§ 3.43 p.m.
§ The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to improve the position of the homeless young.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, since I last spoke in this Chamber, there have been important changes in the leadership of the Labour Party in your Lordships' House. I must offer my most sincere good wishes to our new Leader and our new Chief Whip. I must express my gratitude to the noble Baroness. Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, for numerous kindnesses over many years, and in particular I want to pay tribute to the noble Lord. Lord Peart, who has rendered such distinguished service in this House, as elsewhere. I know that wherever he sits—and he will always sit on the Labour Benches—he will be regarded everywhere with respect and affection.
§ I rise to ask what the Government propose to do to improve the lot of the young homeless, which I am sure they will agree is very serious. A noble Lord who expressed regret that he could not speak today—a noble and clerical Lord, if I may so describe him, though he is not yet a Bishop—hoped that I would bring up the fact that, if the young go wrong, it is to a large extent because they are not being properly treated by their elders. So when we talk about the failure of young delinquents and so on we must bear in mind that much of the responsibility rests on shoulders other than theirs.
§ When the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 was debated in the Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London proposed an amendment to the Act which would have given priority need for housing to homeless young people. The noble Lord. Lord Soper—who regrets that he cannot take part in today's debate—and I had urged that in the House a little earlier, in March 1977. The right reverend Prelate's amendment, brought forward in July 1977, was rejected by the Government, and therefore defeated. After five years the overwhelming evidence is that the amendment remains as necessary now as it was then. Indeed, with the horrifying increase in unemployment, which on its present scale was quite unforeseen in 1977, and which has been most distressing among the young in particular, the amendment is now considerably more necessary even than it was five years ago.
§ I come to a point that I wish to make plainly, and I hope that the noble Earl. Lord Avon—who I am so glad is to reply to the debate—has had advance notice of it. I am not saying that nothing can be done without legislation. Legislation is vital, but there is much that 365 can be done without it. The Secretary of State already possesses wide powers to issue amendments to the code of guidance. Local authorities already possess much freedom in drawing up their points system for allocating houses. Nevertheless, legislation of the kind that I have mentioned is vitally necessary if we are to make sure that there will in fact be a major improvement.
§ I have tried to collect material from a number of sources. Yesterday, I received an extremely interesting report—though I have not yet had time to study it adequately—entitled Housing and Homelessness, which has just been produced by the Social Policy Committee of the Board for Social Responsibility. I have no doubt that, when he speaks later, the right reverend Prelate will help us to appreciate the findings of the committee.
§ Inevitably, in the first place I have drawn on the experience of the New Horizon Youth Centre, which I helped to found 14 years ago, of which I am chairman, and which I visit more or less daily. The youth centre is linked with a number of agencies, and it is also in close touch with several Government departments. So in that small area it is a mine of information. I spent a good deal of yesterday morning with a group of young people in the centre. All of them were unemployed and homeless. I asked one of them, "Have you been homeless for long?" and the asnwer was, "It depends whether you call 11 years a long time". Perhaps I bought that particular answer, as it were, but I had not intended to obtain it when I asked the question. Of course that would be an extreme case, but all of them intermittently spend the night indoors and intermittently sleep rough. That is the position with this particular group, which is not untypical of the large number of young people who visit the centre.
§ Your Lordships may ask what effect the Act of 1977, beneficial in its way, has had. So far as we are concerned, taking the experience of the New Horizon, only a handful of people have been able each year to take advantage of it. Those who have taken advantage have all been pregnant girls, apart from two former psychiatric patients. So the Act has not been very much use to our young people. At the same time, the numbers of young people using our centre have much increased. In 1977 the total was 830, and in 1981 it was 2,600—more than three times as many. The reasons for the increase are two-fold primarily. On the one hand, I suppose that as the years have passed our centre has gained a higher and higher repute; and, on the other hand, there has been a more and more urgent need, more and more acute distress, as a result of the much larger numbers without work or accommodation.
§ Those who are versed in this subject will be aware of the important document published in 1981 by a NACRO study group. I always associate NACRO pre-eminently with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, who was chairman for so long, but as he is not here I will not spend any time paying him further tributes, which I shall pay him on another occasion; but, at any rate, NACRO does wonderful work in a number of fields, and this is one of their most valuable outputs. Although the NACRO brief was to examine problems of homeless young offenders, the group were drawn inevitably into the consideration of homelessness among young people generally.
366§ They bring out the fact that young offenders suffer additional disadvantages and are susceptible in a special way to the pressures arising from homelessness. The experience of probation officers in institutions suggests that approximately one-third of the young adults in penal institutions are at the risk of being homeless, or are literally homeless. Being homeless, as we might easily expect, increases the risk of the person turning into a young criminal, and being convicted of crime increases the likelihood of becoming homeless. There is a vicious circle embracing crime and homelessness. But the NACRO report in fact deals with homelessness in general, and this afternoon I am speaking from that angle, not just from the angle of young offenders.
