(Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
yesterday asked an Urgent Question in the Commons on
the Government’s action to prevent the deaths of people who
are homeless.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing,
Communities and Local Government () said:
Every single death on our streets is a tragedy. Today’s
statistics have provided us all with a stark reminder that there
is so much more to be done. Every death on our streets is one too
many, and this Government will work tirelessly to ensure that
lives are not needlessly cut short. The fact that 726
people—mothers, fathers, siblings, all somebody’s loved one—died
while homeless in 2018 will concern not just every Member of this
House, but everybody up and down our country.
As you know, Mr Speaker, this Government are committed to putting
an end to rough sleeping by 2027 and halving it by 2022; and we
have changed the law to help make that happen. In April 2018, the
Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—one of the most ambitious pieces
of legislation in this area for decades—came into force. We now
have a year’s worth of evidence, which is showing that more
people are being supported earlier, and this is having a clear
impact on the prevention of homelessness.
The Government last year published the first rough sleeping
strategy, underpinned by £1.2 billion of funding, which laid out
how we will work towards ending rough sleeping for good. Indeed,
last year we saw a small change—a reduction in rough sleeping. A
key element of that was the rough sleeping initiative. A total of
£76 million has been invested in over 200 areas. This year, that
initiative will fund 750 additional staff and approximately 2,600
new bed spaces. We know that next year, we must go further.
Today’s statistics demonstrate that. We will be providing a
further £422 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
That is a £54 million increase in funding on the previous year—a
real-terms increase of 13%.
The cold weather is a particularly difficult time for those
sleeping rough, so the Government have launched a second year of
the cold weather fund. We are making available £10 million to
local authorities to support rough sleepers off the streets. That
will build on last year’s fund, which helped relieve more than
7,000 individuals from rough sleeping over the winter.
These statistics have reminded us starkly of the fateful impact
of substance and alcohol misuse. We know that the use of new
psychoactive substances is rising. These are dangerous drugs with
unpredictable effects, and that is why it is so important that
people get the support that they need. In 2019, we brought
forward new training for frontline staff to help them engage with
and support rough sleepers under the influence of such
substances. We are working with the Home Office to ensure that
rough sleepers are considered in the forthcoming alcohol
strategy, which will focus on vulnerable people.
There is so much more to be done. Our work is continuing, our
funding is increasing, our determination is unfaltering and we
are committed to making rough sleeping a thing of the past.
Seven hundred and twenty-six people died homeless last year.
Wherever we sit in this House, wherever we live in this country,
that shames us all in a nation as decent and well-off as Britain
today. Every one—in shop doorway, in bedsit, on park bench—has
been known and loved as someone’s son or daughter, friend or
colleague. We have heard from the new Minister today, but this
demands a response from the Prime Minister himself, tomorrow, in
his party conference speech. It demands that he leads a new
national mission to end rough sleeping and the rising level of
homeless deaths.
The official statistics released today confirm a record high
total and a record high increase—up by a fifth over the past year
alone. This record high has been 10 years in the making:
investment in new social housing has been slashed; housing
benefit has been cut 13 times; 9,000 homeless hostel places and
beds have been lost as a result of Government funding cuts; and
Ministers have refused to step in and protect private renters.
There is the widest possible agreement, from homeless charities
to the National Audit Office and the cross-party Select
Committees of this House, that Government policy has helped cause
the rise in homelessness every year since 2010.
Will the Minister therefore acknowledge that high levels of
homeless deaths and homelessness are not inevitable? Will he
accept that, just as decisions by Ministers have driven the rise
in rough sleeping, Government action now could bring it down?
Will he back Labour’s plans for £100 million for cold weather
shelter and support to get people off the streets in every area,
starting this winter? Will he tackle the root causes of this
shocking rise in deaths with more funding for homelessness
services, more low-cost homes and no further cuts in benefits?
