Clive Betts: Home truths over housing policy and plight of homeless

Between 1997 and 2010, the UK built an additional two million homes, increased owner-occupation by more than a million and delivered the largest investment in social housing in a generation. I wasn’t satisfied by this achievement, especially believing that there should also have been big investment in new social housing.

Further, headline or ‘statutory’ homelessness fell by almost two-thirds (62 per cent) from over 100,000 households to 40,000, and the number of people sleeping rough fell by roughly three-quarters (75 per cent).

Since 2010 home-ownership has continued to fall; there are 200,000 fewer home-owning households since 2010. Over the same period, the trend of falling homelessness has gone into reverse. The number of statutory homeless households has increased by 45 per cent and the number of rough sleepers has doubled, up 30 per cent in the last year alone.

Right now, we need to build more homes in this country, particularly more affordable homes, and we need to build more affordable homes to rent. We also need to have longer secure tenancies, rent certainty and better minimum standards of management and repair. We also must recognise that housing needs vary in different parts of the country. Different housing markets need different responses and initiatives, particularly in terms of tenure mix.

The Government claims that its Housing White Paper, called Fixing our Broken Housing Market, is a ‘game-changer’. The consensus is that it while it contains some welcome measures, it fails to address the biggest challenges and that housing will remain a key public and political concern for the foreseeable future.

However, within this context, it is important to draw attention to a unique achievement in the recent passing of the Homelessness Reduction Bill through the House of Commons.

The core of the Bill strengthens the duties and local responsibilities that local councils have to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. The need for the Bill became clear in an investigation by the all-party Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee, which I chair, in 2016.

We were horrified hearing about the experiences of many individuals and families threatened by and becoming homeless. In the very worst cases, we heard about those families who, facing homelessness through no fault of their own, were told “wait until the bailiff has arrived and while you are out on the street, we might decide to deal with you as a homeless family”.

A Conservative MP (Bob Blackman) on the Committee had the opportunity to present a Private Member’s Bill on the issue. He was given such considerable cross-party support that it became clear to the Government that it needed to respond positively. There was a huge amount of behind-the-scenes negotiation, including the involvement of Ministers, civil servants, MPs and a whole range of interested professional and voluntary organisations.

The Bill was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by the CLG Committee, which improved its robustness and ensured it was less vulnerable to attack when it was fully considered. This has set a Parliamentary precedent as the first time a Private Member’s Bill has been subject to such scrutiny by a select committee, bringing together the two main ways backbench MPs can influence the legislative agenda. After much to-ing and fro-ing, the Housing Minister announced £48m of additional funds to meet the implementation costs over the next two years.

I’m also clear that some of the most important measures are to be implemented through a new Code of Guidance and through new Statutory Codes of Practice and that we will need to be vigilant to ensure that Ministerial promises are kept and that the Bill’s objectives are achieved. That’s where the CLG Committee’s scrutiny role can continue to play a major part.

The whole process has provided a useful example for others to consider in addressing other challenging policy issues where there is a breadth of concern. It provides an object lesson not just for the House of Commons, but also for other Parliaments, and also for local authorities which need to encourage the ‘policy review’ element of overview and scrutiny as a key vehicle for improving performance across a range of services.

However, we also need to be clear that this Bill will not succeed in significantly reducing homelessness if the Government presses on with the decisions which have caused rising homelessness since 2010. Instead we need more investment in affordable homes, a review of cuts to housing benefit, increased funding for homelessness services and more action to help private renters.

Clive Betts is MP for Sheffield South East and chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee.