Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): I welcome from Housing Rights Jamie Miller, head of policy and development; Stephen Morrison, policy lead; and Faith Westwood, policy officer.

Jamie, I believe that you will make a brief opening statement, and then we will move to members' questions.

Mr Jamie Miller (Housing Rights): Thank you, Chair, Deputy Chair and members for the opportunity to provide evidence today on the Bill. Members will know that Housing Rights has been advocating for stronger homelessness prevention measures in Northern Ireland for a long time — at least a decade and probably longer. Throughout that period, we have argued that preventing homelessness before it occurs is better for individuals, families and our public services than responding when a crisis has happened.

Housing Rights acknowledges and thanks the Chair for his long-standing commitment to addressing homelessness and for his willingness to introduce legislation to drive homelessness prevention in Northern Ireland. Housing Rights believes that prevention needs to be put on a similar statutory footing to crisis response because, in our experience, it is legislation that drives resources towards prevention and puts policy ambition into practice. Therefore, it is really important.

Housing Rights welcomes the focus that the Bill places on earlier intervention and homelessness prevention. We support what the Bill is trying to achieve. In our opinion, extending the "threatened with homelessness" period from 28 days to 60 days has the potential to be a useful change in our legislative framework. It could provide an opportunity for earlier engagement and could create opportunities to prevent homelessness before it occurs.

My colleague Faith will talk about some examples that we have come across in our advice work. It is also important to emphasise that we think that the Bill alone is unlikely to deliver the wider transformational change that will encourage or support the shift to homelessness prevention that Northern Ireland really requires. In our view, for a longer preventative period to work effectively, it must be accompanied by a preventative focus in law, policy and practice. What I mean by that is that there needs to be a requirement for prevention — a prevention duty of some kind. There also need to be adequate resources to do so, and our wider system needs to support preventative action. That includes collaboration across different parts of the public services.

We recognise that the Committee has a very important scrutiny role in legislation. We are mindful that recently there has been reference to a £2·5 million implementation figure associated with the Bill. We have not seen and are not aware of the estimates, assumptions or modelling around that being published yet. We encourage the Committee to explore that further when you have the opportunity to speak with the Department and the Housing Executive. We would want assurance around how that cost would be managed and how resource constraints would impact on wider prevention activity. We would want some assurance that there would be no negative impact on the limited funding that is currently available for homelessness prevention in Northern Ireland.

The Committee will remember that Housing Rights was with you in May, and we talked about legislative reform in other jurisdictions. It is our view that the most effective way to address homelessness prevention is through a comprehensive package of reform that looks at both policy and operational aspects. We do not think that we can do that in isolation. In that context, we welcomed the recent announcement by the Minister about introducing a homelessness commission that will examine the necessary legislation and the system change that is needed. It is important to stress that we see the Bill and the commission as complementary activities that are not in competition with each other. There are roles for both in that space.

While we think that the Bill provides an opportunity to improve our current framework, the commission's role will essentially be to look at the wider framework piece to see how they can work together. Our request to the Committee is to think about how the Bill and the commission can work together. What I am really saying is that we would like to understand how the Bill can support the work of the commission and vice versa. In our view, it is important that the Bill is future-proofed so that it can jive with wider reforms that the commission may recommend.

Faith, do you want to make a few remarks?

Ms Faith Westwood (Housing Rights): Yes. I have come with two case studies. The first is an example of the negative impacts of the 28-day period to assess threatened with homelessness, and the second is an example of the preventative work that could be done if there was more time available to the Housing Executive.

First, one of our clients was a private rented tenant. She came out of work very suddenly and became severely disabled. She was accruing significant rent arrears because her rent far exceeded the local housing allowance. As time went on, she was given 12 weeks' notice to quit, which represented the length of time that she had been living in that property. She contacted the Housing Executive and was advised to come back when she had 28 days left of that notice to quit period. At the beginning of week nine of her notice to quit period, her application was opened, and things were looked at. During that time, she continued to accrue arrears.

Once her homelessness application was opened and looked at, the Housing Executive struggled to find temporary accommodation that would suit her mobility needs, and that became very difficult. When her notice to quit period came to an end, she had no choice but to remain in that private tenancy and continue to build up arrears. The landlord then instructed a solicitor to take legal action to evict her from the property. By the time the Housing Executive was able to source accommodation that met her mobility needs, a possession order and a money order had been made against her for both the arrears and the legal costs of going to court. She is now dealing with the consequences of significant debt and of having a County Court judgement held against her, which will have ongoing consequences for her access to credit. Had they been able to assess her application more quickly, they would have had significantly more time to source suitable temporary accommodation. While she did not need to access the temporary accommodation until the end of her notice to quit period, it would have given them significantly more time to look at their temporary accommodation stock, move people around and do a scanning exercise to find something on the ground floor. She is now dealing with those ongoing consequences because the Housing Executive had such a limited period to meet her needs. The County Court judgement will be held against her for six years, and that is significant.

