The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
I would like to update the House on the Government’s progress
towards ending rough sleeping. I know that many colleagues on
both sides of the House share my interest and commitment to this
issue so today I am pleased to report that the rough sleeping
annual statistics for 2020 have been published, and that the
number of people sleeping rough across England has fallen for the
third year in a row. In fact, we have seen the largest fall in
rough sleeping since the annual snapshot began.
Across England, the number of people sleeping rough has fallen by
37% over the past year and almost halved since this
Administration took office in 2019. I am heartened that this
fantastic result has been mirrored in London, where there are
particular challenges in tackling rough sleeping, but where none
the less there has also been a 37% fall in the number of people
sleeping rough.
Some of our largest cities have seen exceptional reductions. In
Birmingham, for example, the snapshot records just 17
individuals, down from 52 last year. A number of places recorded
no rough sleepers at all in the statistics, including Ashford and
Basingstoke. These independently verified statistics are our most
robust measure of rough sleeping. They enable us to estimate the
number of people sleeping rough on a single night and to compare
change over many years. As colleagues know, these numbers
represent lives rebuilt, families reconnected and communities
strengthened.
These encouraging figures highlight the success of our ongoing
Everyone In programme. We launched Everyone In almost a year ago,
at the start of the pandemic, with the simple aim of bringing in
as many people as possible off the streets—reducing the
transmission of covid-19, protecting the NHS and saving people’s
lives. By January, Everyone In had successfully helped over
26,000 people who were either sleeping rough or in very
precarious accommodation and at risk of sleeping rough to move
into longer-term accommodation. Through the programme, we
continue to support an additional 11,000 people in emergency
accommodation while longer-term solutions are found. In total, at
least 37,000 people are in safe and secure accommodation today as
a result of this exceptional effort.
Local authorities have each drawn up their own plans to support
those accommodated during the pandemic, with our support and
guidance. Those plans have been backed by £91.5 million through
our Next Steps accommodation programme. Our ongoing Everyone In
initiative is widely regarded as one of the most successful of
its kind, and I am pleased that the United Kingdom has avoided
some of the scenes that we have seen in other great cities and
communities around the world, which bring shame on those places
that could have done more. Research published in The Lancet
showed that the measures we took in the first phase of the
pandemic alone may have avoided 21,000 infections, 266 deaths,
1,100 hospital admissions and 330 intensive care admissions of
homeless people.
Our priority now is to ensure that we maintain this momentum and
end rough sleeping altogether. To that end, we will bring forward
6,000 homes for rough sleepers, backed by over £400 million of
funding, over the course of this Parliament. That is the largest
investment in accommodation of this kind, and I am proud that it
will leave a national legacy of support for those helped by
Everyone In.
Meanwhile, we will continue to invest in the initiatives that
were already in place before Everyone In and that are helping to
drive down the numbers of people sleeping rough. Those
initiatives were created before my tenure, and I pay particular
tribute to my two immediate predecessors, my right hon. Friends
the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup () and for Bromsgrove (), who put
in place and reinvigorated the rough sleeping initiative created
in the early 1990s by another of my predecessors, the now noble
Lord Young.
The £112 million of funding from our rough sleeping initiative
this year has helped 291 local authorities, and further funding
next year will continue to boost outreach teams, establish
first-stage accommodation and introduce targeted support for
mental health, employment and life skills, and wider support. We
also continue to learn from and build on our Housing First
pilots. The first three pilots, in Greater Manchester, Liverpool
and the west midlands, are currently supporting over 800 people
into safe and secure homes. Today, we are strengthening our
commitment to Housing First through the publication of the
“Mobilising Housing First” toolkit, which sets out examples of
best practice and recommendations for areas keen to implement
Housing First at a local level, using the funding that we have
made available.
Over the course of the year, we planned and prepared for further
targeted interventions to support areas with higher numbers of
rough sleepers.
This included the Protect programme to provide extra support to
high-need areas, and the cold weather fund to bring forward
additional covid-secure accommodation over the winter. Latterly,
we have had the Protect Plus programme, which helped councils to
redouble their efforts and, in particular, to ensure that rough
sleepers are registered with a GP, are woven into the vaccination
programme in their area and receive the vaccination when their
time comes.
Westminster, a borough that faces unusual pressures—not least
because of the very high numbers of non-UK nationals—has
consistently had the highest number of people sleeping rough
since the snapshot approach was introduced. As a result of this
targeted approach and the exceptional efforts of the council
there, we have seen very significant progress. The number of
people sleeping rough in Westminster has fallen by 27% since 2019
and is believed to be at the lowest level in recent memory.
