Responding to the Government’s latest estimates on
rough sleeping, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, MP said:
“Any apparent fall in street sleeping is welcome, but
everyone knows these misleading statistics are an unreliable
undercount of the true scale of the problem.
“Even on these partial figures, the Government is still set
to break its pledge to end rough sleeping by the end of the
Parliament, which it isn’t set to achieve until 2037 at the
current rate of progress.
“Ministers won’t fix the crisis of rough sleeping until
they deal with the root causes of the problem, which means facing
up to the impact of deep cuts to housing, social security and
homelessness services since 2010.”
Ends
Notes to editors:
· The
Government’s figures on rough sleeping were released today,
showing a slight fall in rough sleeping on last year to 4,266
people, but a 141% rise compared to 2010: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2019/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2019
· Yesterday,
data from BBC Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that
28,000 people were recorded sleeping rough over 12 months, 25,000
of whom were in England: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51398425.
has written to the UK
Statistics Authority Chair, Sir David Norgrove to ask that the
UKSA investigate the Government’s rough sleeping statistics, in
light of this new information.
· On
the Government’s favoured ‘snapshot’ figures, rough sleeping has
fallen by an average of only 243 people a year over the last two
years. At this level of progress, it will take the Government
until 2037 to achieve its goal of ending rough sleeping, which it
has promised by the end of this Parliament, i.e. 2024.
· Labour’s
plan for rough sleeping is available here: https://labour.org.uk/housingmanifesto
