HL Deb 21 May 1986 vol 475 cc369-80

7.55 p.m.

Lord Banks rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the effects of the Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Miscellaneous (No. 2) Regulations 1985 on the ability of the homeless to secure and pay for bed and breakfast accommodation.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Unstarred Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. I should like first to apologise to those noble Lords who put their names down to speak when this Unstarred Question was last on the Order Paper a fortnight ago for the fact that, owing to the late hour at which it was due to come on, I was obliged to withdraw it. I should like to thank those noble Lords who have put down their names to speak on it tonight.

April 29th 1986 marked the first anniversary of the introduction of new limits on the amounts of board and lodging supplementary benefit payments. It therefore seems to be a suitable time to monitor how the regulations are working out in practice, particularly as there have been some disturbing reports as to what is happening. The House will recall that the Government were worried by the considerable increase in the cost of board and lodging payments, and they claimed that a major factor was abuse of the system, with unscrupulous landlords exploiting and even advertising for supplementary benefit recipients.

It seemed to some of us that the principal cause was not so much rising prices by landlords but a very considerable increase in the number of those seeking such accommodation—a fact which we attributed to other government policies. But if the prices charged by landlords were a contributory factor, it seemed unfair to penalise the supplementary benefit recipients. The new regulations, firstly, took away the right of appeal against DHSS board and lodging limits; secondly, board and lodging limits were to be decided centrally by the Secretary of State; and, thirdly, the limits themselves were reduced by as much as £40 a week in some cases. For example, the Paddington DHSS office limit was reduced from £110 a week to £70 a week.

It was clearly the Government's belief that with reduced supplementary benefit limits the prices charged would come down. But what has happened in fact? A survey was carried out in London in December 1985 by a number of charities concerned with the problems of the homeless, including Shelter and CHAR. It was published under the title, It's the Limit. That survey revealed that in London average hotel prices rose by 20 per cent. between 1984 and 1985 in spite of the new limits. Of course, up to April 1985 each of the 50 DHSS offices in the London area had set their own board and lodging limits in the light of local conditions. But after that there was one limit for the whole of the area, and that was £70 a week for full board.

There are now virtually no hotels in London which offer full board, so this sum reduces to £48.30 per week for bed and breakfast. But the average price of a single room rose from £71.17 per week in 1984 to £85.34 in 1985. Those are the figures revealed by the survey. So that is an average price of £85.34 against the DHSS limit of £48.30 a week. A double room was £58.85 per head in 1984 and rose to £69.24 in 1985. The DHSS bed and breakfast allowance is £39.55 per head in those circumstances.

The number of hotels in London which claimants can afford has dropped by at least two-thirds. For a single room it was found that the number of hotels had dropped from 170 to 60 and for a double room from 206 to 44—that is to say, the lower figure was the number of hotels where it was possible to find a room within the limit set by the DHSS—and two-thirds of the hotels which were within the DHSS price limits had no vacancies. That is the position in London as it was revealed by that survey. And, of course, we know that conditions in these hotels are often appalling, which is one of the reasons why the Housing (Multiple Occupation) Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, is so important. I should like to ask whether the Department of Health and Social Security has studied that report and has any comments to make upon it. It would appear from it and from other sources in other parts of the country that prices have not come down but have continued to increase. I should like to ask the noble Baroness who is to reply whether she would agree that in this respect the Government policy has failed. The number of hotels within reach of supplementary benefit recipients would appear to have declined dramatically. Would the noble Baroness agree that that is so?

The number of vacancies in these hotels is very limited, some two-thirds of those within reach of people on supplementary benefit having no vacancies. Would the Government consider, first, having the DHSS limit on board and lodging payments settled by DHSS officers with reference to local costs and, secondly, the right of appeal against limits being reinstated?