On the other side of things, I spoke to our mediation service lead about how long it would take to mediate a disagreement between a private landlord and a tenant. She gave the example of a tenant who was served eight weeks' notice to quit, and that again was due to rent arrears because she had come out of work due to ill health. She had tried to negotiate a way to repay the arrears with her landlord, but that was not successful. She contacted our helpline, and we advised that she could present herself as homeless but they would not look at her application for another four weeks. She was asked if she wanted to be referred to our mediation service in the meantime, and that was successful. They were able to negotiate a repayment plan with the landlord, and the notice to quit was withdrawn and homelessness was prevented in that case. However, had she not known about Housing Rights and gone directly to the Housing Executive, they would have told her to come back in four weeks. At the four-week point, the Housing Executive might have signposted her to our mediation service, but 28 days is not a realistic amount of time to engage the tenant and the landlord in a mediation process and come to an agreement. That is an example of the practical and preventative work that could be done by the Housing Executive's housing solutions team to prevent homelessness, if they had a longer period in which to engage the applicant.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Thank you for your overview. Faith, those are two perfect examples of benefits that the Bill could bring. The initial case study showed how things can spiral so quickly: a woman in work found herself homeless 12 weeks later with debt and arrears. It goes to show the importance of the Bill. Can you speak to the benefits of going from 28 days to 60 days? You have given an example, but can you give a broader outline of the benefits for people who are threatened with homelessness?

Ms Westwood: Aside from those two examples, we have significant experience with clients with a notice to quit, where preventative work could be done if they had a longer period. Looking widely at our benefit system, for example, applying for universal credit will take at least five weeks; it cannot be done in 28 days. For owner-occupiers, where a possession order has been made because of mortgage arrears, applying for mortgage interest support can take a number of weeks. There is applying for a discretionary housing payment to top up local housing allowance levels. There is quite a bit of preventative work that can be done in situations where homelessness is threatened. People get that help too late because, by the time they make the application, the Housing Executive begins its inquiries, perhaps makes contact with the landlord and has the file in front of them to determine the work that can be done to prevent homelessness, 28 days is not a realistic period. Work can be done, but it will require resources for the Housing Executive’s housing officers to do that effectively. Just increasing the time will not be enough; it will need to be matched with the resources to do the job effectively, including staffing and training.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Thank you. While we are talking about resources, I think that it was the Minister who provided the £2·5 million figure during the Second Stage debate. Do you know where he got that figure from? Is it from the Housing Executive or any other arm's-length body? Is that a reasonable estimation of how much it would cost?

Mr Miller: I do not know where the figure came from, and we are not placed to comment on whether it is reasonable or not, unfortunately.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Maybe we as a Committee can follow up on that with the Department.

The Committee Clerk: We have done so. We have asked the Department already.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): OK. Thank you.

I want to make a final point. Jamie, you said that wider legislation and reform is needed. I am sure that Colm would be the first to say that the Bill is not a panacea or a silver bullet. It is a starting point, I suppose. Can you explain what the impact of the Bill will be once we see greater reform in legislation to prevent and end homelessness?

Mr Miller: The point that we are keen to stress is that we want the Bill to mesh with whatever recommendations come out of the homelessness commission. It is hard to make a comment around how the Bill plays that role at this time, when we are not sure. I can tell you that we are out of step with other jurisdictions; in fact, Scotland and Wales has six-month "threatened with homelessness" periods. At this stage, we do not know whether that will be a recommendation of the homelessness commission. We want to know whether there is a way that the Bill can be crafted so that it either evolves or adapts to reflect that, if that is the direction taken. If not, as Faith outlined, the "threatened with homelessness periods" provide lots of opportunities for existing measures to be explored and to give more time for people to get the advice and support that they need.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Is the type of time frame that you would like to see: matching the notice to quit period, even going beyond the 60 days to six months? Would that bring even more benefits?