These high and rising homeless deaths shame us all, but they
shame Government Ministers most. This can and must change.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. There is no
shying away from the statistics, which are heartbreaking. He is
absolutely right that every person who has died on our streets is
somebody’s brother, mother or sister. He will find no complacency
in this Government. We are increasing funding next year by £54
million, which is a 13% real-terms increase. It is important to
note that in the areas where we piloted the rough sleeping
initiative we saw a direct fall of 19% in rough sleeping in the
first year. Next year we are delivering 750 more staff and 2,600
more bed spaces.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise these
issues. While visiting homeless hostels and shelters across the
country over the past few weeks, I have been struck by the
welfare issues that people have raised with me, especially those
with complex and difficult needs, and by the complexity of
navigating the system in order to get the right support. That is
why we have designed a number of safeguards, including
individualised support from Department for Work and Pensions
frontline staff. It is important to note that we have also
allocated £40 million next year for discretionary housing
payments. There is a huge amount more to be done on affordable
social housing. He is right to highlight the importance of the
issue, which has been raised with me by homelessness charities
time and again. We have made £9 billion available through the
affordable homes programme, to deliver 250,000 new affordable
homes.
The right hon. Gentleman is also right to raise the role of
health services. We see in today’s statistics the impact of the
high prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse. That is why the
support that we are putting forward as part of the rough sleeping
strategy, including £2 million to test community-based health
models to help rough sleepers access services, including mental
health and substance abuse support, is vital. I look forward to
working with him, and indeed with every Member of the House, as
we try to tackle this hugely challenging issue for our country.
(Newbury) (Ind)
The number of rough sleepers in Newbury has dropped from the
mid-30s to nine as of last week. That is nine too many, but that
drop has been achieved by an enormous effort from local community
groups, but also by statutory bodies such as West Berkshire
Council using Government money, for example from Housing First
and Making Every Adult Matter, to really bring down the numbers.
The Minister will know that dealing with the hardest to
reach—that is really what we are talking about in this urgent
question—is about trying to get them the medical attention they
need. Will he make every effort to work with his colleagues in
the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that GP
surgeries and other health bodies are as open as possible to
receiving rough sleepers and ensure that they are directed to
where their serious problems can best be dealt with?
Absolutely, and I thank my right hon. Friend for raising these
important matters. I pay tribute to the local organisations and
voluntary bodies in his community that are working so hard to
support homeless people and rough sleepers. Housing is part of
the solution, but he is quite right to highlight that health
services have a hugely significant role to play, alongside other
public services. It is right to highlight the £30 million that
NHS England is providing for rough sleeping over the next five
years, specifically to tackle some of the high instances we have
seen in today’s statistics. He is absolutely right and we will
continue to make that money available.
(Glasgow Central)
(SNP)
Every death of a homeless person is a preventable tragedy.
Although housing is a devolved matter, in many ways the policies
that are causing those deaths are reserved to Westminster. The
Guardian reports that drug-related deaths in England and Wales
have gone up by 55% since 2017, and that is directly related to
failing Home Office policy. In Glasgow we are facing the twin
risks of so-called street Valium flooding the city and an ageing
population of intravenous drug users. They run the risk of being
put out of their accommodation for drug use and are extremely
vulnerable. Will the Minister ask his Home Office colleagues to
lay the statutory instrument that would amend the Misuse of Drugs
Act 1971 to allow drug consumption rooms, as they have in
countries around the world, including the incredibly successful
Quai 9 in Geneva, which I visited recently?
People are also being plunged into debt and eviction due to
universal credit, so will the Minister end the five-week wait,
which makes it so hard for people to get out of that cycle and
get their lives back on track? Will he also look at amending
advance payments, because this only keeps people in debt for
longer, rather than resolving the issues? Will he work with the
Scottish Government, whose “Ending Homelessness Together” action
plan is helping to ensure that those facing homelessness are
supported into a permanent settled home and that their needs are
met as quickly as possible? Will he look across Government, as I
have asked, particularly to the DWP and the Home Office, and ask
his colleagues to take action now on the issues that are causing
the deaths of so many homeless people in England and Wales and
also in Scotland?
