This is a one-hour debate. Four Members, in addition to the Member in charge, have already indicated that they wish to speak. We are pushing the clock a bit, so anybody who has not already so indicated is unlikely to get called, although that depends on how long Members speak for. Members may wish to consider intervening rather than trying to make a speech.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am delighted that many colleagues have come to this debate, as furniture poverty often flies under the radar. Other colleagues have been campaigning on it for some time. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) asked a question about it recently, and I noted a written question about it from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). Soon, my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) is hosting an event in Parliament on the subject, and I encourage colleagues to attend.
Furniture poverty is the lack of essential furniture items to make a house a home. That typically means a bed, a mattress and bedding; a table and chairs; a sofa; a wardrobe or chest of drawers; carpets or other flooring; curtains or blinds; a washing machine; a fridge and freezer; and a cooker or oven. In no way is it about want. It is about need—the furniture needed to attain a socially acceptable standard of living. Without all those items, it is difficult to achieve that. For example, living without a proper bed leads to poor sleep and difficulty focusing at work for adults and at school for children.
In my constituency it is estimated that around 1,500 children do not have a bed to sleep in at night. Given the monumental impact on their education and mental health, does my hon. Friend think that there is a special case that needs to be addressed, particularly to support children in my constituency and others?
My hon. Friend makes his point well. Lots of children are affected in a number of constituencies around the country. I have some statistics on that later in my speech, and I am grateful to him for highlighting the situation.
Living without a cooker means more ready meals and takeaway food, which is less nutritious and more expensive. No cooker means an average of £2,100 extra for a family of four per year on their food bill. No fridge or freezer tacks on another £1,300 to that food bill, due to an inability to buy in bulk or store food safely for future use. To avoid damp or dirty clothes without a washing machine, going to a launderette—of which there are few—adds just over £1,000 to the household bill. Those figures are from April 2023; increases in inflation and to energy bills since then mean that costs are likely to be higher now.
This is a poverty premium. Furniture items are a huge initial expense, and many low-income households simply do not have the money to shell out for them. However, their absence is far more expensive over time.
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, although I am sure he agrees that as the sixth richest economy in the world, we should not be having it. End Furniture Poverty has worked with local authorities in Liverpool to ensure that at least 10% of registered social landlords’ properties are furnished. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that that is not good enough. Will he join me in calling on local authorities to find more resources to ensure that we do not have people living in furniture poverty?
I am going to mention End Furniture Poverty later in my speech. It is an excellent organisation that is doing good work, particularly with Liverpool city council in my hon. Friend’s constituency. She makes her point well.
Furniture poverty has a huge impact on both physical and mental health. According to a National Centre for Social Research survey of people experiencing furniture poverty, six in 10 reported that it caused them physical pain, while nine in 10 felt stressed or anxious living without essential items and, crucially, worried that they would not be able to replace items should they break. The anxiety is constant. Seven in 10 reported feeling ashamed or embarrassed by their own home, reflecting a social stigma around furniture poverty that leads those suffering to invite family and friends around less, increasing isolation.
Upsettingly, seven in 10 people surveyed who also had long-term conditions or disabilities said that living in furniture poverty made their condition worse. For those coming from homelessness, it is especially difficult. In my region of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, I know of a resident who was finally offered a flat, after living in her car for months. Although that was a relief, not having anywhere to sleep in the unfurnished flat significantly undercut the benefits, as did the lack of other essential items.
As many as 9% of UK adults are missing at least one essential item, and more than 1 million are living in deep furniture poverty, which is defined as missing three or more essential items, while 1.2 million children are in furniture poverty. This issue also disproportionately affects those from minority ethnic backgrounds, with 16% missing essential items, compared with 7% of white British people.
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. There are two wards in my constituency where child poverty is at 63%. That cannot be allowed to continue. In the past 10 years, from 2014 to 2024, it has increased considerably. We need to take action and ensure that that increase declines. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do that.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. He cites the specific statistics in his constituency; I am sure we will hear more in the Minister’s response about the Government’s plans to address that situation.
Starkly, if someone has a disability, they are three times more likely to be in furniture poverty than non-disabled people. The issue is at its worst in the social rented sector. Only 2% of social properties come with any furniture at all, meaning that most people move into an empty box, not a home. That means that more than a quarter of social tenants are in furniture poverty.
