It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who has provided us with a Scottish perspective. I rise to support the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I also pay tribute, as others have done, to the Communities and Local Government Committee for its support and prelegislative scrutiny work, and to the Government for supporting the Bill.
I am passionate about tackling homelessness and serve as an officer on the all-party group on ending homelessness. I could not let this debate go past without paying tribute to the amazing charities in the UK, particularly those in my constituency: Beacon House; the Colchester emergency night shelter; the churches that run soup kitchens every evening of the year and pop-up shelters in winter; YMCA; and Emmaus.
I am conscious that many Members wish to speak, so in the interests of brevity I wish to focus on just one area of the Bill. I have long had concerns about how our local authorities define “homelessness” and those making themselves “intentionally homeless”. I have concerns that local authorities are not tacking homelessness at the earliest possible point. Without question, I wish to see a greater emphasis on prevention, and this Bill certainly shifts the emphasis. I suspect that all hon. Members here have seen the briefing sent out by the Local Government Association, which says:
“Councils want to end homelessness and are already doing everything they can within existing resources to prevent and tackle it.”
With the greatest respect, I would very much question that.
As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), who is no longer in his place, some local authorities take their responsibilities incredibly seriously but, sadly, others simply do not. I have raised concerns that Colchester Borough Council is routinely telling those seeking help to stay in their properties until the bailiffs evict them. The council has failed to address the need for temporary accommodation. Despite it having been run by the same people for eight years, and it having run a surplus of £200,000 last year and running a surplus again this year, it is still sending people to temporary accommodation 20 miles away, in Ipswich. That is not acceptable.
I wish to give hon. Members an example of a family who had done all the right things but struggled to pay their rent in the private rented sector. They had gone to the council for help because they were falling into arrears. Their landlord served on them a section 21 notice, and the council then advised them to stay in that property until the point at which they were evicted; otherwise, they would make themselves “voluntarily homeless”, and would lose all rights to support. I thought, “That cannot possibly be right. How could we possibly advise people to put themselves in an adverse position?” I therefore wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), and I hope you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, for reading out his reply. He said:
“We have been extremely clear that authorities should take every opportunity to prevent homelessness wherever they can, that they should not insist that tenants wait until bailiffs arrive before they help. This is poor practice and as you so rightly point out leads to other problems further down the line.
The Housing Minister wrote to all local authorities in February on this issue. He made clear that to operate in this way contravenes statutory guidance and that local authorities should not be placing households in this position. The letter also made clear that it is no longer reasonable for a household to remain in a property once a valid section 21 eviction notice expires and that leaving under these circumstances does not make them intentionally homeless.”
Why is this terrible advice still being given, when vulnerable people are relying on it? Why are people still coming to my constituency surgeries week after week saying that councils are giving them this terrible advice?
As a former property solicitor, I can say that had I given such adverse advice to my clients, I would have considered myself to be negligent, yet our councils are giving out that advice on a weekly basis. It is bad and potentially unlawful and it must stop. It pushes families into crisis, and it comes with huge social cost. Families are being told that they have to wait until a bailiff evicts them. They are seeing their children forced out of their homes when they did the right thing in approaching the council at the earliest available opportunity to seek help. It leads to considerable debt and potential county court judgments, which means that, even in the future, when the council says, “Sorry, we don’t have any social housing available, but we’d like you to go to the private rented sector”, the families will not find a landlord to take them. Who will take them when they have a CCJ against their name, and no references other than one saying, “They sat in our property and didn’t pay their rent”—and that was on the advice of the council?
These families have no savings and no deposit for future rental properties. Moreover, what does it say to private sector landlords in our constituencies when the council tells their tenants to stay in properties and wait until they are evicted? Landlords face the costs of tenants not paying rent. Let us not forget that landlords often have mortgages, too. They are losing out on money, and, more importantly, they have bailiff fees, court fees, and all sorts of other costs to pay. There is reputational damage.