The hon. Lady started by stating that every death of a homeless
person is preventable, and I absolutely agree. There is so much
more that we can do. She talked specifically about the importance
of cross-departmental working, both with the Home Office and the
Department of Health and Social Care, and I completely agree. We
are continuing to work with colleagues in those Departments on
the forthcoming independent review of drugs policy, led by the
hugely respected Dame Carol Black. We will study her findings
extremely carefully. The hon. Lady also talked about universal
credit. It is important to put on the record that housing benefit
will remain outside universal credit for all supported housing,
including homeless shelters, until 2023. She raised a number of
extremely important issues, and of course I am happy to work with
her colleagues in the Scottish Government and to meet her to
discuss how we can take these issues forward.
(Thirsk and Malton)
(Con)
Fundamentally, we will deal with this only by providing many more
truly affordable homes of secure tenure. Does my hon. Friend
agree that we should consider changing the rules that currently
require us to get the best price for public land, and that really
we should make that land available to provide many more ultra
low-cost homes?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is an expert in the
field and I take what he says extremely seriously, along with all
the recommendations of the Communities and Local Government
Committee, of which he is a member. I look forward to meeting him
to discuss his proposal in more detail.
Mr (Sheffield South East)
(Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his new post. Does he accept that two
of the main drivers of the increase in homelessness are the
shortage of social housing and the impact of the Government’s
welfare policies? On housing, he said that the Government are
making money available for affordable homes, but does he not
accept that the Government’s definition of affordable homes, at
80% of market rates, means that they are simply unaffordable for
most homeless people? On welfare, has he read the National Audit
Office’s report, which draws a direct link between welfare
policies and the rise in homelessness? Will he now accept that
there is a need for a review of that link and then for a
commitment to change the welfare policies to ensure that they do
not drive homelessness up even further?
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee on Housing,
Communities and Local Government for his questions, and I look
forward to working constructively with him in the weeks and
months ahead.
I would note that we have raised borrowing caps for local
authorities so that they can borrow to build, and I say again
that we are putting £24 billion a year into housing benefit,
which will remain outside universal credit for all supported
housing, including homelessness shelters, and making £40 million
in discretionary housing payments available for 2020-21. I come
back to the point about the difficulty of navigating the system
and the importance of ensuring that people are provided with the
support they need to do so.
Mrs (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Can the Minister confirm that as part of the rough sleeping
strategy, special training is being provided to frontline staff
to help people under the influence of narcotics, to ensure that
such tragic deaths can be prevented in the future? We have had
this problem in Derby, and I know that the police have had real
difficulty in dealing with it.
I can absolutely confirm that, and my hon. Friend is right to
highlight the importance of that training, which is going
directly to the frontline. It is also worth pointing out that the
rough sleeping strategy has created a specialist rough sleeping
team made up of rough sleeping and homelessness experts with
specialist knowledge across a wide range of areas, including
addiction and alcohol issues. It is working with local
authorities to reduce rough sleeping. I absolutely take on board
what she says.
(Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Cuts have consequences. Quite clearly, if we take £37 billion a
year out of social security, there are consequences. It is time
to end the benefits freeze and build genuinely affordable
housing, especially social and council housing—does the Minister
agree?
There is absolutely no shying away from today’s figures, so I
take what the hon. Gentleman says head-on. The local housing
allowance freeze is, of course, due to end in March 2020, and the
Government are considering options for after the freeze. We are
having continuing conversations about that issue.
(Lewes) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating Lewes District
Council, which along with Wealden and Rother managed to secure
£120,000 earlier this year from the £46 million rough sleeping
initiative? Does he agree that it is this Government who, for the
first time, have got serious about tackling the causes of
homelessness by introducing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
and providing £1.2 billion of support for tackling all the causes
of homelessness?
I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate her local authority. One
of the important points about the Homelessness Reduction Act is
that for the first time, we have a year’s worth of data showing
the importance of the early intervention that she talks about.