Landlords also often throw away any furniture that is left when tenants move. That extends, most absurdly, to flooring. Nearly 760,000 adults in the social rented sector are living without flooring. That means walking around on cement, wood with nails sticking out, or dirty underlay. That is often because it is ripped up by landlords when previous tenants leave, supposedly because the floor might be dirty. In most cases, perfectly good flooring is removed just because it is the quickest and easiest thing to do. That means that tenants have to put in flooring themselves. Data from May this year show that 83% of residents self-funded floor coverings, with only 1% receiving support from their landlord.
Very few charities or local welfare schemes cover flooring, meaning that many just have to make do with nothing. Beyond being a hazard, a lack of carpet or adequate flooring makes a property far colder in winter, increasing heating costs. The Welsh Government recently took the extremely welcome step of requiring social rented homes to provide flooring from the point of let, regardless of whether properties are considered furnished or not. I strongly encourage the Government to follow the lead of our Welsh colleagues by bringing in a similar measure, as we review our own decent homes standard.
I am sure the hon. Member will join me in celebrating Second Chance Chichester, which in my constituency is working with an organisation of crafters to restore furniture, in order to make sure that local families have access to the essential furniture they need. However, because of pressures in local government, it is becoming increasingly hard to get grants for the charitable work that it does. Does he agree that the local government settlement cannot come soon enough?
I have been a councillor myself for a number of years, so I am very much aware of the difficulty that local government is facing and I agree that we need to see improvements in that regard. The situation is extremely difficult for the Government, of course, given the horrendous inheritance that we have had from the previous Government on this issue and on the broader economy in general. However, I certainly look ahead, especially to the multi-year settlements that the new Government have pledged to bring forward, which will be incredibly useful for councils.
In February, three in 10 charities that work with local authorities said that they expected their funding to fall, but even charities that derive no income from local government felt that challenges in local finances would affect them, with 33% of them saying that there would be a knock-on effect for their organisation.
What can be done about furniture poverty? There is a case for some work to be done on local welfare assistance. These schemes are an ideal source of support for people who require one or two essential furniture items. They also provide vital assistance for food and fuel, and many of them offer a wide range of other support. However, budgets for local welfare assistance have dwindled over the past decade, after responsibility for schemes was devolved from central Government to local government and as local authority budgets have been greatly reduced. That is the key point. Devolution is not a bad thing, but it must come with the funding to deal with the new powers.
Right now, 36 local authorities have closed their local welfare scheme, meaning that whether people can get the support that they need has become something of a postcode lottery. That is no huge surprise given the perilous state of local government finances after the last Government’s failures. The new Government’s extension to the household support fund in the Budget is very welcome and will be vital to so many people who need it.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) on securing and introducing this debate. I will give a Northern Ireland perspective, as I often do, and say what we are doing in my constituency.
End Furniture Poverty has stated that 9% of all UK adults over 18 are missing at least one essential furniture item. Furthermore, 1 million adults are in deep furniture poverty, meaning that they are missing more than three essential furniture items. Those items can include a bed, a wardrobe, a cooker, blinds or curtains, or indeed a fridge-freezer. Those things are absolute necessities for all homes.
End Furniture Poverty estimates that at least 6 million people in the UK are experiencing some sort of furniture poverty. In addition, in the year 2022-23 the number of people living in absolute poverty increased by half a million people before housing costs and by some 600,000 people after housing costs. Further analysis has revealed that at least 1.2 million children, or at least 9% of all children, are experiencing furniture poverty within those households. The average cost of an item is some £250, which means it would cost approximately £2.25 billion to end furniture poverty. That is quite a challenge.
We often forget about the different types of poverty and how they can affect families across the UK. The debate today on furniture policy is so apt and important for our constituents, as I will illustrate.
I am very fortunate to have a number of churches in my constituency that help with furniture poverty. I would like to mention one in particular that I deal with regularly simply because it is available and very attentive to any requests that we put forward. My office has a great relationship with the St Vincent de Paul organisation, a UK charity that supports those who are on the breadline and at risk of being plunged into absolute poverty, and which estimates that almost 1 million people—a massive figure—experience enforced deprivation. St Vincent de Paul has been fantastic, working with my office to provide direct support for household goods, and it does so regularly without any questions whatsoever. Each week in the office, we deal with people in desperate need.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this important debate. We can see from Members’ interest the importance of the subject to everyone.
This topic is also quite dear to my own heart, as I have discussed before. Growing up, my mum and I were unfortunately homeless twice. After moving to hostels, B&Bs and temporary accommodation, we were finally given the keys to a new council house—but with no curtains to keep out the daylight and give us privacy, and no bed, only a duvet, and then eventually a shared mattress on the floor to sleep on, so although we had a roof over our heads, we certainly did not have a comfortable and warm home. Unfortunately, experiences like that are all too common in 2024.