Mr Miller: There is certainly value in the "threatened with homelessness" periods being in alignment with changes to notice to quit periods. As Faith mentioned, we can see in the private rented sector the value of having that direct policy correlation. If you were to ask Housing Rights for a blue-sky thinking approach, obviously we would say that six months would be fantastic, but I know that lots of considerations need to be brought up in the discussion around the implementation side of things.

Mrs Cameron: Thank you very much for your attendance and for your evidence. Clearly, it is a serious issue, and I thank you for the example that you gave, Faith, which really points to the real-world consequences of not having appropriate housing stock.

Obviously, you support the Bill. For clarity, do you see it as a start to wider reforms that are needed on the subject? The Bill sponsor obviously understands that it is not a magic bullet to fix everything, but it is very much a start in the provision in making sure that people have time and get the support that they need to avoid the worst-case scenario. Do you see the Bill as part of the puzzle? What is your opinion on what the Bill will do in and of itself?

Mr Miller: Housing Rights has been calling for better and stronger measures around homelessness prevention for a long time, and this feels very much in that area, so we obviously welcome the Bill. On the question of whether it is a start, we have seen no legislative reform in homelessness since the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, so, absolutely, it is a start. It very much improves our existing legal framework on homelessness. My hope is that the commission will offer us an avenue to potentially change the whole legal framework and create a system that is orientated around homelessness prevention, rather than our current one, which is much more directed to response.

Mrs Cameron: On housing supply, we all know that we do not have enough houses and enough appropriate housing. Is the fundamental problem in Northern Ireland not the shortage of available housing, rather than the absence of statutory duties? How will extending the intervention period from 28 days to 60 days help someone if there is no suitable social or private rented accommodation available? I suppose Faith's example points to that. There did not appear to be any immediate options for that lady, which exacerbated the issue. If we do not have the fundamentals right, how can we fix the issue?

Mr Miller: It is the shortage of affordable and suitable housing in social housing and in the private rented sector. It is a challenge even for first-time buyers, and it is the biggest challenge that we have to overcome. It is in that context that we recognise that there is a real need for the system to change from one of response to one of prevention. We need to stop the flow of people into the homelessness system as well as providing opportunities for people to exit the system.

Mrs Cameron: If you had a list of three priorities to solve the issue, what would they be?

Mr Miller: If we had three priorities and a magic wand we would obviously build more social homes. That would be at the top of our priorities list. I would like to see the introduction of a preventative duty that sits more widely than just the Housing Executive and brings in other aspects of government, such as criminal justice and healthcare services. They all have a responsibility to support and address homelessness. Finally, there is maybe a need for further legislation and regulation in the private rented sector to ensure that that sector can function. At the moment, the private rented sector houses more people than the social housing sector, and it does not have the same protections as exist in other sectors, so that needs to be looked at.

Mr Boggs: Thanks very much to the people who are with us today. I want to pick up on some of what Pam said about people who find themselves homeless and suitable accommodation not being there. What is your view on the uptake of temporary accommodation? I know from a constituency perspective that people are at times reluctant to access temporary accommodation because it is not in the locality, particularly families with children at school who cannot move to the other side of the North on a temporary basis. What is your assessment of the uptake by people experiencing homelessness of the temporary accommodation that is available, whether it is of a suitable standard or not?

Mr Stephen Morrison (Housing Rights): That impact that the Bill will have on temporary accommodation is similar to the £2·5 million figure that the Housing Executive has talked about. Without access to the Housing Executive's modelling and data assumptions, it is difficult to say with certainty whether there will be an impact on temporary accommodation uptake. Demand for temporary accommodation is driven primarily by the same factors as influence homelessness, which is wider societal factors of affordability, poverty, debt, relationship breakdown and economic factors. The more people who become homeless, the more people take up temporary accommodation, and the Bill is not interfering with any of the wider societal impact. Under legislation, the Housing Executive can make an offer of temporary accommodation once the relevant tests are met under the interim duty, if it appears likely that someone will have priority need. In our experience, that rarely happens. It is only at the point of actual homelessness that an offer of temporary accommodation is made and accepted as a last resort.