She is right that it is backed up with £1.2 billion of funding,
but of course today’s statistics show that there is so much more
to be done.
(Streatham) (LD)
The fact that, in this city—arguably one of the wealthiest on the
planet— 110 people lost their lives last year is a complete
outrage. I am afraid that the fact that the figure has increased
by 20% year on year is a damning indictment of the Minister’s
Government.
Why are we continuing to criminalise people who are sleeping
rough on our streets and begging? Is it not time that we got rid
of the Dickensian Vagrancy Act, which is criminalising people
instead of giving them the support that they need?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. We have of course
been reviewing the Act, and I take what he says extremely
seriously. We are engaging with the police, local authorities and
community groups to see what the most effective method of both
support and enforcement is, but he is right that these are
heartbreaking statistics, and the number of people who lose their
lives on our streets is completely unacceptable.
(East Worthing and Shoreham)
(Con)
I welcome the Minister to his position, and I welcome the assured
way in which he has dealt with his debut performance on this
difficult subject.
In Worthing, we have an innovative project whereby Roffey Homes,
a developer, bought a nurses’ home and has given it to Turning
Tides, a homelessness charity, to use for the next five years,
before it wants to develop it. With the support of Worthing
Council and with Government funding, it has taken more than 30
people off the streets, providing not just accommodation but
mental health support, training support, benefits advice and
everything else. It is not without problems, not least the
constant complaints and undermining by local Labour councillors,
but does the Minister agree that we need this sort of innovative
approach if we are to find sustainable solutions for people
living and sleeping rough?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that example of good practice
in his constituency. I was not aware of that project, but I would
be happy to visit it. Of course, that good practice does not
disguise the fact that there is so much more for us to achieve as
a Government to tackle rough sleeping by 2027.
(Birkenhead) (Ind)
How many of the homeless people who have died were in receipt of
benefit, and how many were not, and why not? If the Minister does
not know the answer, will he undertake to write to me and place
the answer in the Library so that we can all know the truth?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. I do not have
that information on me today, but if we have it, I absolutely
give that undertaking.
(South Basildon and East
Thurrock) (Con)
The causes of and solutions to rough sleeping are never simple. I
welcome the action that the Government have taken and encourage
them to work with local authorities and the extraordinary range
of charities and voluntary organisations, such as Churches
Together in Basildon, which works tirelessly to tackle
homelessness and get people off our streets, giving them a warm
and dry place to sleep and a hot meal and, more importantly,
helping them to access the support systems that are available but
that they seem to have fallen out of.
I am absolutely delighted to place on record my thanks to
Churches Together, both in his constituency and across the
country. He is right that there is a vital role for community
groups and charities around the country in the prevention of
homelessness.
Ms (Westminster North) (Lab)
My local authority, Westminster, has the highest number of rough
sleepers in the country. Its rough sleeping strategy found that a
third of rough sleepers had been discharged on to the streets
from prison, and of course others are ex-servicemen. Can the
Minister tell us how many deaths have occurred among people who
have been released on to the streets from prison? If he does not
know, will he place that information in the Library, and can he
tell us how on earth that is allowed to happen?
I completely understand the importance of this issue to the hon.
Lady’s constituency and in Westminster. If we are to end rough
sleeping, we need to ensure that people leaving prison are
supported into accommodation—I say that as both a Minister and
someone with three prisons in his constituency. It is important
to note the offender accommodation pilots that are under way at
HMP Bristol, Leeds and Pentonville, but I am happy to meet her
and the local council again to see how we can take this further.
(Mid Dorset and North
Poole) (Con)
I had the privilege of serving on the Public Bill Committee on
the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which was piloted through by my
hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and passed on a
cross-party basis. In welcoming the Minister to his place, may I
too invite him to pay tribute to local organisations that support
the homeless? In my areas there are organisations such as Routes
to Roots, in Poole. What more can we do to support such
organisations?
My hon. Friend is right, and I thank him for his work not just on
the Bill Committee on the Homelessness Reduction Act but in
working with charities in his constituency. I absolutely pay
tribute to them for their work, and I hope to visit them with him
soon to hear more about their work.