For families like mine when I was growing up, who have been made homeless or squeezed out by the precarious private rented sector, it is rare to be able to afford to furnish a property. Colleagues will have seen properties in their constituencies with furniture dumped outside, as people have to quickly leave their private rented sector property with nowhere to go. That challenge has been compounded by the cost of living crisis: we have seen a 31% increase in the cost of furniture between 2020 and 2023.
When my constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip are evicted from their homes—my inbox is a testament to the fact that that is an all too common occurrence—they have no idea where they are going to sleep that night. They are told by the council to fit all their belongings into one black bin bag and to turn up at the civic centre. Clearly, one bag of belongings will not contain a bed frame for their children to sleep on, an oven to cook their meals or a fridge to store their medication. These families are also clearly unable to afford storage, which is very expensive, or transport to move their belongings to whatever temporary accommodation they are eventually given. They have to throw away vital belongings or leave them behind, leading to further distressing and life-changing impacts, on top of their homelessness.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in my first ever Westminster Hall debate, Sir Roger. I am very grateful to be here. It is an honour to follow some fantastic contributions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for raising this issue.
As has been said, 6 million people in the UK live in furniture poverty, which means that nearly 10% of the UK population do not have access to at least one essential item of furniture. As my hon. Friend said, that definition is not clear. Even though I have become interested in the issue since joining the House and witnessing the advocacy of some great organisations, when I speak to my friends about furniture poverty they think it is about cookers and fridges. In actual fact, a big part of furniture poverty, and what I want to focus on today, is fabrics: carpets, floor finishes and window coverings.
To pick up on some of the points that have already been made, furniture poverty more generally has a much bigger societal impact than just that direct impact on families. There is a link between families in insecure homes, their health outcomes, and the pressures placed on their local authorities and care organisations. Families who do not have good fabric in their homes—carpets or window coverings—typically have higher energy bills, and the insecurity that furniture poverty creates causes social and other issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire mentioned that 70% of people feel socially isolated due to the impact of furniture poverty. That leads to shame, with people, including kids, not having their friends round when they want to, causing families and older people to become isolated as they struggle with stress and anxiety. It was also mentioned that 60% of those in furniture poverty struggle to maintain healthy eating habits, which has a knock-on effect not only on the individual but on our health system and the health of our nation.
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In the private rented sector, things are better, with 29% of properties let as furnished, which provides tenants with choice. However, there is ambiguity over that figure. It could include serviced flats for those with higher incomes. There is also no legal definition of a furnished property, meaning that what counts as furnished can vary from landlord to landlord and property to property. Some properties are advertised as furnished, only for tenants to arrive and find they do not have a mattress, cooker, fridge or another essential furniture item.
I have personal experience of that. When I moved into a new flat in August, I arrived to find there was no mattress to sleep on. I had to order one myself at short notice, but I am lucky to have been able to do that. So many people are not able to deal with significant unexpected expenses like that. I firmly believe that we need to define formally what “furnished” means, to empower tenants to challenge landlords who misleadingly advertise properties as furnished.
We have unfair trading regulations that should protect tenants but, when landlords are able to define “furnished” however they please, and with many not providing inventories of properties until a lease agreement has been signed and a tenant has been locked in, tenants cannot use those regulations effectively to challenge misleading practices. Other countries already have a legal definition—France, for example—so it would not be an unusual step. There are ample opportunities for us to do it, either through the decent homes standard, as we review it, or in secondary legislation arising from the Renters’ Rights Bill.
Other problems in the sector can exacerbate furniture poverty, with the sheer levels of rent people pay in the private sector being a major one. Private renters spend on average more than the recommended maximum of 30% of their wages on rent, which can make it difficult to buy or replace costly items. It is also possible that replacement furniture items are required more often in the private sector, due to mould and damp, given that a higher proportion of homes in the sector do not meet the decent homes standard compared with other forms of tenure. I welcome the fact that the Government have already taken steps to address that situation in the Renters’ Rights Bill.
I want to highlight some of the work done by charities and local authorities. End Furniture Poverty, a charity based in Liverpool, is the leader on research in this area and I have drawn on its useful statistics throughout my speech today. End Furniture Poverty has worked with councils up and down the country, including Liverpool city council; in Liverpool more than 50% of social landlords have pledged to start a scheme to tackle furniture poverty. It has also worked with Cambridgeshire county council. Next week at its parliamentary event, I look forward to the presentation of End Furniture Poverty’s work and to hearing how that will affect my constituents in North West Cambridgeshire.
