The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-11271, in the name of John Mason, on the Bellgrove hotel. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes what it considers has been the protracted coverage over many years regarding the Bellgrove Hotel, which is a hostel in Glasgow’s east end; understands that the hostel can accommodate up to 160 men, often from vulnerable backgrounds, and usually houses around 140; believes that it is subject only to a licence for a house in multiple occupancy (HMO) and does not require any further regulation; expresses disappointment that the Care Inspectorate, despite what it believes was a lengthy investigation, concluded that it had no remit over the hostel; notes with interest Glasgow City Council’s Licensing and Regulatory Committee’s decision on 22 October 2014 to award an HMO licence for only one year rather than the three years applied for by the owner, Careside Hotels Limited, and notes the view that, to ensure the wellbeing of vulnerable residents, both the legislation and guidance needs to be reviewed as a matter of urgency in order to ensure that establishments such as the Bellgrove Hotel are more thoroughly regulated.
17:01
I thank the members who signed the motion, which has enabled the debate to take place. I realise that the subject is very much a local issue in one sense; indeed, the Bellgrove hotel is located in my constituency. However, I lodged the motion because the issue has wider significance for Glasgow and beyond.
As far as I am aware, the Bellgrove hotel is the largest remaining homeless hostel in Scotland. It also has conditions that, generously, could be considered unsuitable, and less generously, grim, Dickensian, like a Soviet gulag or similar such descriptions.
Key facts about the establishment include that it is, in a legal sense, a private hotel on Glasgow’s Gallowgate; it is an art deco building that was built between 1935 and 1937; and it was originally used by long-distance drivers and suchlike. As a result of that history, it has a house in multiple occupation licence. That might be suitable for a student flat, but it is not suitable for a hostel for 140 vulnerable men.
Some years ago, Glasgow City Council correctly came to the conclusion that such large hostels are not the right place for homeless men who may be continuing to use alcohol and other stimulants. As a result, traditional hostels such as the Great Eastern hotel have closed down and alternative uses have been found for the buildings. The council and others have found alternative accommodation, often in partnership with organisations such as Loretto Housing Association, which, for example, runs the Fordneuk centre in Bridgeton, which, somewhat strangely, is only 500m away from the Bellgrove hotel. That caters for up to 42 men and women who have indicated that they wish to continue to drink. It has a similar number of staff to care for and support the people in what is reasonably modern and—I think—suitable accommodation. Other people, instead of sharing joint accommodation, live in individual flats or supported accommodation.
Despite all the progress, the Bellgrove hotel continues. That is largely because it is in private hands and not subject to the same regulation as other organisations by, for example, the Care Inspectorate, the Scottish Housing Regulator or other regulators. The owners and Glasgow City Council seem to have expected that the Bellgrove would gradually decline and fade away when referrals stopped, but that has proven not to be the case. The Bellgrove continues to be registered for 160 residents, and it normally houses around 140 people.
I visited the Bellgrove some time ago. The conditions there are not acceptable in this day and age. When I visited Shotts prison and Low Moss prison recently, I found conditions in both prisons to be much better, with en suite facilities. That is something to which residents of the Bellgrove can only aspire; they must make do with a communal shower room, which I suspect that many members would refuse even to think of using.
Who is responsible and how can things be improved? In a sense, everyone is responsible and no one is responsible. The owners are clearly responsible but they have failed either to improve the physical conditions or to increase the support for residents to any great extent. The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible, because it pays the housing benefit without attaching any real conditions to that. The DWP points to Glasgow City Council, which pays out the housing benefit, issues the HMO licence and can provide some support if residents ask for it. The council might point to the Scottish Government, which could strengthen the regulatory framework.
I am grateful to the many people who have engaged on the issue. The HMO staff have been helpful and arranged for me to visit the Bellgrove. The council licensing committee listened to me and probably went about as far as it could do. The Care Inspectorate sought to engage but was warned off by the owners. The minister met me and provided a helpful explanatory letter.
Despite all that, we do not seem to be moving forward. In 2000, the BBC made a documentary on the Bellgrove, but when the Daily Record recently put in an undercover journalist, very little seemed to have changed.
The Smith commission suggested that some control over housing benefit could come to this Parliament. Maybe then we could impose more conditions on accommodation standards. However, waiting until 2020 for that to happen is not an acceptable timescale.