(Leeds Central) (Lab)
Leeds City Council, through its very impressive street support
team, which brings together all the agencies working with the
street homeless in our city, is making effective use of funding
under the Housing First programme. That enables people who might
not be able to comply with the conditions that hostels reasonably
require, because of their drug and alcohol problems, to get into
permanent accommodation with support. May I urge the Minister to
increase the support that he is making available to local
authorities such as Leeds through that programme? I have seen
from that team that it is being put to extremely good use.
I welcome the tone of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. He is
right that the Housing First pilots are working very well. In a
lot of instances they are backed up by international evidence
that supports the programme, and we are building a strong
evidence base to see how it can be continued and expanded. I
thank his local authority for the work that it is doing.
(Stevenage) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s passion for tackling this shameful
situation. Stevenage Borough Council has had a terrible track
record in tackling homelessness while I have been a Member of
Parliament over the past 10 years. It still tells my constituents
that they are intentionally homeless, which is unacceptable. Will
the Minister meet me and local homelessness charities to work out
what we can do to support the homeless in my community?
I am absolutely happy to meet my hon. Friend and perhaps hold a
roundtable with his local authority to ensure that we are all
working together to tackle this issue. There is no getting away
from the difficulty of today’s news and today’s figures, and I
will work with anybody who can help bring this scourge to an end.
(Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
(Lab)
Since 2010, homelessness in Newcastle has risen dramatically,
visibly and tragically, with deaths in our city centre. Under the
Minister’s Government, rough sleeping has been normalised, but it
will never be normal to us. I have spoken extensively to
Northumbria police, local housing associations, charities and
public health officials, and it is clear that the cuts to public
services are a prime cause. Will he acknowledge that austerity
has caused this problem, and does he agree that it must be
reversed?
First, let me put on the record my thanks to Crisis, which I know
does so much work in Newcastle, and highlight the success so far
of the rough sleeping initiative, which is in the hon. Lady’s
constituency and where we saw a 19% reduction in rough sleeping.
She is right to highlight the importance of health services and
other services available to people who are rough sleeping and
homeless. This is why we have committed £30 million from NHS
England to address rough sleeping over the next five years and £2
million in health funding to test models of community-based
provision.
(Harrogate and Knaresborough)
(Con)
No one should have to sleep rough, but there are people sleeping
rough on the streets of Harrogate. Yet I have been told by those
at the Harrogate homeless hostel, which is run by a fantastic
local charity that has been doing great work for many years, that
it has empty beds each night. So we have to work harder to
understand the reasons why people feel that sleeping rough is
their only option. Will the Minister join me in praising the
joint initiative between Harrogate Borough Council and that
hostel, whereby the council funds an outreach worker whose role
is to go out and work with rough sleepers to help to address the
underlying causes and make sure that the most vulnerable in our
community get the support they need?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I pay tribute to that
work and to outreach workers around the country. I have spent
many evenings with outreach workers in the past few months,
listening to the stories they have to tell and hearing some of
the difficult facts being relayed to me as the Minister
responsible. I am happy to pay tribute to the work that his local
authority is doing.
(Glasgow South West)
(SNP)
We know from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that
the rent arrears of those on universal credit are two and half
times the arrears of those on housing benefit. Will the Minister
therefore tell us what discussions he is having with the
Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that we are addressing
the issue of rent arrears?
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight this issue. We are
having constant discussions with Ministers about these issues.
Both that issue and the one about the local housing allowance are
raised most often with me, and I am having constant discussions
with my colleagues on the Front Bench about the way forward.
(Cardiff South and Penarth)
(Lab/Co-op)
May I praise the work of organisations such as the Welsh Veterans
Partnership in my community, which works to support veterans and
ensure they are adequately housed, and the Salvation Army, which
has Tŷ Gobaith in my patch? I visited it recently and its Bridge
programme does fantastic work with those who have serious drug
and alcohol addiction issues. What is the Minister doing to
ensure that intensive programmes such as that are properly
available to all who need them across the UK? Without that,
people are not going to get the support they need.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that example of positive
work in his constituency, and I am happy to look at how such
initiatives can be expanded more widely. We of course have the
rough sleeping initiative, which is being expanded, as are the
funding and services made available. I am happy to go away and
look at the example he has raised.
