I beg to move,

That this House
has considered exempt supported accommodation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I am pleased to have secured this debate on exempt supported accommodation. I start with thanks to a number of people with whom I have worked during the course of this campaign: Jane Haynes at Birmingham Live, Birmingham City Council, the Local Government Association, the HMO Action Group in Birmingham, my local police, and the many residents I have worked with over the years, including my constituents on Carisbrooke Road and Fountain Road.

Since my election in 2017, issues with exempt supported accommodation has been a long-running problem in parts of my Birmingham Edgbaston constituency. I have called this debate because, after years of inaction and stalled progress under the previous Government, I am keen now to see fit-for-purpose regulations introduced to finally deal with this issue. Ministers have been left with no shortage of housing challenges by the previous Administration, whether it is the failure to build enough houses, homelessness, cladding removal or years of inaction on renters’ rights. Exempt accommodation reform should have pride of place among the new Government’s packed agenda, because there is a great deal on the line for vulnerable residents in communities such as mine.

As I am sure the Minister knows, Birmingham has the most units of non-commissioned exempt accommodation in the country, with nearly 28,000 exempt claims across more than 9,000 properties. Exempt accommodation is a type of supported accommodation often used for people with very few housing options, such as prison leavers, rough sleepers, those experiencing substance misuse issues, and so on. It is exempt from the local housing allowance cap because an element of care, support and supervision is supposed to be provided to claimants—although often it is not. As a result, organisations that provide this type of accommodation can charge very high rates, and that has unfortunately led to unscrupulous providers coming into the market. It has had the unintended consequence of distorting the local housing market in Birmingham, given the buying up of family homes to be converted into exempt provision. Quality concerns are rife among the properties, and in recent years several of the city’s largest providers have been issued regulatory notices by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Over the past few years, I have worked closely with providers, residents, the police and community groups with on-the-ground experience to get to the bottom of why the sector has almost trebled in our city since 2018, and why so much of the accommodation is substandard and poorly managed. The causes are multifaceted and complex, but it is the view of me and my constituents that the new regulations to be introduced by the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 are well overdue.

My closest experience of the sector was in 2021, working with the council, police and community to shut down Saif Lodge in my constituency, which had become infamous in the area as an epicentre of crime. It was the first case in the country of an exempt property being shut down, after residents and I presented extensive evidence of incidents of prostitution, drug dealing, aggression and other antisocial behaviour. We found vulnerable residents with substance abuse and mental health issues being let down by filthy, cramped, poor-quality accommodation, and a dire lack of support.

I had been aware of some of the issues of Saif Lodge since I was elected, but after my constituents alerted me to the shocking rise in crime surrounding the property I carried out a spot check with the police to see for myself what was actually happening. I was shocked by what I found: housed there were 25 men and women, including ex-offenders, with several issues ranging from addiction and substance misuse to mental health problems. There was just one solitary support worker on duty, who told me that the hostel was manned only on weekdays, with residents otherwise left to their own devices. The conditions were utterly substandard: cold, filthy and cramped. The downstairs toilet was broken, flooded and left unfixed; the smell was hair-raising. Access to the property was via a code that was regularly shared with strangers who were always in and out. The communal spaces were in a state. It is no wonder that residents were frequently found spilling out and loitering outside. It was not a place where any of us could happily live, let alone get a life back on track following a crisis.

As part of the campaign, I set up an exempt campaign group with residents, and conducted a number of spot checks of such properties in my constituency. Through that work, and working with the council, MPs, providers and community groups across Birmingham, I got to see up close how poor much of the provision can be across my constituency and Birmingham city. In the case of Saif Lodge, we were successful in securing an order for it to be shut down. Good, we might think—but substantial time and resources went into the campaign. It took more than a year to see it through, and it is only one example among many across Birmingham that have been letting people down. That is why councils and the police need powers to address the ongoing concerns in the exempt sector. Saif Lodge was a symptom—a feature of the system, not a bug.

It is telling that since Saif Lodge was boarded up it has been found to have been turned into a cannabis farm housing marijuana with a street value stretching into the hundreds of millions of pounds. The owners even applied to change the use of the property to provide support for women and children. Clearly, they should never be allowed to provide any supported accommodation. I have always contended that organised crime has been attracted to the sector, and this situation has reinforced my suspicions that some people are targeting it for all the wrong reasons. With the regulations Parliament agreed to last year, that must change.

In the previous Parliament I campaigned strongly for a new regulatory regime to be introduced to clamp down on poor-quality exempt provision. That regime should include the introduction of minimum standards of support; changes to housing benefit regulations to include a definition of the minimum standards of care, support and supervision; and new powers for local authorities to manage their local supported housing market better and ensure that rogue landlords cannot exploit the system.

I was pleased to see many of my recommendations in the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee’s excellent report on this issue. Some were subsequently translated into law in the Support Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, which requires local authorities to review and develop strategies to deal with exempt accommodation in their areas. It also gives the Secretary of State power to introduce national support standards and consider a new planning use class for exempt provision, and give councils powers to create local licensing schemes. It is an important piece of legislation to clamp down on those private providers that have opened large buildings that purport to provide support for people but are at best accommodation, and at worst dangerous places to live for the vulnerable people placed there.

A year since the Act was passed with cross-party support, we still do not have the operating regulations or even the consultation promised by the previous Government. A consultation on the regulations was first promised in early 2024; it was delayed to March, and then delayed again by the general election. I would therefore be grateful to the Minister if she would set out the new timelines for when she intends to begin consultation and lay the new regulations.