Does not the noble Baroness agree that there must be new legislation to improve hotel conditions and that there is a case for price controls linked to hotel conditions? Would she agree that there must be increased investment in housing for rent to enable as many people as possible to find their own homes to live in? Can the noble Baroness explain the basis on which current rent limits are arrived at?

There is in addition, of course, concern about the effect of the board and lodging limit on those in residential care. This is perhaps strictly beyond the scope of the Question, but any information on that position that the noble Baroness may be able to give or make available would be welcome. In particular, I wonder whether the noble Baroness can explain what are the consequences of the decision against the DHSS in the case of the 19-year-old blind Birkenhead lady who was in residential care and refused attendance allowance.

The young unemployed are forced to move on from their accommodation after a fixed period. I understand that the numbers affected by this are about 50,000. I wonder whether that is the right figure. Clearly, the conditions that I have already described about prices and vacancies make this continual movement a very difficult and desperate process. Can the Government give any report on how this continual movement around is working out in practice and say whether it has led, as the Social Security Advisory Committee feared that it would, to the creation of a class of homeless and rootless young person?

Overall the evidence available to me suggests that the Government claims have not been achieved. I wonder whether the noble Baroness has some solid evidence to the contrary.

8.4 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Sheffield

My Lords, I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness's Answer, and in particular I am anxious to know the reasons that lie behind this hostility towards board and lodging accommodation for the young unemployed. I favour regulations that prevent exploitation of this most vulnerable class. I favour regulations that encourage people to stay at home. For most people there is no better place to be. Yet there are three reasons why it is inevitably desirable that many of these young people leave home. I find it difficult not to believe that when they do, board and lodging accommodation for many of them is the best thing for them. They need to leave home to find work.

I come from south Yorkshire. I leave the diocese for the moment so that I can pray for your Lordships, and every day I hear of new tranches of unemployment in Doncaster, in the south Yorkshire coalfield; it goes back a long way. There is never going to be work for the population of that area again. There is no reason why people should bring work there in great quantities. It is inevitable that people should move away. For older people, because of housing, it is almost impossible.

When I move away from the north and find myself with people of the better sort in the more prosperous areas, they always turn on me almost savagely and say, "Why don't they move?" and give me many stories of those who make abundant attempts to get people to work for them. I say that there is no housing, and they do not believe me. I say that there is no accommodation, and they do not believe me. But we know that it is true.

It seems to me that the effect of these regulations has been to make less accommodation available for those seeking work and to make it harder for them to establish themselves in an area where they might find work and in due course find a husband or wife and set up a new home and a new life in an area more prosperous than the one that they have left.

It is well known that the home life of many of these young people is very unhappy and unsatisfactory. To say that they should simply go back home where there is no home for them to go to does not seem to me a kindness, if I dare use that word, to people who are in so many ways the innocent victims of things that have gone wrong in society.

I suppose it is worth saying that for some people leaving home is a necessary part of growing up. The evidence suggests that many of those in board and lodging accommodation are the most vulnerable of our young people, the least able to look after themselves; yet they must learn to look after themselves, and the motherly—in the best circumstances—atmosphere of that sort of accommodation is exactly what is needed for them.

I hope that somehow or other these regulations can be so examined, so interpreted and so used as to increase the availability of this sort of accommodation for these people rather than making it a rather harassed area where they are moved from pillar to post. They are the people least able to cope with this uncertainty and these changes.

8.7 p.m.

Lord McNair

My Lords, we have had the usual masterly Question from my noble friend Lord Banks, whose grasp of this subject never fails to astonish me. For me it has been a pleasure to listen to the right reverend Prelate. I have not had that pleasure before, and I shall look forward to a repeat of the experience whenever possible.

Perhaps I may be allowed two or three minutes to bring out one of two questions concerning refugees. In the category of refugees, of course, I include asylum seekers who have not yet been granted the status of refugees. The noble Baroness will remember that those whose job is to try to help refugees to re-settle in this country expressed their concern when these regulations were first introduced. They asked that the legislation should include a clear exemption for refugees. The answer was that this was not necessary since exemption for those on a programme of resettlement was intended to cover refugees. There were difficulties about that ruling.

