Clause 2 - Homelessness Reviews
Homelessness Bill
11:30 am
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 2, line 11, at end insert
`; and
(d) the availability of housing advice within the district.'.
I shall attempt to be brief. We debated this amendment during the passage of the Homes Bill. The amendment would add a fourth requirement to clause 2(1). As subsection (1) stands, local authorities would carry out a homelessness review to look at levels of homelessness, the activities that are carried out and the resources available. They should also look at the availability of housing advice in the district.
I do not intend to go over all that again. However, we benefited previously from detailed research carried out by Shelter into the question of housing advice and the massive variations in the quality of that advice throughout the country. People from Shelter told different housing departments that they were single mothers, children or whatever in an attempt to get advice on housing. In one case, a single mother received absolutely dreadful advice that was of no help at all. The only thing that the housing department did right was to give her a customer satisfaction form to fill in on her way out. On the basis of that and other research, there is no doubt that the quality of housing advice often leaves a lot to be desired.
In a previous discussion, the then Minister, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), tried to defuse the argument by talking about a draft of the guidance notes, with which the Committee had been provided. There was much discussion, including comments from the hon. Member for Bath, about whether the draft guidance notes addressed the problem. The then Minister seemed to think that references to sources of data on homelessness dealt with the issue, but seemed to refer to the authority collecting information for its own decision-making purposes.
The Minister stated:
``The availability of housing advice, its quality and extent, should and will have to be considered as part of homelessness reviews.''—[Official Report, 30 January 2001; Vol. 362, c. 315.]
As a bold statement of what we want to achieve—and wanted to achieve before—I can do no better than to quote that. That approach must be right, but I remain unclear about how far we have progressed with the draft code.
The Minister concluded his contribution to that debate by asking the hon. Member for Bath:
``Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the notes will be incorporated within the existing code?''—[Official Report, 30 January 2001; Vol. 362, c. 316.]
He also promised to check the point.
We never returned to that question in that Committee. We now have a golden opportunity to return to it and to press the Minister to tell us whether the code of conduct has been improved and tightened up on the basis of evidence from Shelter and others.
Many people throughout the country are not receiving the level of housing advice to which they should be entitled. I tabled this probing amendment to give the Minister an opportunity to update the Committee on that point.