Mr (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne
() on tabling this urgent
question and thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. The figure
of 726 deaths of homeless people shames our nation. In an urgent
question such as this, several issues inevitably become
conflated, for the best of reasons, but “homelessness” is
different from rough sleeping and from the number of people who
die while homeless. The causes of homelessness are incredibly
diverse and affect a very diverse range of people. The number of
people who are rough sleepers is rather less diverse and the
number of people who die through being homeless is even less
diverse; the biggest cohort of people who die while homeless are
men who have a drug problem, an alcohol problem, or both.
Specifically, what are we doing to prevent the deaths of men who
have drug problems and/or alcohol problems and are homeless?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The Homelessness
Reduction Act was genuinely a groundbreaking piece of
legislation. For the first time, we now have some proper evidence
about the importance of prevention. We see that the biggest group
that has been helped by that Act is single men, because they can
often end up on the streets. As we have seen, 88% of the 726
people who died last year were men. The Act is helping us to make
substantial progress, but he is right about the importance of
focusing on this issue.
(Birmingham, Selly Oak)
(Lab)
I understand that there have been a mere 180 transactions under
the ludicrous housing association right-to-buy lottery. Why does
the Minister not just admit that was always a daft idea, divert
the remaining £190 million to an emergency winter programme and
spare us a spate of people freezing to death on the streets?
It is genuinely important to note the raising of the housing
revenue account borrowing cap, so that local authorities have the
ability to borrow money to build properties themselves. I take
what the hon. Gentleman says extremely seriously. We should make
sure that in areas such as his we have the rough sleeping
initiative, as we are seeing progress, with a 19% direct fall. I
am happy to have further discussion with him on this matter.
(Brighton, Pavilion)
(Green)
Behind one of the shameful homeless death statistics is Jake
Humm, a 22-year-old from Brighton who took his life last year,
despite trying so hard to access support from local services such
as Room to Rant, a brilliant project that helps young people to
find peer support through music. The Government have slashed
local authority services and funding, which means that grassroots
projects such as Room to Rant do not necessarily have the funding
they need to support people such as Jake. When will the Minister
reverse those cuts to funding so that those grassroots projects,
which are literally a lifeline for so many, can continue in the
future?
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We are doing a huge
amount in Brighton with local partnerships, and Dame Carol Black
has visited Brighton as well. It is an area covered by the rough
sleeping initiative, but I know that there is a huge amount more
progress to be made. I am happy to speak to the hon. Lady or go
to Brighton to look at what more can be done to make progress on
an extremely challenging issue in her constituency.
(Eltham) (Lab)
Under the last Labour Government homelessness came down, partly
because we made beds available for those who were on the streets
so that those who wanted to move into accommodation could do so
and those who were working with the hardest to move could focus
their attention on those people. Does the Minister intend to
return to that sort of strategy? How many of these deaths would
have been avoidable had those beds still existed?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. Part of the
rough sleeping strategy and rough sleeping initiative is about
delivering both the 2,600 new bed spaces next year and the 750
staff to provide support in tackling the sort of issues he is
talking about.
(Oldham West and Royton)
(Lab/Co-op)
If every seat, aisle and step in this Chamber was full, we still
could not fit in every person who has died in the streets in this
country, and that is actively at the door of the Government. We
have had the cuts to housing and support services, particularly
drug and alcohol services, and those chickens are coming home to
roost. This cannot be fixed with the Housing Minister changing
every few months, and by coming and making excuses. We need
proper action and proper funding, and the Government need to take
responsibility for the impact of welfare reform.