In recognition of how instrumental the community, charity and
faith sectors have been to our national effort, I am today
announcing further funding for the voluntary sector to support
their work. That will help local community night shelters to
provide accommodation that is covid-secure in time for this
autumn, in case that is needed, and is dignified and focused on
sensible, sustainable housing solutions for rough sleepers. It
will also support Homeless Link, Housing Justice, StreetLink, St
Basils and the National Homelessness Advice Service delivered by
Shelter. I pay particular tribute to all those and many other
community and charitable organisations.
Taken together, these interventions have led to a dramatic
reduction in rough sleeping of a kind not seen in many years. The
additional data my Department has published today shows that the
number of people sleeping rough on a single night has continued
to fall since the annual snapshot. Over the winter period,
numbers have fallen to 1,743 in December and to just 1,461 in
January. Many of the individuals will have been offered
accommodation, but will not have chosen to accept it for a wide
range of reasons.
While those are not official statistics of the kind of the
November count that is also published today, they demonstrate the
incredible achievements of council officers and outreach staff,
who have been at the frontline of tackling rough sleeping in the
past few months, operating under extraordinary circumstances to
meet the demands of the extremely cold weather that we have seen
recently. Their work is often unglamorous and unnoticed, and I
pay huge tribute to them for what they have achieved.
We have made great strides over the past 12 months, but we do not
view that as an end in itself; it is only a beginning. In the
next financial year, we will be spending more than £750 million
to continue tackling homelessness and rough sleeping so that
everyone who has been extended a helping hand off the streets
during the pandemic has no need to return to them again.
Our ambition is that no one should need to sleep rough. To
achieve that, we must raise the safety net from the street and
address the causes of rough sleeping. We believe rough sleeping
is a symptom of family breakdown, of domestic abuse, of the
treatment of ex-offenders, of the historical inadequacies of our
immigration system and, above all, of poor health, substance
misuse and mental health.
At the heart of the strategy that we will be laying out in the
weeks and months to come will be the marriage of health and
housing. The partnership between those is surely one of the
central lessons of this pandemic. We will fortify those
partnerships between local homelessness and health services, and
between central and local government and the NHS, all of which
have been strengthened enormously over the course of this year. I
will work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care
to tackle drug and alcohol addiction and mental health, and with
the Ministry of Justice to ensure that prison leavers have access
to housing upon release. We will seize this opportunity to build
back better—not merely mending or returning to a status quo, but
building a better country post-covid-19, in which no one needs to
sleep rough. I commend this statement to the House.
12:34:00
(Bristol West) (Lab) [V]
The Government promised to bring everyone in, but these figures
show that at least 2,688 people spent the pandemic on the
streets, and every person on the streets is a policy failure.
That figure is likely to be a major underestimation. Figures for
London put the true number at more than four times today’s
estimate. First, will the Housing Secretary commit to providing a
richer and more frequent picture of homelessness and rough
sleeping across the country?
Even before the crisis, rough sleeping was a shameful sign of
Government failure, and we went into last year with more than
twice as many rough sleepers as in 2010. The picture on wider
homelessness is even worse. There are a quarter of a million
homeless people in England, of whom almost 130,000 are children,
and the situation is even worse in SNP-run Scotland, where the
number of people in temporary accommodation has reached an
all-time high.
Nobody should be sleeping rough, especially during a pandemic, so
can the Secretary of State tell the House why he thinks that
2,500 people fell through the gaps and had their health and
wellbeing exposed at the height of the pandemic? Is it because
the Government refused to suspend “no recourse to public funds”,
as Labour has called for? The UK Government have continued to
leave local authorities in the impossible situation of having
unclear guidance and no funding to help those most at risk. Could
it be because the initial commitment to provide councils with
“whatever it takes” was abandoned, and they are now being asked
to raise council tax to pay for essential services? Could it be
because the Government have failed to prevent people from
becoming homeless and arriving on the streets during a pandemic?
Councils and local authorities should be rightly congratulated on
their hard work—and I do congratulate them—in these extremely
challenging circumstances, often despite unclear Government
guidance, but there is a real risk that gains made last year will
be lost. None of the funding mentioned by the Secretary of State
today appears to be new. Meanwhile, the Government have quietly
scaled back support for Everyone In, which brought down rough
sleeping numbers. There are currently 11,000 people in emergency
accommodation. However, the Government have promised only 6,000
new housing units for rough sleepers. What will happen to the
other 5,000 people in emergency accommodation right now, or the
26,000 people in move-on accommodation or precarious private
rented sector homes where they have no security and face
homelessness again when their contracts run out in as little as
six or 12 months? The Housing Secretary mentioned his commitment
to Housing First, so why did the Government extend the pilots to
2023, rather than just rolling out the approach now?
We cannot return to business as usual. The Government pledged to
end rough sleeping for good, but their consistent refusal to
address the root causes means that more people will continue to
arrive on the streets every day. The Government said this morning
that the increase in rough sleepers is likely to be down to
people losing their jobs and being unable to pay rent.