Since then the office of the chief adjudication officer has produced clear guidance with regard to refugees, and I understand that the department is considering the inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers in the list of possible exemptions in the notification letter that local DHSS offices are sending out. This is good as far as it goes. In default of any amendment of the legislation, however, there will always be a danger of some refugees being driven into the sort of nomadic existence that makes re-settlement and self-rehabilitation virtually impossible. Unfortunately not all these people—most of them young—have the necessary confidence or knowledge to seek the best advice or to recognise it as such when it is offered to them.

One persistent cause for concern is the sheer cost of board and lodging accommodation in London, of which my noble friend spoke earlier. Most of these asylum seekers have very good reasons for wishing to stay in London. They want to be near their advice centers; they want to be within reach of the Home Office for their interviews; they need to be somewhere with good language teaching facilities; and naturally, if possible, they like to be near other members of their own communities.

However, research carried out by the British Refugee Council suggests that it is next to impossible to find rooms in London within the financial limits available. That is another point which was touched on by my noble friend. One of the results of this is that many refugees have to spend longer periods in detention than would otherwise be the case. Some have to share rooms with total strangers and in many cases the hotel charges have to be met partly out of the allowances intended for food, travel and other purposes.

I can perhaps save the House a little time by simply asking the noble Baroness whether she will examine the report made to her honourable friend Mr. Newton by the British Refugee Council on 25th April. There she will find, in addition to the points that I have raised, the worry that council has about its hostels. There is a reference to the extraordinary anomaly under which a claimant gets no accommodation allowance in respect of his or her children if they are under the age of 11. If the noble Baroness will address herself to those problems with her usual generosity of heart she will win the gratitude of a number of people who, having found conditions intolerable in the lands of their birth, have paid us the compliment of trying to resettle themselves in this country.

8.13 p.m.

Viscount Buckmaster

My Lords, I am sure the House is extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for raising this very important Question. The noble Lord spoke about accommodation in hotels, and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, also touched on that. I think myself it is really quite appalling how many of those hotels go on raising their prices in the face of the reduced ceiling payable by the DHSS. One point which the noble Lord did not raise but which I think I can myself raise, having heard a great deal about it, is how some of those hotels are profiteering by cramming into rooms which are designed for two or three people (perhaps even for one person) four or five people, according to the size of the room. I think that is quite appalling.

However, I should like to devote most of my short speech this evening to supporting what the noble Lord, Lord McNair, has said. He and I are both connected with the British Refugee Council and we support each other when these matters are raised. I fully endorse what he said about the problems face by refugees, and I will not repeat anything that he said in his very impressive speech.

If I may, I should like to inject a personal element, because I am myself concerned with refugees. I have taken one or two of them under my wing and I know how extraordinarily sensitive and vulnerable they are, particularly when they come to this country for the first time. One of them I know has lost all his close relations in Uganda. I ask your Lordships to imagine the feelings of a man like that. One can only imagine how distressing and disturbing it must be for him to be in a situation where he is forced to move on every few weeks or so and where he is unable to get accommodation of the type he would like, because of the problems which have already been raised.

I should like particularly to mention the problems faced by the excellent hostel which is run by the British Refugee Council in London. It is known as the Langtry Walk Hostel. It is very near South Hampstead station. I went there the other day and was greatly impressed by the quality of the accommodation provided and, more important still, by the quality of the staff. They have there at Langtry Walk a fairly high ratio of staff to residents, and several of those come from ethnic minorities.

There are now some 65 residents in temporary accommodation—it is a hostel which provides only temporary accommodation until the refugees can be settled—and the average length of stay is about six or seven months. As I say, they now have something like 65 residents from 17 nationalities, the largest national groups being from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Afghanistan. It is quite remarkable how the refugees who come to that hostel are shown how to live in London, how they are given support and encouragement, how arrangements are made for their education and so on.

