Emergency grants scheme rethink call

EAST Runcorn MP Mike Amesbury has raised concerns over changes to emergency accommodation grants that he said could leave tenants with diminished rights.

Mr Amesbury, Labour, Weaver Vale, told a Commons debate that housing associations had given mixed assessments of Government policy, showing support for Local Housing Allowance (LHA) reforms and in recognising higher costs in sheltered and extra care homes schemes.

However, he said that in accepting praise, the Conservatives must also listen ‘to experts when they criticise them, constructively, too’.

Mr Amesbury said changes to short-term supported housing local authority grants is already putting 85 per cent of such projects on hold.

He warned that society’s most vulnerable could be ‘paying for the consequences of a poorly shaped policy’ in 12 months time and called for the input provided by housing associations, charities and service users to be listened to and for Government to ‘respond pragmatically’.

He said: “Local authority grants do not provide the same protections and rights for those living in shortterm supported housing as those living in long-term schemes.

Service users will no longer enjoy the same rights as tenants.

“The situation is described by Riverside and Women’s Aid, who operate in my constituency and elsewhere, as a backward step.

“Many people who access such housing are already marginalised from society on multiple levels.

“Removing tenancy rights not only makes matters worse, but sends a signal that our services and our society define users as short-term problems, not as equals.

“On the question of whether it is the right thing to do, the answer again must surely be no.”

He added: “Finally, when it comes to the test of whether the policy will make things better for services such as the NHS and social care—we have already referred to women’s refuges, yet again the answer is no.

“Short-term accommodation provides emergency support for those who have been through a crisis: the homeless, victims of domestic violence, people with mental ill health, and those dealing with drug and alcohol dependency.

“Social care, our NHS and homelessness are already at crisis point.

“A policy that reduces the chance of vulnerable people having a safe place to stay will only make matters worse.”