What should happen? It seems to me that there are two clear needs. There is a need for alternative accommodation—obviously there is a cost to that. There is also a need for further regulation, to prevent such a scenario from recurring.
There would be little point in the council, the Government or both providing accommodation that might or might not be used, depending on the incentives that were on offer to residents to stay on at the Bellgrove. However, I would not want sanctions that would close the Bellgrove overnight, given that we must find alternative places for people to stay.
We need the council and the Government to work together. I do not know whether it is possible for both to engage with the owners. The quickest solution would be for the owners and management to agree to a voluntary upgrade and a reduction in numbers, but I fear that I should not be overly optimistic about that.
Charities such as Salt and Light and the nearby Gallowgate church engage with individual residents and seek to help them. In addition, staff from social work, the wider medical services, Cordia and elsewhere go in to help individual residents, in quite difficult circumstances. Mental health services staff often have to pick up the pieces when life at the Bellgrove becomes too much for an individual, but they can then only watch as the person drifts back to living in the same place, in the same conditions.
I know that the minister does not have a magic wand with which to sort the problem immediately. Glasgow City Council does not have a magic wand either. However, this is 2014 and something has to happen. I have a lot of constituents who are vulnerable in different ways, but surely the 140 constituents at the Bellgrove deserve help from someone.
17:08
I thank John Mason for securing this important members’ business debate. The on-going issues to do with the Bellgrove hotel have been of great concern to many of my constituents in Glasgow.
A fundamental responsibility of society is to protect the wellbeing of all its citizens, and particularly its most vulnerable members. John Mason’s motion seeks to do exactly that. It seeks to protect the wellbeing of the vulnerable individuals who reside in the Bellgrove hotel in Shettleston.
We have all become familiar with the wretched conditions that residents experience at the Bellgrove. It is a place that epitomises deprivation and squalor. In every sense, it is a modern-day poorhouse. Given the simple reality that the Bellgrove represents a great risk to many of the most vulnerable people in Glasgow, it is time for the Scottish Government to take action. It is absolutely necessary to create new regulations for establishments such as the Bellgrove hotel so that they cannot continue to sneak by and pose a risk to the residents who stay there.
As the motion notes, even after a lengthy investigation, the Care Inspectorate concluded that it had no ability to order changes for the hotel on the basis of poor health conditions. That should immediately signal to all members of the Parliament the need for change and reform to a system that is obviously broken.
What is worse is that while these horrid conditions are left unchanged, those who are responsible for them are swindling the taxpayer out of £1.5 million every year through the housing benefits that are given to people in need to find lodgings. Anyone who is even remotely aware of the issue knows that that is a complete falsehood. That is yet another reason why I ask the Scottish Government to produce legislation that controls and changes places such as the Bellgrove, so that people cannot profit from the misfortune of others while providing utterly substandard accommodation.
Given that we as a country pride ourselves on looking out for all our citizens and that we seek to provide a good standard of living for everyone, it is a shame that action has not yet been taken. It is time for us all to do the right thing and do everything in our power to put an end to this cycle of abhorrent behaviour on the part of the proprietors of the Bellgrove hotel and stop pushing the problem aside. We all know that what is happening is wrong. Now let us do something about it.
I fully support the motion lodged by John Mason and I look forward to helping create real change in this respect.
17:12
I thank John Mason for securing this debate and for his continued interest and involvement in this issue. Other members and I know that he has pursued it vigorously. As John Mason said, the Bellgrove hotel is in his constituency, but it receives clients from throughout the city, including from my constituency of Glasgow Kelvin, which borders the east end, just off the Gallowgate.
I want to concentrate on the basics of HMO licences. I cannot for the life of me understand how a hotel can be classed as an HMO and how it can get housing benefit. Obviously, we do not have power over that, because it is reserved, but I would like questions asked of the welfare system in that regard. How come people are spending £200 a week in benefits in this so-called hotel? It is advertised as a hotel. That is £800 a month of benefits going to private individuals. As my colleague Anne McTaggart said, these owners and landlords make £1.5 million a year in what can only be described as a Dickensian type of place for people to stay.