However, the point I want to make is that, as a result of the reduction in the board and lodging ceilings, the hostel is now suffering an overall reduction of roughly 38 per cent. in its income and it has a deficit of £20,000. To some extent this stems partly from arrears in DHSS payments, but the situation is serious because whereas, as your Lordships know, the London limit for payments is £70 per week, the hostel normally likes to work on a figure of £ 100 to 105 per head. So there is a very serious shortfall there. Indeed, the British Refugee Council have even thought it may be necessary to close that hostel. If they do not, they may have seriously to reduce the standard of accommodation and other services which they provide for the refugees. I ask the noble Baroness who is to reply to bear this point particularly in mind, and I hope that we may have a sympathetic answer from her.

8.19 p.m.

Baroness Jeger

My Lords, we are all greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, for bringing this very important Question before your Lordships tonight. I have to ask several questions, and I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will be able to help us in some of the difficulties.

One of those is that the Government apparently are proposing to make some changes in social security help for people who have mortgages. In 1985—I am quite prepared to be told that my figures are wrong—more than 16,000 homes were repossessed for default in the payment of mortgages. As I work among homeless families, I find that 10 per cent. of them are in that situation because they have been put out through failure to pay their mortgages. When we look at homelessness we must look at its causes, and a basic cause is the failure of people to keep up their mortgage payments. The whole situation is absolutely stupid when the Government are talking about home ownership, but are not assisting people to keep up the necessary payments.

The question of fraud in regard to bed and breakfast accommodation has been raised by the Government. There were an alleged 600 claimants in Euston not living at the address that was given. There was a lot of publicity about all those people who were not being fair in their claims, but I then found that there were only 10 prosecutions in that area. I was also informed that the survey of claimants was made by telephone only. Therefore, it is not absolutely true to say that the figures given were correct. I must ask the Minister whether the Government have any figures for homeless people. Anybody walking from here to Victoria or Waterloo can find people sleeping rough. I wonder whether anyone has counted them, because this is connected with the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Banks.

I do not often read the National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review, but I happened to look at it the other day. Nobody could say that that is a Labour document, but it stated: Publicly provided housing is the most run-down sector of the nation's infrastructure. Spending on improving local authority housing needs to be boosted by at least £1 billion a year to prevent a housing crisis. In addition, new council house construction has fallen below demand in recent years". The Policy Studies Institute has estimated that £1 billion a year needs to be spent on building new council homes. It seems to be conceded that the root cause of the problem is the inclusion of capital spending in the public sector borrowing requirement. Economically viable capital projects should be financed through borrowing. We shall never be able to deal with the question of board and lodging, and the misery of people living in rotten conditions, unless we have more housing.

One noble Lord referred, in particular, to the question of refugees. I must ask the Minister whether it would be possible to have an automatic exemption for refugees, instead of making it possible for them to appeal. People who come here for all sorts of reasons, and who do not speak the language very well, may not find their position easy. There may be a case for making refugees automatically exempt from all the constraints here.

I should also like to ask the noble Baroness whether there could be some exemption for people who have difficulties—perhaps because of their state of mental health. I know she has said that there ought to be particular help for claimants, but what is not clear is whether help could be given to people who may not be well enough to make their own applications. When we were discussing this subject some time ago she said that there would be a review of the handicapped, refugees and other special people. Do we yet have the results of that review? If not, when can we expect them? It will help us to look further into these difficulties. The noble Baroness knows that the Social Security Advisory Committee is not happy about the situation.

I have in front of me a copy of Hansard for 21st October 1985, in which the noble Baroness states at col. 863: The result of those exercises will be considered carefully when they are completed in about six months' time, before the full review of all the limits is made next year". I am not very good at arithmetic, but six months' time after 21st October 1985 seems to be about now and so I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether she can give us any information about that review.

