Homelessness (Hansard, 24 March 1988)

§ Mr. Waldegrave

Yes. I am concerned to look at further action to help homeless people to reduce their dependence, especially in London, on bed and breakfast. It is unacceptable for there to be large numbers of properties built with public funds standing empty on communities with homeless people. These properties must be brought back into use. Authorities and housing associations must seek the best use of their stock; and help people in the greatest housing need. I can now announce three important initiatives to help both objectives. I want to see authorities and associations take up this challenge urgently.

First, additional resources of £28.1 million will be made available to local authorities in the financial year 1988–89. This is part of the £58.1 million increase in DOE cash limits arising from local authority underspend announced today by my right hon. Friend. These resources will be targeted on those authorities where homelessness pressures are most acute. Our main purpose in making these extra resources available is to reduce the number of households, in particular families, temporarily accommodated in bed and breakfast.

It is indefensible that so many families are forced to live in bed and breakfast accommodation at severe, continuous cost to the public purse whilst well over 100,000 local authority properties lie empty. It is a particular scandal that 28,000 properties, almost three times the number of households in bed and breakfast, have been empty for more than a year.

These extra resources will help provide additional accommodation for the homeless by getting local authority empty properties refurbished and back into use; and by supporting housing association projects of a similar kind. Bids will shortly be invited from local authorities for these additional resources which will then be distributed through the Department's regional offices.

Second, there are housing association dwellings standing empty and uninhabitable for lack of necessary major repair work. This problem arises when the properties were originally developed with local authority money, but the authority has refused to fund the repairs. In exceptional cases of this kind, the Housing Corporation is already authorised to provide funding. I have now decided to relax the rules so that the corporation may step in wherever the authority is genuinely unable to fund the repair work, on condition that, after repairs, the dwellings are let to homeless people.

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Third, we have decided to bring forward specific legislation to allow local authorities, with the consent of the Secretary of State, to make payments to help tenants to buy in the private sector, thus creating vacancies for reletting. Evaluation of the schemes operated by the London boroughs of Brent and Bromley (under general powers) have shown that incentive payments can provide a cost-effective means of securing a useful number of vacancies for letting to those in bed and breakfast accommodation or on waiting lists; and they can help more families to achieve owner-occupation, by giving modest assistance. Schemes of assistance will generally be appropriate only where there are serious problems of homelessness and other measures cannot supply the answer. Authorities proposing schemes will be expected to establish suitable limits on the amount offered to individual tenants and to target assistance on tenants who could not afford to buy unaided. This proposal will help local authorities make more effective use of the stock in housing people in need.