There are a number of factors to that. A lot depends on a person's individual circumstances. For example, a private renter who is given a notice to quit may not want to enter temporary accommodation until the notice to quit expires, because they are will still be liable for rent and are not entitled to housing benefit for both homes. They have that hanging over them, so they will not want to enter temporary accommodation, and that will, no doubt, factor in the Housing Executive's decision on whether to offer it. On the other hand, someone might be suffering a severe relationship breakdown for whom exiting that home and entering temporary accommodation at the earliest possible juncture might be preferable. However, without having access to the Housing Executive data on how the numbers break down and at what point temporary accommodation is offered and accessed, it is difficult for us to say one way or the other whether the Bill will have a significant impact on that. Certainly, our experience is that it is offered as a last resort after the "threatened with homelessness" period has come to an end and someone has become homeless. It is not uncommon for someone with whom we are working to be advised by the Housing Executive to come down on the day that their notice to quit period ends or on the last day of that 28-day period to be allocated temporary accommodation.

Mr Boggs: Thank you, Stephen. I think of the case study that was given, which some of the other questions referred to. By extending the period in which the Housing Executive can support those people, Colm's Bill would ensure even more so — obviously not in every situation but in your example of a private renter who wants to stay in the property that they are in at that time rather than access temporary accommodation — that those people would have a greater chance to access the support and housing that they need in the longer term. At the moment, the shorter period could force them into temporary accommodation more quickly.

Mr Miller: The Bill should do that, but I caveat that by saying that, obviously, it needs to be resourced to ensure that, in practice, those actions can be pursued.

Mr Boggs: OK. When we get the response from the Department, it will be interesting to see whether it has taken that into consideration and how it arrived at the £2·5 million figure.

Stephen said that not everybody who faces housing stress or homelessness will need to access temporary accommodation, for the reasons that we have just talked about. We will wait for that information to go back, but it is worth picking it up.

I will finish on this question, Deputy Chair. Colm has said — I appreciate that others have said it as well — that the Bill is not a silver bullet for addressing homelessness. The Minister is working on a homelessness commission at the moment. Can you give any detail on how much you have been able to feed into that? What impact will any future work of that commission have on what we are talking about? I am interested to know what you, as part of the solution, have fed in to the commission at this stage.

Mr Miller: Of course. Following the Public Accounts Committee's inquiry and subsequent report on homelessness, Housing Rights produced a discussion paper that outlined the approaches to legal reform that were taken in Scotland, Wales and England. Committee members might remember that we provided a briefing to the Committee on that. Around that time, we also had a meeting with the Department to do something similar and provide it with a briefing on our thinking. I would describe that meeting as very constructive. The Department was willing to listen to and consider some of our paper's recommendations. Subsequently, the Department made an announcement about the commission, and I can say that, at this point, the Department has shared in confidence a draft terms of reference with Housing Rights, and we have been able to add our thoughts to it and feed back our input on it.

I am encouraged by the announcement. Housing Rights has called for the legislation to be looked at for a long time. It feels as though that is the intent behind the commission, so we welcome it, but we await the further detail on the final terms of reference, a work plan and all those things before we can analyse it further.

Mr Bradley: Thanks very much for your presentation. It raises an awful lot of questions, several of which I am concerned about. You mentioned the £2·5 million figure: where did that estimation come from, and who will pick up the shortfall if it is not enough? Will it be the Housing Executive, or will it go back to the Department for more money? Changing from 28 days to 60 days is worthwhile, but my fear is that it will become a stumbling block and that, instead of sorting something out after 28 days, we will wait until 60 days have passed. That should not happen.

The other point that I want to make is that I have asked here time and again about getting a map that compares where social housing need is with where the infrastructure fails. We have not had that map yet, but that would be a big help.

Also, can anyone tell me how much of the social housing stock is now in the private rental stock? An awful lot of homes have been bought up over the years, and, for one reason or another, they have fallen into private hands. They are now being sent out as private rental stock with rents that sometimes are not affordable.

That is a problem, and it needs to be addressed. Hopefully, the Bill sponsor can feed that into his Bill.

How do you measure homelessness? What is the baseline? If the Bill is taken forward and implemented accordingly, where do we start? How will we know whether it is working and improving people's housing opportunities? What would the baseline be?

Mr Miller: There are lots of things to unpick in that. A useful baseline might be the number of people presenting as homeless, the number of people in the system or the number of people in temporary accommodation. It is really for the Housing Executive and the Department to consider that when it comes to monitoring the success of the Bill. Wales brought in similar reform and extended the notice period to 56 days in 2014. It has statistics on the number of people in temporary accommodation. Wales saw a reduction. It is really important that I caveat that by saying that, in Wales, at that time, there was different legal architecture. It was also pre-COVID, and, when Wales brought that reform in, it brought in a number of other reforms that interacted with and related to that. I am not saying that that is a perfect measure; I am just saying that it is a measure that was used in another jurisdiction to assess the impact of the change from 28 to 56 days.