Unemployment is predicted to soar, with 190,000 private renters
set to lose their jobs by the summer, so why have the Government
once again frozen local housing allowance, given that 700,000
universal credit claimants already cannot cover their rent?
Will the Minister close the loopholes in the so-called eviction
ban, which have resulted in at least 500 people being evicted
from their homes over winter? Will he commit to ending section
21, to give people security in their homes and prevent the
leading cause of homelessness, as he said he would? Will he
commit to providing the additional truly affordable housing that
will be essential to finding permanent homes for people in
temporary accommodation? Finally, the Government’s former rough
sleeping tsar, Louise Casey, has criticised the Government for
failing to grasp the scale of the crisis, the consequences for
lives and life chances, the urgency of the need and the scope for
solving it. The public want this. Will he heed her words?
I will try to answer as many of the hon. Lady’s questions as I
can. I was sad that she could not be more fulsome in welcoming
the achievements that have been made over the past year, because
they are not just the achievements of this Government; they are
the shared achievements of charities, local councils, volunteers
and faith groups across the country. We have worked very
productively across party lines with local government. In the
remarks I have made and those I will no doubt make in answer to
other questions today, I praise the councils that have made
tremendous efforts—councils such as Birmingham City Council,
which has gone to huge lengths to reduce the number of people
sleeping rough. This is and should be an issue that cuts across
party lines.
The hon. Lady says that the statistics published today are not
her chosen method of measuring rough sleeping. She and others
have made that point in the past, but this methodology has
existed for well over 10 years. It is the most trusted measure of
rough sleeping. It is independently verified by Homeless Link,
and it uses a very similar methodology to that used by other
developed countries such as Canada and France. I think she refers
to the CHAIN—Combined Homelessness and Information Network—which
is a different methodology and is not easily comparable. That
takes an estimate of the number of individuals sleeping rough
over a quarter, rather than on an individual night. I am
confident that ours is the best way forward, although I am always
open to suggestions on different ways one might choose to measure
it. By any account, an enormous step forward has been made over
the past year; I have not heard anyone who truly understands this
issue dispute that.
The hon. Lady says that Everyone In came to an end and that we
have not brought forward further support, but that is not
correct. Everyone In is ongoing. As I have said, we now have
37,000 people who would otherwise have been sleeping rough on the
streets of this country either already moved into good quality
sustainable accommodation, be it in the private rented sector, in
move-on accommodation or in social housing, or awaiting that
move, with councils working closely on it. All those people also
have wraparound care, looking after their mental health and other
health issues they might face, to ensure that they can begin to
rebuild their lives and become more productive members of
society.
The hon. Lady also says that councils have not got the funding
they need for the future, but again that is not correct. We have
provided at the spending review a 60% increase in the amount of
Government spending on rough sleeping and homelessness services,
bringing it to more than £750 million in the next financial year.
This is not primarily now an issue about funding; it is an issue
about delivery and commitment, and there are wide variances
across the country between councils that are grasping that and
those that still have more work to do.
The hon. Lady has also in the past argued that we should not take
the targeted approach that we did this winter and that we should
have more of a scattergun approach across the country. We
rejected that advice and decided to focus resources and effort on
the places where it was really required. The statistics I am
publishing today—both the snapshot and the statistics for
December and January—validate that approach, because they show
that in some parts of the country, such as Westminster, that
extra effort has made all the difference. I praise the individual
council leaders we have worked with, again on a cross-party
basis, be it Rachael Robathan in Westminster or Georgia Gould in
Camden, whose support has been much appreciated. I hope that we
can work across party lines over the course of this year. I hope
I can work with the hon. Lady, and I see opposite me her
predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne
(), who made a great contribution on this issue when he
was the shadow Housing Minister. We want now to move forward to
capitalise on the immense efforts and achievements of the past
year, and to end rough sleeping once and for all.
(Gravesham)
(Con)
I wonder whether the Secretary of State shares my frustration at
the constant attempts to weaponise rough sleepers as an example
of wider ills in our society. He knows very well that the rough
sleepers are primarily—99% of them—people who are mentally ill,
people who have addiction problems or, normally, both. I would
love to hear some examples of how his new initiatives will work
on the ground to build on the success of Everyone In. Finally, it
is great to see a Secretary of State who actually realises that
in a civilised society the only people who should be on the
streets are those who choose to be.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his very long-standing
commitment to this issue. On one of my first nights in this
position, he and I went out on to the streets in the west end,
and it was one of the most interesting and important visits I
have done over the past 18 months. He is right to say that our
ambition should be that as a civilised society nobody should feel
the need to sleep rough on the streets and that we should be
addressing the causes of rough sleeping, which I think are
primarily related to health; this is about drugs, alcohol misuse
and mental health. We need to be tackling those causes, which is
what we intend to do over the course of this year, bringing
together the relevant parts of government to have the most
coherent, holistic strategy we have ever had. The statistics
speak for themselves: 60% of those sleeping rough have serious
substance misuse issues; 49% need drugs support; 23% need alcohol
support; and 82% have mental health vulnerabilities. So that has
to be our focus going forward: the marriage of health and
housing, for the first time.
