Moving into the spotlight

Ever heard the one about the All Party Group on Homelessness and Housing Need? No? Don't feel left out: neither has much of the housing world, let alone the Palace of Westminster, where the group has never yet managed to live up to its potential as a lobbying tour de force.

Labour MP Andrew Love hopes all that is going to change. Under his chairmanship (which he shares with Conservative Peter Brooke) the group, he insists, will become a "good conduit between the government and the housing world".

With nigh on 300 members, his is one of the largest of the (several hundred) All Party Groups. As its name suggests they don't argue along party lines. Instead, says Love, they can offer housing campaigners a much-needed mouthpiece in parliament.

Love, who took over from Llin Golding in December last year, has a simple agenda. "Although housing is a very, very big issue in out there in the country it doesn't feature to the same extent in parliament, and what we are anxious to do is to raise some of the very crucial issues in housing that need to be resolved."

And the signs are the government could have a fight on its hands. Love intends to keep ministers "informed" on the group's views on three priority issues: sheltered housing, a review of homelessness law and reform of housing benefit and the single room rent.

Indeed, he has already made a start. He tabled an Early Day Motion on the perceived threat to sheltered housing as a result of Supporting People, and a letter signed by his group has just reached Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling protesting that the plans are "overly bureaucratic" and will "create enormous difficulties for sheltered housing and the elderly".

On homelessness the group is already lobbying for changes to the Housing Act. "I do think that there is an issue here that the government does need to tackle and I would like to think that they wouldn't just have a very limited change, that they would review the whole of the homelessness issue and try to address that."

Louise Casey, the new 'streets czar', faces a grilling too - particularly over her target to slash rough sleeping by two thirds in three years. "It is a demanding schedule that she is working towards and I think we would want some reassurance that she feels that that could be done and if not, why not."

But the housing green paper is the biggie. Love predicts the paper is likely to be published towards the end of this parliamentary session (July), or perhaps the beginning of the next - and "certainly well before the end of the year", so the group is channelling its efforts into getting housing benefit reform on the statute book as soon as possible.

And, as Housing Today revealed last week, ministers could provoke another welfare rebellion if the axe falls on 100 per cent housing benefit entitlement.

Love is adamant that a cut would only be acceptable if other benefits were increased. "In this country people who are on income support simply don't have any discretionary income, so a cut to less than 100 per cent would inevitably impact adversely on them, and we don't think that's a sensible way forward."

The single room rent issue is already exposing the difficulty people have on limiting housing benefit, he adds.

"We don+t think compounding all of that by reducing the amount of housing benefit to less than 100 per cent of rent will do anything other than put people who are already living on very low incomes into further difficulties. We really don't see that as a way forward."

Escape from the poverty trap needs housing benefit reform, but an axe-wielding green paper dreamed up by the Treasury will be over Andrew Love's dead body.

"We would be concerned if decisions were taken on the basis of just simply the financial cost of the measures that they+re discussing," he says.

"Undoubtedly the Treasury will be involved because the Treasury is always involved, and its a bit blithe of us to think that they won't have a large input into any of these things.

"But we would hope first of all that the government would certainly take on board the commitments it gave in its manifesto in relation to housing and the clear indications that they've given so far that the green paper will tackle the issues of housing benefit and some of the problems that have been created there."

So will this relatively unkown group emerge as a force to be reckoned with? Love certainly hopes so. "We see our main role as debating and discussing with different parts of the housing world and trying to synthesise that and push it through to government, to ensure that they are properly informed."

However, some campaigners may be disappointed to learn that he remains sceptical about wider housing policy issues, such as allocations, resource accounting and leasehold reform, being included in the green paper.

"You can't do everything," he says simply. "This isn't a comprehensive review of housing policy.

"My view of that is we should get the green paper, we should get the bill that will follow that, but that shouldn't preclude us from arguing for other issues of importance to housing, and for further white papers and legislation to follow."

So near, yet so far. Well, can you imagine a backbench revolt over resource accounting?