Mr Bradley: You rightly made another point. Will the extension from 28 to 60 days alleviate or add to the problems with temporary accommodation etc? How do you see that panning out?

Mr Miller: It is hard for us to comment on that with any certainty. A case can be made for both scenarios. There will be cases where individuals can be supported to prevent them from becoming homeless and requiring temporary accommodation. Likewise, there will be cases where that will still not be the case. Sorry to give this answer again, but it will depend on implementation and resourcing. At this point, we are not sure what that will look like, and it will be for the Housing Executive to comment on it.

Mr Bradley: I have one final question, with your permission, Deputy Chair.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Of course, yes. We are running behind schedule, but go ahead.

Mr Bradley: I will be quick. Could you give me an idea of where the stress is? Is it in the coastal areas or the two major cities? Is it rural, or is it all over?

Mr Miller: It is all over.

Mr Bradley: Is there no concentration anywhere?

Mr Miller: There is a shortage of affordable and appropriate homes across Northern Ireland, and work needs to be done to address that. There are areas where there are higher numbers of presentations. I cannot tell you whether that is because those areas have wider systemic issues or because they have more services and support and therefore are where people want to be based. Obviously, Belfast is a significant area, but it also has the highest concentration of population.

Mr Morrison: You have traditional areas that have always had a high level of social need, such as north Belfast and west Belfast and certain local landlord areas in Derry. Recently, particularly since COVID, areas in Northern Ireland — the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area, for example — that typically had low levels of housing need compared with some of the higher-need areas, such as north Belfast, still have relatively low levels, but those levels have grown extremely fast. Fermanagh and Omagh has had the fastest rate of homelessness acceptances over recent years in Northern Ireland. Even in areas where traditionally there has not been that level of need, it is increasing fast.

Mr Bradley: Thanks for your presentation, and thank you very much for your written submission.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Thank you, Maurice.

Kellie, try to be brief, please, because we are running behind schedule.

Ms K Armstrong: I will. Paragraph 25 of your briefing talks about temporary accommodation: it is my experience that, when somebody has been paying private rent, they do not move into temporary accommodation. To be honest, the Housing Executive does not encourage them to move into temporary accommodation until that bought-and-paid-for rental agreement is completed.

I have one question. The current threshold is 28 days: is there a published timeline of what happens in the Housing Executive in those 28 days? For instance, when somebody presents to the Housing Executive, that starts the clock. When do they get their full duty status, if they are to get it? What happens? My experience is that people are often told to go away and come back closer to the date when they are being evicted. Do you know whether there is a published process so that people know what happens during that 28 days?

Ms Westwood: Not to my knowledge. From our casework experience, 28 days is not sufficient to make a homelessness decision in the first place. The person would not get their full duty applicant status on day 28, but, because of the interim duty to provide temporary accommodation while the application is assessed, there would still be a duty to provide temporary accommodation, assuming that there was an indication that the person was in priority need.

Across the board, we see the process becoming longer and longer. There is no requirement in legislation that a decision be made within a certain time; the law just requires that a decision is made. We hear about cases where people are not having their final decision from the Housing Executive for two, three or four months. That just fits into the broader conversation around resources and the Housing Executive's ability to do its work efficiently.

Ms K Armstrong: Are you aware of whether there is an assumption or a requirement by the Housing Executive for the person to go away in that 28-day period and try to identify somewhere to live?

Ms Westwood: No.

Ms K Armstrong: OK.

Ms Westwood: During that 28 days, assuming that the application has been opened, the Housing Executive would initiate its enquiries. It might have conversations with landlords to find out why a notice to quit has been given. Those enquiries should begin, but there is no stipulated time frame or signposts during that time to indicate when activity should happen.

Ms K Armstrong: I appreciate that you talked about the independent panel and what is happening with the homelessness commission, but you know information that is not in the public domain. We may come back to you on that later.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): We will move on to the Bill sponsor.

Mr Gildernew: I really appreciate the briefing, particularly the case examples. They sum up very much what the Bill is about. I absolutely recognise that much more needs to be done. The Bill is simply what I considered to be a good start, given the restrictions that a Member's Bill has around it; in fact, I will be delighted when the Bill provides some support to people in the interim. I will be even more delighted when a wider suite of legislation comes along that, potentially, will make my Bill unnecessary because better measures will be in place. I just wanted to say that.