However, although charities do good work, they cannot do it all and they have been impacted by the difficulties in local government finances under the last Government.
What will be key is effective regulation of the social and private rented sectors. The statistics from the social rented sector are stark. Social landlords need to provide more of their stock as furnished, and I believe that potential legislative routes to achieve that should be considered. In the private rented sector, the Renters’ Rights Bill does much to tackle the overriding issues that exacerbate furniture poverty for renters and shows how important regulation is. I encourage the Government to consider the small, additional regulatory changes that I have outlined in this speech, which could make a real difference to people in furniture poverty.
I appreciate that because this issue is a cross-departmental one, the Minister may not be able to respond to all of my points, in which case I ask her to raise any outstanding points with the relevant Minister and ask them either to write to me or to meet me to discuss them. That would be very helpful.
I will end there and defer to colleagues, who I know have lots of valuable contributions to make.
It is also great to hear that other organisations in Northern Ireland have schemes to support people with household goods this winter. We are at that time of year again; Christmas time brings it home very clearly. Today’s debate comes at a time when many of us are focused upon this very issue, as so many people are struggling with rising energy bills, the cost of living, and cold weather on the horizon. We are often reminded that individuals and families out there are really struggling, and it is important that there is support for them out there.
I will conclude now and hopefully allow others a few minutes to participate. It is critical that provision is made to ensure that families have the best support. This debate gives that opportunity. We look forward to the Minister’s contribution and that of the shadow Minister. Furniture poverty has proven to be a real issue, which so many people are experiencing, given the dire statistics that I have mentioned. We must do more to support the charities. If the Minister does not mind my saying so, I think there is an opportunity for us to work hand in hand with charities. That should be done as a matter of course. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that point, and perhaps together we can provide support for the people who need it.
Should a family eventually be fortunate enough to get a permanent house, as we have heard today and from the excellent work of charities, only 2% of social housing is furnished—significantly less than in the private rented sector. Many are left without the essential items that we all need for a constructive and healthy life. As we have heard, this issue affects 26% of people in social housing, and a significant group are in deep furniture poverty as they lack three or more essential items. That particularly affects the most disadvantaged, the disabled and people from ethnic minority communities, who have a higher rate of furniture poverty.
The impacts of furniture poverty are scarring; they are often lifelong and life-changing. There is a health impact if a young family cannot get the nutrients they need from a balanced diet because they cannot afford an oven, or even a microwave to heat up a ready meal. If children are unable to get a good night’s sleep because they do not have a bed, or if they cannot do their homework because they do not have a desk like their peers do, there will be a lasting impact on their development. Great research from the End Furniture Poverty campaign, about which we have rightly heard fantastic things, shows that there is a significant extra financial impact on families, through their food and heating bills, if they are not able to afford those basics.
Lacking the necessary furniture items is a trap. It often forces families already facing financial hardship and homelessness to approach unscrupulous loan sharks, take out further debt or borrow money from friends and family if they can, and that leads to a cycle of poverty and destitution, which leads to rent arrears and higher eviction rates—and the cycle begins again.
The good news is that we can end furniture poverty. Since taking power, the Government have shown that they understand the importance of working with local government, where many of the solutions lie. We need to empower and support local authorities to tackle this issue. There are many good local initiatives—we have heard about some in Liverpool—but we need more. We need to work with local and regional government on regional reuse hubs, so that furniture and appliances left behind in properties can be reallocated to the families most in need. Local recycling centres often have furniture that people do not want to see go to waste. Why can we not reuse it for those in social housing and furniture poverty?
We need to look at the household support fund, to which the Government made a strong commitment of £1 billion in the Budget. Unfortunately, a lot of that funding is used not for household items, but for other issues. Can the guidance for the fund be strengthened to highlight the importance of tackling furniture poverty?
As has been said, we need to work with housing providers and registered social landlords to help them reach the key goal of 10% furnished social housing stock. We are rightly updating the decent homes standard, but it must include both the inside and the outside of a home. Furnishings are part of decent housing. I welcome the Government’s commitment to the homelessness strategy and the child poverty taskforce. Those welcome and much-needed pieces of work could play convening roles in tackling this issue.
Tackling furniture poverty will also address the strain on the public purse. We know about the impact on poverty, health and education. Although there is a cost to tacking this issue, it will ultimately lead to savings for health, education and special educational needs bills and for the welfare state.
