance. In particular, by using the new provisions on assured tenancies in the Housing and Planning Act 1986, grant at no more than 30 per cent. and private finance for the rest, housing associations will be able to provide decent accommodation for homeless families until permanent housing can be found. An additional £20 million of resources has been allocated for schemes in conjunction with the private sector and, together with the £10 million previously allocated, this will permit additional expenditure of about £100 million. This is an important breakthrough and the main beneficiaries will be young people moving to take up jobs and homeless families currently in bed and breakfast accommodation. The growing use of bed and breakfast—
§ Mr. John FraserThe Minister has used the phrase additional resources more than once in relation to the estate action project and the Housing Corporation scheme. Am I right in thinking that both these initiatives are simply funded by monies which have been subtracted or transferred from other parts of each programme and do not represent additional new resources? In one case the funds have been subtracted from the total housing investment programme and in the other from the total of funds to the Housing Corporation.
§ Mr. TraceyThe resources are being specially targeted in a particular way and will use the expertise and knowledge of our housing experts. The hon. Gentleman is correct about such resources. Those resources are now being directed by the Government in a much more useful and valuable way than was previously the case.
The growing problem of bed and breakfast is a matter of serious concern to the Government. Our code of guidance to authorities on the homelessness legislation, now part III of the Housing Act 1985, regards the use of bed and breakfast as very much a last resort as interim accommodation. It is clearly unsuitable for families for any considerable period and is also usually the most expensive form of accommodation, as a recent Audit Commission report has made clear. The continuing increase in the number of homeless households being placed in bed and breakfast by authorities—5,400 in England at the end of June 1986, including 3,820 in London—and the reported increase in length of stay, with one or two London authorities warning new applicants that they would face a three-year stay in bed and breakfast, is alarming by any standards.
As you probably know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my Department is undertaking a programme of research on homelessness. This will cover in particular how authorities operate the homelessness legislation and their use of temporary accommodation, including bed and breakfast. It is certainly not clear to me why, for example, some authorities make so much more use of bed and breakfast than others in what look like relatively similar situations. Our research involves a postal survey of all authorities in England and Wales, case studies of individual authorities, interviews with people in bed and breakfast and other forms of temporary accommodation and an appraisal of standards. We expect to receive the report of the postal survey in February and the rest of the research results in late 1987 or early 1988.
While on this point, it is worth emphasising how important it is that authorities should co-operate in such 1503 research and in completing our quarterly statistical returns on homelessness. We are considering what we can do to improve authorities' response and it was gratifying to have the support of the hon. Member for Norwood when he said:
I have no hesitation in saying that there should be an absolute duty on local authorities to supply the information that is essential for us to make policy decisions, irrespective of political control".—[Official Report, 3 November 1986; Vol. 103, c. 745.]I note that the hon. Gentleman said "us" and we join across the House in that point. It beats me how authorities can imagine it is in their own interest to deny us such information.I mentioned earlier what some authorities were doing to reduce reliance on bed and breakfast and I have referred to our initiatives through the estate action unit and the Housing Corporation to target additional resources on homeless families with the same goal. Permanent accommodation is of course, as our code makes clear, the aim for the homeless just as it is the wish of people in general. We have done a lot to help those who wish to buy their own homes and have taken some steps—for example, on shorthold and on assured tenancies—to encourage the provision of rented accommodation in the private sector, but we fully accept that for others, including the large majority of those accepted by authorities as homeless, renting from a local auhority or from a housing association is, at the moment at least, the only answer. How authorities allocate their housing is basically a matter for each authority to decide, taking into account their duties to the homeless and other statutory obligations.
Finally, the House will, I am sure, expect me to say something about housing resources. This year we increased the planned level of public sector investment in housing to £3,253 million—£200 million above the 1985–86 figure. For 1987–88 we are making a further increase to £3,661 million—£451 million higher than previously planned. But, whatever the level of housing investment, we can be sure that it will always fall short of the ideal as in so many other areas of life. Therefore, it will remain important to make the best use of the public sector resources that are available and to augment those as far as possible with private sector resources. Our breakthrough with housing association schemes is a good sign of this.
It is no good hon. Members saying that this is all a matter of resources. It is not. There is no panacea. It is important to do what we can to prevent homelessness. I hope that I have pinpointed that very clearly. In an era of perpetually rising expectations, prevention of homelessness is difficult enough, but it is also important to look carefully at the large number of relatively small measures—for example, those initiatives being taken by some of the London boroughs to encourage greater use of existing dwellings—which can improve flexibility and remove unnecessary obstacles. This is an essential area for effort, enterprise and good ideas. That brings far more dividends than any striking of political attitudes by Opposition