8.28 p.m.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the points made with his usual clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and by the other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, is a most patient man. The last time he spoke he asked me a great many questions and I think he said I was doing better than usual because I had answered two of his nine questions. I hope to do better this evening.

Before I try to answer the points that have been raised, I should set out briefly the background to the changes which we made last year for paying supplementary benefit to boarders. The changes had three main aims—and I repeat them advisedly—which were: to control rapidly-escalating expenditure; to help curb undoubted abuse; and to target expenditure more precisely on those in real need. We were also concerned that with the easy availability of high boarder payments the benefit system was artificially stimulating the provision of expensive and inappropriate boarder accommodation.

As noble Lords may be aware, we are currently reviewing the limits for all types of supplementary benefit board and lodging allowances including those to people in homes and hostels. It is expected that the outcome of the review will be announced shortly. In reaching decisions we are taking careful account of the department's own general monitoring, information from local offices, as well as survey information and representations submitted by interested bodies. Social Security Ministers have also met many of the main interest groups.

I have had helpful and informative discussions about the concerns of the British Refugee Council with its chairman Sir Arthur Peterson and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. Many of the points raised then have been reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord McNair, today. I was grateful to the noble Lord for recognising that I share his interest in and sympathy for the problems which may affect refugees. We shall of course take into account all the points made in this debate. Perhaps I may just for one moment speak on the concerns of the British Refugee Council. I was asked to examine the reports submitted by the BRC and my honourable friend the Minister for Social Security was asked to do the same.

My discussions with the British Refugee Council touched on a wide range of points concerning boarders and other parts of the supplementary benefit scheme. I understand the concern of the BRC about finding suitable accommodation for refugees. I know it feels that the revised limits have made the position more difficult in central London, although I would question whether the board and breakfast is the right course to be followed. We also discussed improvements in the notifications which go to claimants so that refugees and their advisers would more easily recognise themselves as exempt from the time restrictions. This is something we have taken on board. Recently in correspondence the BRC has raised the question of financial support for its hostel at Langtree Walk. We shall of course take account of what it has said. I also note that it is considering other options for attracting additional funding. I shall, as requested by the noble Lord, Lord McNair, examine the report submitted to my right honourable friend.

The latest figures for December 1984 demonstrate that the action we took was absolutely necessary. The figures show that the numbers, charges and payments were increasing at a considerably faster rate than was previously estimated at the time we decided to act. Despite the initial action of freezing limits, expenditure on ordinary boarders and people in hostels rose to some £500 million in 1984 compared with £278 million in 1983. This represents a massive increase of nearly 80 per cent. over one year—while the number of claimants grew by 50,000 or 45 per cent. over the same period. In fact, in two years the caseload very nearly doubled while expenditure very nearly trebled.

It is clear that the then prevailing systems allowed financial limits of payments to be forced up and led to the growth of a significant element in the market aimed at social security claimants—for whom many proprietors advertised. No responsible government could allow spending to expand in this totally uncontrolled way.

The noble Lord, Lord Banks, referred to the basis on which limits were set. In determining limits in 1985 we took account of a range of factors including information on cost and limits. We paid particular attention to what is a reasonable amount for supplementary benefit to pay, having regard to equity between those in and out of work. We shall have regard to the same type of considerations this year.

Apart from the review of limits, we established extensive arrangements to monitor the effects of the changes. We expect to publish shortly a monitoring report summarising our findings. Perhaps I may pick out some of the main findings relevant to this debate.

At the time of the original changes more than half of the total ordinary boarders had charges within the revised financial limits, and a further 13 per cent. had charges within £5 of the revised limits. A similar picture emerged in London. In Greater London some 8,500 claimants had charges within the revised limits, and in some 30 local offices serving some 18 inner London boroughs more than half had charges within the revised limits, and a further 10 per cent. had charges within £10 of the limit. At an early stage there were positive signs of reductions in charges by landlords in all parts of the country to come broadly in line with the revised limits. In virtually all areas there was a reasonable supply of private households offering lodgings within the revised financial limits.