Your case studies, Faith, provided two clear examples. One was where a person fell into temporary homelessness due to not having sufficient time to deal with their needs, and the other one was where temporary accommodation was prevented even though there was time. Is there an over-consideration here of potential temporary accommodation increases and an under-consideration of preventing people from becoming homeless, which is what my Bill is designed to do, and of potentially reducing the amount of temporary accommodation that is required due to having more time to intervene? To your knowledge, has sufficient note been taken in the calculations of the cost savings that could be generated?

Ms Westwood: I can only reiterate what Jamie said: we have no information on or knowledge of how that figure was reached and whether the two opposing scenarios were factored in.

Mr Morrison: If the resourcing and capacity were there, in theory, it would prevent more people from getting to the stage of needing temporary accommodation. It would be helpful for the Committee to invite the Housing Executive to give evidence about how it arrived at that figure of £2·5 million and to spell out what capacity and resourcing it would need to properly realise the Bill's full potential.

Mr Gildernew: The commission was announced about a month ago, the day before my Bill was introduced in the Assembly: are you aware of a timeline for when both commissions will be put in place, when they will commence their work, when they might report and when any legislation might flow from them? What is a realistic time frame for that work?

Mr Miller: We do not have a firm timeline. We have seen draft terms of reference, and that is the height of it. We have had the opportunity to provide our thoughts to the Department, but it is for the Department to move that forward. It would not be our place to comment further on it.

Mr Gildernew: You said that a six-month commencement may not be enough: how long a commencement period would you prefer?

Mr Miller: I am not sure. I cannot give a specific figure. Before we could make a firm comment on the commencement period, we would want to know the details of the implementation. I recognise that resourcing and operational challenges would be involved in building the capacity for the change that is required, and I really want to understand the Housing Executive's perspective of what that would entail before saying whether we think that the commencement period is appropriate.

Mr Gildernew: There is no doubt that there will be a statutory requirement on the Housing Executive to prepare. That brings me to my final question. I acknowledge and recognise the value of your work and how difficult it is at present. You said that there are concerns that funding commitments flowing from the Bill may impact on the already stretched homelessness prevention budget. Have you been given any indication by the Department of whether that outcome is likely?

Mr Miller: No. Nothing has been said, and no evidence has been given about that. We in the sector are always cautious about resource constraints.

Mr Gildernew: My Bill is clearly designed to put more focus on and more budget into preventing people from becoming homeless, as that is more beneficial.

Mr Durkan: I will be brief because many of my points have been made. If they were not covered by the questions, they were covered in the answers. Thanks to the Housing Rights team for coming along and for the paper, which was useful in reaffirming where a lot of us are on the issue.

On affordability, we know that there is an issue about the £2·5 million, although another figure — at least, one other figure — was bandied about during the Second Stage debate. It is essential that we drill down into that figure with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. It is impossible to do a cost-benefit analysis when we are not clear on the cost.

I know that it is not like for like — you touched on that in an earlier answer — but what savings or costs have been realised or incurred in other jurisdictions that have gone down this road, albeit that they might have a more comprehensive suite of interventions?

Mr Miller: I do not have a figure to hand for the Welsh example, but we could try to find something. I caveat that by saying that, when Wales increased its "threatened with homelessness" period in 2014, it was part of a wider package of reform, though maybe not a comprehensive one. That makes it hard to compare that change with what we are talking about in the Bill. It is also worth mentioning that Wales and Scotland have had much more recent legislative packages of reform in this area in 2024 and 2025. It is too early to have hard figures on the savings from either of those pieces of work.

Mr Durkan: I detect that, given that the cost of £2·5 million seems comparatively low, the real resistance is possibly based on the Housing Executive's already overstretched staff, its workload and its having no confidence that it will get the resource required to do the work from the Department or the Executive. As well as saying that the Bill would be "unaffordable", I am fairly sure that the Minister said that it could be "counterproductive" in tackling homelessness. I heard nothing to support his view that day, and I have not heard much since. Where is Housing Rights on that?

Mr Miller: As I outlined in the opening statement and as reinforced by Faith's examples, any additional support that is provided to people who are threatened with homelessness or are homeless is, obviously, a positive thing. We see the Bill as offering improvements to our current framework, so it is welcome in that sense. I reiterate that we also know that we need a wider package of reform to make sure that the whole system functions in the most effective way.

Mr Durkan: OK. Thank you.

The Deputy Chairperson (Miss Brogan): Thank you very much, folks. That is everything from members. I thank the three of you for attending Committee and updating us. We may hear more from you as we go through our scrutiny of the Bill.