There is absolutely no back-up when these men are placed there. I have read various reports in the newspapers, to which John Mason referred, about men lying in their own vomit, drunk or on drugs and there is absolutely nobody there to look after them. There are only the two people who run this so-called hotel, hostel or model—whatever we want to call it in the 21st century.
We are debating private housing rent levels in the Parliament. It costs £800 a month to stay somewhere that nobody else would stay in. In my area of Glasgow Kelvin, £800 a month would get someone a very good flat or other accommodation. I would like questions asked of the Westminster Government. I would also like to know how such a place can get an HMO licence. The purpose of an HMO licence is supposed to be to ensure that the accommodation is safe, well managed and of good quality. Since 2010, Glasgow City Council has not sent people there and it has given the place only a year’s HMO licence, but something has to be done to ensure that these men are looked after properly and have support—they are human beings, after all.
John Mason named a number of agencies that try to support these men, such as Cordia and mental health charities, but the men are thrown into a place where nobody cares at all and people just want the money off them, so what chance have they got? I would like letters to be exchanged and meetings with the Westminster authority, possibly involving Margaret Burgess, the Minister for Housing and Welfare, to ask whether conditions can be put on housing benefit so that it is not paid out for this type of model—as I remember, in Glasgow, we used to call it a model; it is certainly not a hotel. I want to know whether conditions can be applied so that the owners do not receive money.
I also want to know why the Care Inspectorate does not look into the issue. The Care Inspectorate is there to protect people, so it should be going into the Bellgrove. There is legislation and there are guidelines, so the Care Inspectorate should go in and enforce those guidelines. In this day and age, it is not good enough that people are put into such a place and that other people are making a profit from their misery. I fully support the motion in John Mason’s name.
17:16
I am the only member who will speak in the debate who does not come from the area where the Bellgrove hotel exists. However, I am keen to speak for two reasons: one is that I want to take a slightly different approach to one aspect of the issue; the other is to take the opportunity to back almost everything that John Mason said.
There are two key things that we must remember. The first is that the private sector works very effectively in the provision of accommodation for a great many people. It provides private rented flats and homes and it operates effectively in the area of houses in multiple occupation, particularly in cities and towns where universities and colleges are a strong part of the local economy. The system works effectively in certain circumstances, so we have to be careful not to regulate it out of existence.
My second point relates to the people who live in the Bellgrove hotel. If they are in need of care, that is what they should have. However, they are obviously people who are outside the care system. From a legal point of view, they are private individuals and they must have the right to continue to make decisions about their lives and the way in which they conduct themselves. The circumstances in which they find themselves in the Bellgrove hotel are obviously distasteful and unsatisfactory. In the opinion of many, the conditions are inappropriate and, from the descriptions that I have heard, I agree. However, the individuals have rights and they are free to live as they see fit. It is important always to remember the rights of those individuals.
The member says that the individuals have rights, but they are very vulnerable individuals. Is it not incumbent on the people who take their money to offer more? They do not even offer a bed.
Absolutely.
Moving on, I think that through a system that has a great deal to commend it, we are doing well on ending the use of hostels to deal with homeless people and we are finding ways to give good-quality accommodation to those who require it. However, there are still loopholes and holes in the safety net that people fall through. That is why it is important that John Mason has brought the issue, which has already been aired in the press and on television, to the Scottish Parliament. If nothing else, there is an obvious requirement to get much better value for taxpayers’ money. There is also a significant requirement to improve standards. Standards have been improved across much of Scotland and Glasgow—we have heard how there are much better examples even within a few hundred yards of the Bellgrove hotel—so surely something can be done.
It is very difficult to pick our way through the regulations in this policy area. However, it is surely not beyond the wit of senior, well-paid civil servants to find a way to do something. I hope that we will find a way to protect the rights of individuals and to encourage reasonable levels of investment even from the private sector that will deliver for people who are in need of housing.
I will close by saying the same thing that John Mason said. Notwithstanding everything that I have said, surely those 140 people deserve somebody’s help. That is our job.
17:20
I thank John Mason for bringing his concerns about the wellbeing of the occupants of the Bellgrove hotel to the chamber. It is an important subject to bring to the Parliament.
As members have heard, the Bellgrove hotel provides accommodation to around 140 vulnerable men who are at risk of homelessness. As John Mason’s motion notes, the hotel has been an issue for Glasgow City Council for many years. The council has not referred homeless applicants to the Bellgrove hotel since 2010. However, for various reasons, a number of men are willing to stay at the hotel and have their rent paid directly to the owners through housing benefit.