The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind the £1.2 billion that is
going in to provide homelessness support through the rough
sleeping strategy. He makes an extremely valid point; there is no
shying away from a hugely difficult set of statistics, and we
should all pause for thought. He paints a vivid image. It is
right to point to the fact that we are continuing to invest in
our health services, with £30 million made available from NHS
England for rough sleeping over the next five years, and £2
million in health funding to test these community-based models of
provision, but he is right: there is no shying away from and no
complacency about the fact that this is an extremely difficult
issue affecting our whole society. We will strain every sinew to
make this happen.
(Bristol East) (Lab)
It is right that we should get homeless people off the streets,
but I also have real concerns about the unregulated supported
housing sector. I have discussed that with the Minister’s
officials and his predecessor. The Charities Commission has just
reported on Wick House in my constituency, where several people
have died, and there seems to be consensus that we need
regulation of this sector, to prevent exploitative landlords from
moving into it. Will the Minister follow up on my conversations?
Can we see some action on this, please?
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It is absolutely
unacceptable that vulnerable people—indeed anybody—should have to
live in poor-quality housing. She raises the issue of Wick House,
which we both know about, as west of England Members of
Parliament. I have been having those conversations this morning
and I will be happy to update her as soon as I can.
(Coatbridge, Chryston and
Bellshill) (Lab)
First, will the Minister thank all those charities that help out
the homeless and have brought down the number of deaths in this
country? Recently, on 9 September, I joined a rally on the
homelessness campaign just outside Parliament. The message was
clear from people who are homeless: all they seek is a roof over
their head. No one wants to be homeless. There are many reasons
for it, and many cities, towns and rural villages now have
homelessness problems. Will the Minister therefore join in
Labour’s plans for funding to ensure that we have emergency cover
during the winter months and that no one should be allowed to die
on our streets?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. This year we have
doubled the cold weather fund, to which local authorities can
apply now, and I encourage his local authority to do so. He made
a really intelligent and correct remark about the complexity of
the different reasons why people end up on the streets. One
positive that has come out of the 2017 Act is that for the first
time we have some evidential data about why people end up on the
streets, who is most at risk and how we can support them best. I
absolutely take the points he makes to heart and will absolutely
follow them up.
(Dewsbury) (Lab)
Every evening, as we leave this opulent building, we see a
growing number of homeless people—in the tube station, outside
the buildings, in shop doorways and anywhere else where they can
seek shelter. It is clear that the Government are not doing
enough. Homelessness has at least doubled since 2010; why does
the Minister think that is? Does he recognise that swingeing cuts
to the welfare budget and substance-misuse services have
contributed to that rise?
I say again that there is absolutely no shying away from the
extremely difficult and upsetting set of statistics released
today that shows that we need to do more. That is absolutely
right, and that is why we are increasing the budget by £54
million next year—a 13% real-terms rise. The hon. Lady raises
some extremely important issues. We have increased the welfare
budget, but I understand the importance of the issues she raises,
especially the numerous concerns relating to the LHA freeze. We
are of course continuing to consider options for after that
freeze next year.
(Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The number of rough sleepers declined under the Labour
Government, which left office in 2010. Since 2010, the number has
doubled. What was the reason for the change in fortune of rough
sleepers since 2010? Why have those figures increased?
The importance of the 2017 Act is that now we are really going to
have some evidential information about why. If Members look at
the information we have from the first year, they will see the
progress that has been made, especially on supporting single men,
and the importance and priority of early intervention. The hon.
Gentleman raises an extremely important point, though, and there
is no shying away from the hugely difficult set of statistics
released today. We will strain every single sinew going forward.
We are increasing the funding, with £54 million more next year,
£30 million from NHS England to support health projects and £2
million for urgent intervention in community health services.