Information from local offices does not show any general increase in the numbers sharing rooms, something which I believe has been confirmed by the pressure groups in London, or any general decline in the supply of accommodation attributable to the revised limits, although there were some areas, most notably in inner London, where there was some pressure on the supply of bed and breakfast hotel accommodation. The changes had a significant effect on boarder claims. There was a sharp decline in the number of new and repeat unemployed boarder claims following both the April and November changes, compared with an increase in claims when the time restrictions were withdrawn. And our monitoring information suggests a significant decline in caseload in the light of the April 1985 changes.

The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked about residential care limits and the position of a claimant in Birkenhead. We are reviewing the limits for residential care in nursing homes and hope to complete our review shortly. On the question of the lady in Birkenhead, I understand that the chief adjudication officer has issued revised guidance which will assist the lady in question. It is a very complex matter and I should prefer to write to the noble Lord on the subject.

Noble Lords have drawn on survey material from voluntary and other groups. Where that material has been made available to the department, it will be considered as part of the current review. The monitoring by outside organisations provides findings which amplify those of the department. One particularly useful feature of voluntary bodies' findings on individual claimants is that although the numbers are generally small, these claimants can be expected to include many who experience difficulties with the new rules, since the sample is drawn from claimants presenting themselves to various statutory and voluntary bodies for advice and assistance. The "Its a limit" survey of hotel charges in London provides useful information, although it does not—and could not—take account of the full range of accommodation available to claimants. It too will be considered in conjunction with the department's own findings.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, asked about homelessness statistics. Official statistics indicate that local authorities accepted responsibility under the homelessness legislation for securing accommodation for 93,980 homeless households between January and December 1985. The reasons for homelessness reflect both social and economic factors. Eighteen per cent. of those accepted by authorities were made homeless by marital disputes; 41 per cent. because parents, relatives or friends could no longer accommodate them, and 14 per cent. because of mortgage default or rent arrears. A more detailed set of statistics is in the Library.

The noble Baroness asked also about the proposals for a change in the payments of mortgage interest. The reasons for those reforms are, first, to reduce inequity. Help with mortgage interest is not available to low income families in work. That is plainly unfair. Secondly, to share responsibility more widely. The Government encourage home ownership through tax relief, discount sales of rented homes, and the right-to-buy schemes. Taxpayers should not have to underwrite those forms of support from the first day on benefit to the extent that they do now. However, and as the noble Baroness will know, the proposals are with the Social Security Advisory Committee for consultation and the Government will listen carefully to what that committee says.

The other matter about which the noble Baroness spoke was fraud. There is a new initiative to fight fraud. Some 180 of the 500 additional fraud staff will be distributed between 50 and 60 local DHSS offices across the country with known problems associated with claims from residents of board and lodging establishments. The units will vary in size according to the scope of the problem in a particular area.

In summary, our monitoring shows that action was required. Before I finish that sentence, perhaps I may turn to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, concerning the increase in homeless young people and about them turning into a class of homeless and rootless persons. There is no evidence that the rules have led to that situation. Monitoring shows that most people affected by those changes stayed in the same area, and often in the same accommodation, and made alternative arrangements to claim benefit as householders or non-householders.

With regard to the mentally ill, the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, has heard me say in this House several times before that people should help those leaving mental hospitals who have any accommodation problems. I have a feeling that what has become known as the Tom Clarke Bill should help with that problem, on account of the assessments that will be made.

If I may finish on this note, our measures were effective and protection arrangements, which were widely applied, were of assistance. We remain committed to curbing waste and abuse. We shall continue to ensure a proper balance in the social security system between the needs of the individual and fairness to the taxpayer.

House adjourned at seventeen minutes before nine o'clock.