§
The NACRO report found that there has been no significant change in the overall effect of policies since that disovered by the DHSS working party of 1975–76, which, before the enormous increase in unemployment, was already pointing to the gravity of the situation. The NACRO report, published last year, described the present policies—and I am now quoting them—as:
characterised by avoidance of responsibility, lack of rights, undue reliance on voluntary organisations, shortage of resources and a fragmented ad hoc range of services".
§ That is quite a category of failure. I echo those words, but I express the hope that before the end of this debate the Minister will be able to say something which will show that my remarks are possibly on the pessimistic side. I hope that at least he will be able to give us some encouragement. I know he would wish to, and I hope he will manage to do so.
§ I must touch briefly on the causes of the deteriorating situation. I have already mentioned the growing youth unemployment, so familiar to all of us, and I have no doubt that shortly we shall be returning to that very strongly in this House. Many young people have now much lower incomes, and therefore they lack the financial resources for privately rented accommodation. I asked these young people whom I was talking to yesterday whether, if the houses were there, so to speak, they would be able to rent them; but they laughed at me and said that you would have to put down probably about £150 or £160, so it was really quite out of the question for a young unemployed person to pay for privately rented accommodation.
§ Meanwhile—and this is less inevitable, so to speak—the supply of lettings from private landlords continues to decline. What is painfully obvious is the absence of a strategy for housing single people. If the noble Earl is able to unfold one at the end of the debate, of course no one will be happier than I. Although single people of all ages account for one in four of all households in England and Wales, there is still no Government policy concerning them. The right reverend Prelate may be able to say more on this subject later, because the Church of England report deals not only with the young homeless but with the homeless generally, and they have a special section on the single homeless.
§ Local authorities seem to have no idea of the size of the demand from single people for council housing. I would place just one or two points before the House at this stage. Age bars are operated on housing waiting lists. For example, York does not allow a person to register on their housing list until that person is 40 years old. Then, again, in many cases there are local 367 regulations which require a person to have lived or worked in an authority's area for some time, or even to have an address or job in the area, before he or she can register. This can have a harsher effect on single people than on other households. A single person forced by a lack of secure housing may have to turn to accommodation outside his home area. Indeed, that is the experience of a large proportion of the young people I see in our centre, and then they are debarred by the regulations I have mentioned. In addition, the traditional method of allocating housing is the points scheme, which is orientated towards families and therefore militates against single people being housed.
§ My Lords, what must we do? This is not a debate about unemployment—we shall soon be coming back to that great subject again—but one must say without equivocation that the present level of youth unemployment is a scandal, not only in London, of course, but throughout the country. The North-East coast just happens to be in my mind because I was studying the matter there the other day, and I know that a number of noble Lords are very well informed about that situation. Youth unemployment is a shameful reflection on the policies which produce it. But, taking the employment situation as it is, one must list, although briefly, a number of steps which could ameliorate the position.
§ It is essential that young and, indeed, all single people should have full access to public sector housing. This requires a number of steps, of which I have already indicated one, the removal of an age bar; and, again, there should be a different method of assessing priority needs which would not shut out the young homeless. A change in the Act would make the whole difference, but as I said at the beginning (and I must keep repeating this to avoid the reply. "We cannot do anything until there is legislation, and the legislative programme is full"), even without legislation local authorities could produce a points system which placed young people at much less of a disadvantage.
§ The peculiar difficulties of young people mean that it would be insufficient simply to supply independent flats. A range of different types of accommodation is required to meet the varying needs of individuals, bearing in mind the high proportion of them who are in fact unemployed. In addition to furnished flats, there is need for emergency accommodation, shared dwellings and supportive accommodation. When I speak of supportive accommodation. I take as an example the small type of hostel. Many of these small hostels are run by voluntary agencies. Our own centre is embarking on one shortly.
§ Of course, accommodation is not everything. Again, this is not a general question concerning the treatment of the young, but I think most of us take it for granted that great benefit will come to the young people from the provision of day centres and youth clubs; and there will need to be some specialist provision for those with additional problems of drugs and alcohol abuse, and, of course, the physically or mentally ill.
§ I must not detain the House much longer, but one point I must make with unlimited emphasis. To tackle this enormous problem the statutory services will need to work together. Any joint approach will require participation by the social services departments, the probation service, the youth service and the housing 368 management staff. The NACRO report has specific recommendations for this which were worked out at some length in this regard, and I venture to suggest that the House will wish to study them.
§ The implications of my argument are large for central and local government planning. It ought to be possible to take some immediate action. The Housing (Homeless Persons) Act should be extended to a planned timetable, the first phase of which should be to bring into the category of priority need young people of 16 and 17. The next phase should extend the Act to include everyone of 21 and under.
§ Strictly speaking, steps of this kind—and I speak subject to correction—do not appear to require legislation. All that they need is an amendment to the codes of guidance by the Secretary of State for the Environment and more enlightened practices and suitable encouragement from the local authorities. Nevertheless, it is only legislation on the lines that I suggested at the beginning of my speech which would make it certain beyond any question that something real will happen. Meanwhile, we are betraying the interests of this large section of our young people.