I thank the charities for their fantastic work on this issue. They give much-needed support to families in our communities—Trinity Homeless Projects in my constituency does fantastic work—and provide advocacy and action in this space. I thank Members for their contributions. I look forward to hearing from the Front-Bench team and working with them to tackle this issue, deliver the change that people in this country not only want but desperately need, and end furniture poverty for good.
I want to talk a bit more about carpets and window coverings. I have joined the House from the construction industry and found that this Government have a big focus on housing—it is fantastic to see that that is one of our five missions. There are 1.2 million people living without suitable floor coverings in their homes and about three quarters are in social housing. Similarly, about 870,000 people are in homes without appropriate window coverings, and about half of them are in social housing. Although this is a big issue for the social housing sector, it affects not just people in that sector, but everyone. Indeed, we have had representations today from Northern Ireland to the north of England and even down to London, showing that this is clearly an issue that affects the whole UK.
From an environmental perspective, the lack of suitable floor and window coverings means we see significant heat loss from properties, which ultimately raises people’s energy bills and can compound the impact of cold winters on elderly people. With rising temperatures in the summer, particularly as a result of climate change, we also see an impact on the ability of older people and families to keep cool in the heat. End Furniture Poverty recognises, and has fed back to me, that the issue also creates hazards for those with mobility challenges, particularly where floors are not suitable for the use of mobility equipment.
I welcome the fact that the Government have extended the household support fund, because one of the big things we can do is make sure that funding is available for people, particularly where there is no local welfare scheme in place. My constituency of Northampton South is part of the West Northamptonshire council unitary authority area, and there is no local welfare scheme there, so people rely on the household support fund. Frustratingly, despite my council having a cross-party anti-poverty taskforce, I have yet to see a focus on furniture poverty. When I meet the council leader in a few weeks’ time, it will be on our agenda to discuss how, of the £5.2 million from the household support fund given out by West Northamptonshire council, only £168,000 went towards alleviating furniture poverty, despite massive levels of it in my constituency. We have heard similar cases, and I am sure we will hear more from others.
I will end by asking what the solutions could be, and hopefully help the Minister to address this challenging situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) rightly talks about furniture reuse, and although that is a solution, it is becoming increasingly difficult. Fire retardants used in older furniture are now proven to be hazardous, and the Furniture Industry Research Association, which tested furniture that could potentially be used in social housing, found that only in one in six passed modern standards, showing that sometimes when we reuse furniture, we are actually passing on the problem. Ultimately, the problem of social landlords’ liabilities is exacerbated if they encourage furniture reuse but cannot prove that it is safe for families, children or older people.
Design for reuse is also important. We are seeing an economy and a society where there is more disposable furniture that is used only once or for a few years, or bought on the cheap and then chucked away. If we are to drive up the reuse of furniture, we have to do more to encourage industry to address that challenge in the way it designs furniture for reuse.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) mentioned, we see many furnished tenancies in some areas such as London, and fewer in constituencies such as Northampton South. End Furniture Poverty has advocated for a 10% target for social landlords. I agree in principle that that is a good idea, but without the funding and support for social housing—particularly, in my constituency, for Northampton Partnership Homes—that would put real pressure on services and is not a viable solution. I know that the Government are working hard on getting that funding right.
We can also design out the need for reuse in the way that we design our buildings. The Government committed to a council house building revolution to design out the need for temporary floor coverings, and to design windows, fixtures and fittings to allow for the easy replacement of curtains and blinds. The way that we design our buildings in the first place can make it easier for social landlords to replace things cheaply and efficiently when they run out.
The corporate social responsibility of carpet manufacturers has piqued my interest. It is a niche issue, but Northampton South is the home of the UK’s only carpet recycling centre for non-wool based carpet. Through a small innovative business in Duston in my constituency, we can take old carpet cut-offs from carpet manufacturers, break them down through electrolysis, and turn them into pellets that make car bumpers.
I am interested to check what happens to wool based carpets that cannot be recycled through that process. If Tapi Carpets and those other big manufacturers get to the end of the line and they cannot sell the carpet, where does it go? How can we get it back into the system, potentially through social enterprises? There is an interesting social enterprise in my constituency called Goodwill Solutions that may have a solution for how we can reuse it and get it into the homes that desperately need floor coverings.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire said, I recognise that we must end furniture poverty. I am confident that the Government understand the issue and that we will address it in our drive to improve housing standards and, hopefully, through the decent homes standard and the housing quality standard in Wales.