I have a great deal of sympathy with members’ concerns about the amount of public money that is being paid to the owners of the Bellgrove in that way. However, housing benefit is reserved, so there is currently nothing that the Scottish Government can do about the issue. That applies throughout the private sector. We all know of landlords who get housing benefit money and do not keep their properties at the standard that we would expect. If housing benefit were devolved fully, we could take action on the matter.
The issue is complex. The Bellgrove hotel is private accommodation, but it is a house in multiple occupation because it has three or more unrelated people sharing facilities. An HMO can be a flat, student hall, hotel or hostel. Although the Bellgrove calls itself a hotel, it is treated as a hostel and the rents are served by the local rent services.
I have previously said to John Mason that we are working with Glasgow City Council to ensure the safety of the people in the Bellgrove and to examine alternative solutions for them. The conditions that have been reported in the press and that Sandra White pointed out are clearly not acceptable. However, the people at the Bellgrove have not engaged with services or have engaged and then removed themselves from any engagement, and we have to think about how we treat them. We cannot force them out of those premises into something that we think would be more suitable. The answer is to get round the table, consider the issue together and scale down the premises. Certainly, no new people should be sent there.
I met the leader of Glasgow City Council on the issue earlier in the year. That meeting made clear the commitment of the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council to address the matter. We agreed that any long-term solution could be arrived at only by partnership working between us. That has led to continuing contact to identify potential models and, indeed, any financial implications for providing alternative accommodation and services for the residents of the Bellgrove hotel.
Let me be clear: any lack of solution is not due to a lack of commitment to address the situation. If it were easy, a solution would already have been achieved. The Scottish Government will not ignore the matter just because finding a solution is challenging. That is why we agreed to work with Glasgow City Council to consider how best to address the needs of vulnerable homeless people as part of the council’s current strategic review of homelessness services. I will come back to that.
It is my understanding that the council has explored a number of avenues in relation to addressing the concerns that have been expressed about conditions in the Bellgrove. That included an approach to the Care Inspectorate which, after investigation, indicated that it did not have a role in relation to the accommodation. The Care Inspectorate concluded that the services that are provided at the Bellgrove do not fall within the definitions of housing support or care home. As such, the hotel does not require to register with the Care Inspectorate and the inspectorate has no power or duty to intervene.
In arriving at that decision, the Care Inspectorate involved its health and legal colleagues and spoke to the police, social work services and the manager of the hotel. It also consulted supporting staff from other organisations that engage with residents of the hotel. The Care Inspectorate will review its decision if the hotel’s functions change.
Further inquiries have been made in relation to issues such as HMO licensing—Sandra White alluded to that. The purpose of HMO licensing is to ensure that accommodation is safe, well managed and of good quality. The local authority must be satisfied that the landlord is a fit and proper person; that the property is being managed properly; and that acceptable standards of physical accommodation are achieved.
Officials from Glasgow City Council’s licensing team inspected the premises prior to granting the new licence. That is why the licence was granted for only 12 months. The owners of the hotel have been given a number of issues to address in that 12-month period, including issues around the standards and ratios of water closets, bath and shower provision and electrical sockets. All of that is being looked at just now.
The Scottish ministers have issued statutory guidance to local authorities on the licensing of HMOs, but it is the local authority that sets the standards that are required and also sets the fees that are charged for a licence application.
As John Mason noted, Glasgow City Council has granted a new HMO licence for the Bellgrove hotel for a period of one year—I am now repeating myself. I am assured that the city council is actively engaging with the managers of the Bellgrove hotel to ensure that it meets its licensing conditions.
As I have already mentioned, I believe that the best approach for addressing the long-term welfare of the Bellgrove’s residents involves the wider task of considering the needs of the most vulnerable homeless people in Glasgow as part of the council’s current strategic review of homelessness services.
I know that, in recent years, John Mason has tirelessly campaigned to raise the issue of the conditions in the Bellgrove hotel. I hope that, today, I have been able to give him some reassurance that the Scottish Government remains committed to working in partnership with Glasgow City Council to find a satisfactory solution to this complex matter.
Meeting closed at 17:27.Previous
Decision Time