Debate contribution: Housing (Amendment) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Brian Kingston on .
- MLA
- Mr Brian Kingston
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 21 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Housing (Amendment) Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5743234
Read the official Assembly record
Text
As we have heard, the Bill proposes one amendment to the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which is that the Housing Executive can designate someone as "threatened with homelessness" 60 days in advance of their losing their home, rather than 28 days, as it is currently. The Bill proposer tells us that, in other jurisdictions of the UK — in England, Scotland and Wales — the notice period is around 56 to 60 days. However, it is important to recognise that the Housing Executive's statutory duty to prevent homelessness is different from that of housing authorities in the other jurisdictions. In England and Wales, the period in which a person is threatened with homelessness gives the housing authority a prevention duty, requiring an authority to take reasonable steps to help the applicant to secure accommodation so that accommodation does not cease to be available. Helping to secure accommodation does not mean that the authority has a duty to directly source and provide accommodation for the applicant. Instead, authorities provide support and advice to applicants, who must take some responsibility for securing their own accommodation. In Northern Ireland, however, the statutory duty associated with threatened-homelessness status is that the Housing Executive shall take reasonable steps to secure that accommodation does not cease to be available for the person's occupation. The action must be taken by the Housing Executive. In effect, that often means bringing the household into the homelessness system, including providing temporary accommodation if necessary, and having them join the social housing waiting list.
As MLAs, we will all be aware that people who are suddenly made homeless will generally be offered somewhere to stay in the short term, although it might be far away, which is often not suitable. Furthermore, article 6 of the Housing Order 1988 gives the Housing Executive a duty to ensure that advice about homelessness and the prevention of homelessness is available free of charge to any person in Northern Ireland at any stage. That duty is not restricted to offering support only within the 28 days when they are threatened with homelessness. Passing this Bill would increase the cost of providing temporary accommodation for a longer period and would probably mean that fewer people could be helped from the available funding. The Housing Executive has said that it would likely result in more people being placed in temporary accommodation, such as hotels and bed and breakfasts, and remaining there for longer. Earlier, we heard from my colleague Pam Cameron that accommodation costs for the number of families who were accepted as homeless last year were £1·75 million and that the overall costs of the Bill could be in the region of £2·5 million. Therefore, the consequence could be that fewer people are able to be helped at that time of crisis. Therefore, as my colleague said, we will not support the Bill due to the consequences that would result from it.
487 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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