(Oxford East)
(Lab/Co-op)
There have been some groundbreaking projects to help with the
rapid rise in rough sleeping in Oxford, but they have really
suffered from being short-term funded. Most of the money the
Minister is talking about is just for the short term. The stamp
duty surcharge on overseas property buyers is sustainable funding
that is meant to last over the long term, but his Government
decided that it was going to be set at a third of the level they
originally committed to. Will the Minister explain why his
Government apparently decided to prioritise the wealth of
overseas property investors over the needs of vulnerable rough
sleepers? I just do not understand it.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point, which I am
happy to look into in more detail. In Oxford, as in so many other
areas throughout the country, the rough sleeping initiative is
reducing rough sleeping—it is down by 19% directly since 2017 and
there has been a 32% reduction compared with where we would have
been had it not been introduced—but I absolutely take seriously
the points that have been raised from all parts of the Chamber.
(Glenrothes) (SNP)
I do not think anyone can question the sincerity of the
Minister’s answers, but I am disappointed that he did not answer
possibly the most important question that my hon. Friend the
Member for Glasgow Central () asked from her position
of substantial knowledge of the impact that drug misuse is having
among her constituents. The specific question was about the
Government allowing, even on a trial basis, the establishment of
a consumption room, under medical supervision, to see what
difference that makes to the awful death toll that drug use is
causing in Glasgow and elsewhere. Will the Minister at least
commit to go back to his Cabinet colleagues and ask them to
consider seriously the fact that drug misuse should be treated as
a public health crisis, not as a criminal justice matter?
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that Dame Carol Black is
absolutely the right person to lead the independent review of
drugs policy. All these issues are being considered and I look
forward to reading the recommendations.
(Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
(Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on ending homelessness, I agree
with the Minister that this is a challenging issue, but the
simple truth is that this was not happening on this scale in
2010, before the cuts to mental health services, to drug and
alcohol cessation services, to councils and even to benefits for
some of the most disabled people with mental health conditions in
our country. Does the Minister regret the lost decade of cuts and
the loss of life that we now know it has directly contributed to?
I regret every single life lost on our streets. It is
heartbreaking that those 729 people died on our streets last
year. That demonstrates the need as clearly as ever—there is so
much more to do. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and come
to the all-party group to discuss this in much more detail.
(Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The Minister is before us to convince us of the Government’s
seriousness in taking forward this issue. Back in March, the UK
Statistics Authority urged the Government to improve the quality
of their homelessness figures, because if the Government do not
know exactly how many people are homeless, how can they possibly
expect to deal with the issue? What action have the Government
taken on that advice?
One important thing in the rough sleeping initiative and the
impact evaluation that we published a couple of weeks ago was the
work on looking at the method we used to carry out the counts.
The information and data that we have clearly proves that
changing from a count to an estimate, or vice versa, did not have
any impact on the reduction figures. Lots of different
authorities represented by different political parties have made
changes back and forward, but we have to be led by the evidence.
(Brighton, Kemptown)
(Lab/Co-op)
In 2010, the annual count of homeless rough sleeping in Brighton
was 500; it is now 1,200. Deaths on the street were a rarity;
now, they come more than once a month in Brighton and Hove. What
policy has changed between 2010 and now? Surely we need to
understand the policy failure before we can fix it.
As I said to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (), there are absolutely
issues in Brighton, as there are throughout the country. The
rough sleeping initiative is having an impact: in the places
where we are trialling the rough sleeping initiative, there has
been a 19% direct fall since 2017 and a 32% reduction compared
with where we would have been had it not been introduced. There
is no shying away from it, though: there is much more to do in
Brighton, as there is in other cities, towns and villages all
around our country.
(Caithness, Sutherland and
Easter Ross) (LD)
Every winter, the pretty village of Altnaharra in the epicentre
of my vast far-northern constituency is the coldest place in the
UK. As has been said already, the cold kills so many people
sleeping rough. Have the Government looked at best practice in
northern countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, to see how
they are tackling this issue?
Yes, absolutely, and we continue to have those conversations. I
would be happy to keep in close contact with the hon. Gentleman
and to have conversations as we move towards the winter. He
should of course note that the cold weather fund has opened and
we have doubled the money available since last year. I encourage
his local authority to apply. I am more than happy to keep him
updated as and when we look at the matter further.