After the previous Government’s failure to get on with this matter, I know that councils will be listening closely to this debate, seeking more clarity on what to expect over the coming year. The delays have left councils with few means to challenge poor providers other than through housing benefit claims, which are of course problematic for residents. They have also left councils that are in receipt of funding through the supported housing improvement programme facing a cliff edge in support. With funding due to end in March 2025, a gap in funding between SHIP funding and new burdens funding for the Act could mean that many councils have to let go of skilled staff members, which I am sure the Minister would agree would be completely unsatisfactory.

Birmingham city council used its funding for a programme of inspections of exempt accommodation in the city, and what it found is genuinely shocking. It discovered more than 10,000 category 1 and 2 health and safety hazards in exempt properties since 2020, 97% of which have now been removed. In that time, thousands of support plan reviews have been completed and overpaid housing benefit of more than £7.23 million has been reclaimed. I am sure the Minister will agree that the SHIP funding has been a valuable investment, and I seek her reassurance that it will continue while we await the new regulations.

What is most revealing is what the inspections programme has revealed about the state of the sector and why regulation is sorely needed. Through its work, the council has seen an increase in social issues around community safety and poor-quality support. It decommissioned 73 properties and reviewed over 2,000 support plans for adult social care. Some 88 adult safeguarding reviews were initiated, and more than 2,600 claims were cancelled due to the care, support or supervision failing to meet the council’s more-than-minimal threshold. That really is saying something considering how weakly it is defined through the so-called more-than-minimal test.

I remember that when I visited Saif Lodge I talked to the security guard and asked whether they were the support worker. They were not, but if a resident asked them for support, they said they would simply make a phone call to refer the resident or signpost them to a service. That was their version of care, support and supervision. That is what the uncapped housing benefit was paying for while the property’s owners raked in the profit. In addition, the council states that, from inspections, it has logged thousands of community safety incidents connected to such properties. There have been more than 1,700 investigations, leading to 544 evictions and 48 arrests.

A key concern of mine is how people are referred to and placed in the properties. Members can imagine the chaos when it comes to assessing compatible residents and placing them together. Indeed, many residents are not properly assessed at all. I have heard cases of vulnerable women being put with men who have serious issues, and alarming cases of women being assaulted in the properties. That is why the regulations are so important: clear operating guidelines are needed for councils now.

Despite the good work done through the supported housing improvement programme, for which I give the previous Government credit, until we have regulations councils will remain unequipped to enforce the minimum standards of care, support and supervision that vulnerable residents need and deserve. In turn, I have no doubt that regulation will improve the levels of antisocial behaviour and other forms of crime that have sprung up around some of the exempt provision in my constituency and caused considerable grief for the residents of Fountain Road, Gillott Road and other roads leading off Hagley Road. I think everyone in the supported housing sector, councils and my constituents will welcome clarity from the Minister.

Let me move on to some specific questions. I remember a meeting in 2022 at which Government officials remarked that they were too light on data to get on with reform at that point. I found that a startling admission, and I sincerely hope it is not the case now. The Government previously committed to improving the data that they collect on the sector; will the Minister provide an update on that work? Will she also update us on the progress she has made on developing national support standards, including in respect of what constitutes a minimal level of care, support and supervision? It is vital that such regulations are put on the statute book.

I am sure the Minister is aware that, in the absence of the promised regulations due to the aforementioned delayed, some councils are pre-emptively setting their own standards. From their point of view, they will prepare the sector for the introduction of new standards, but from the supported sector’s perspective, they risk creating policy inconsistency that may have negative consequences for smaller providers that are otherwise doing a very good job. Does the Minister agree that the repeated delays to the consultation on and development of the regulations promised by the previous Government have created a lot of uncertainty, which is ultimately unhelpful to the good providers of supported housing in the sector and the residents they protect?

It is welcome that Birmingham city council has its own quality standards scheme, but without regulations it can only be voluntary, and thus only 45% of providers currently engage with it. That is a huge challenge to all of us who want to drive up standards in the sector and do not want a continuation of the race to the bottom that we have seen over the past 14 years.

I seek the Minister’s view on creating a new planning use class for exempt accommodation, to help councils to identify exempt provision at an earlier stage and therefore better manage it in parts of the city where exempt accommodation is already saturated. That is part of the problem with crime hotspots in my patch, which have an incredibly negative impact on my constituents who live in them. I am sure the Minister agrees that the Government’s commitment to restore community policing will help in that respect. My constituents know keenly the value of a local officer who knows the community. We need to see more of our officers on our streets.

New regulations to tackle poor provision in the exempt accommodation sector are desperately overdue. Birmingham now has an excess of 28,000 exempt units, and the number continues to grow. Since reforms to the supported housing system were shelved in 2018, the exempt accommodation sector has ballooned. A freedom of information request from Crisis revealed a 62% increased from 2016 to 2021, so the longer we delay, the greater the challenge when new regulation inevitably comes.

Over the past decade, too many bad landlords have been getting into the sector for precisely the wrong reasons. They have exploited under-regulation, a Conservative housing crisis and an epidemic of unmet need after years of council cuts. There are fantastic providers that also operate in Birmingham that try to do the right thing, but they are being undermined by those seeking to profiteer and short-change vulnerable people in their care. That is bad for the supported housing sector as a whole.

My one ask of the Minister today is for her to make sure that the new Government get on with the urgent task of reform after the previous Government dithered and delayed, and to ask whether she can set out a refreshed timeline today. Survivors of domestic violence, prison leavers, care leavers and people with mental health and substance abuse issues deserve a supported housing system that supports their transition to happier, more independent lives; our communities in Birmingham deserve neighbourhoods that are peaceful and safe, not epicentres of antisocial behaviour; and the taxpayer deserves to know that their money is going to support people who need it and is not lining the pockets of rogue landlords. I thank the Minister in advance for her response to the debate.