My hon. Friend also makes a point, which was alluded to by the
shadow spokesperson, as to why we had not managed to get every
individual off the streets even during the height of our efforts
with Everyone In. There are some people who, for a range of
reasons, are exceptionally difficult to persuade to come in off
the streets. Sadly, we will never live in a country where there
is not a single person sleeping rough on the streets, but the
litmus test for a civilised society must be that nobody has the
need to do so and that everybody is offered support swiftly—this
is about not so much no second night out, but no first night out.
(North
Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]
Any progress on tackling rough sleeping is to be welcomed.
Indeed, rough sleeping in Scotland is at a record low, thanks to
the concerted efforts of frontline homelessness services, local
authorities and the Scottish Government to move people off the
streets since the start of the pandemic, having invested £32.5
million—more than half—of their £50 million Ending Homelessness
Together action plan to support local authorities to prioritise
settled accommodation for all, provided £60 million to fully
mitigate the unjust Tory bedroom tax for over 70,000 Scottish
households, and delivered almost 97,000 affordable homes since
2007, in contrast to Scotland’s previous Labour-Lib Dem
Administration, who built only six council houses in seven years.
With the limited powers at their disposal, the Scottish
Government are doing all they can to tackle rough sleeping and
homelessness with increased urgency during this health pandemic.
In reality, however, the fact is that poverty often leads to debt
and debt is a genuine factor in homelessness. If the Secretary of
State really wants to prioritise rough sleeping and homelessness
and raise the safety net, as he has said, he could use his
reserved powers to at least maintain the local housing allowance
increase beyond March 2021, instead of freezing it next year. He
could suspend the shared accommodation rate for under-35s. He
could make permanent the £20 uplift to universal credit and the
working tax credit and extend an equivalent uplift to people
claiming legacy benefits who have unjustly been denied this
lifeline. We know that this is important since the removal of
this uplift will push a further 60,000 people into poverty. He
could also cover the average cost of rents to ensure that people
are supported to stay in their homes. If the Secretary of State
is really serious about raising the safety net, will he at least
work to implement these measures as quickly as possible?
I am interested to hear the hon. Lady’s comments and, of course,
we are committed to working with anybody who takes an interest in
this issue and shares our commitment to it across the United
Kingdom. We have put in place unprecedented amounts of money to
support this issue and to care for the most vulnerable people in
our society. The Scottish Government, through Barnett
consequentials, will receive their share of the funding that I
have set out: £750 million in England for homelessness and rough
sleeping—a 60% increase on the previous spending period, so it is
a very substantial increase. A year ago, we uplifted the local
housing allowance to the 30th percentile, providing further
support equivalent to around £600 a year for a household, which
will have ensured that many households have found it much easier
to survive the challenges of the last year.
The other questions that the hon. Lady refers to, in respect of
universal credit, are no doubt ones that my right hon. Friend the
Chancellor will consider as he prepares for his Budget.
(East Devon) (Con) [V]
I am proud of this Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping
for good and the multimillion-pound investment in Exeter, which
has helped 85% of rough sleepers in the city to move into more
permanent housing. This Conservative Government’s Everyone In
programme has supported tens of thousands of people without a
home through this pandemic. Does my right hon. Friend agree that
we must build on this success and ensure that those helped are
now able to secure a place that they can really call home?
I praise the local councils in my hon. Friend’s area, such as
Exeter, for the good work that they have done, and East Devon
District Council; we have seen the snapshot fall to a decrease
there as well. Significant progress is being made in all parts of
the country. He is absolutely right that we now need to ensure
that those individuals we have helped off the streets can be
moved into better accommodation. We have made very good progress
in that respect, despite all the challenges of the year. Over
26,000 people who were brought in off the streets into emergency
accommodation are already in more secure accommodation. That is
quite an achievement, considering the constraints on capacity in
local authorities. There are now a further group of
individuals—currently around 11,000—that we have to ensure make
the same transition, and that is the focus for my Department and
those local councils in the months ahead.
(Sheffield South
East) (Lab) [V]
I thank the Secretary of State for the statement. Looking back to
last March, it is undeniable that the Everyone In initiative was
a success, and I congratulate the councils, the charities, the
Government and of course Dame Louise Casey. It was successful
because it did precisely what it said: everyone, without
exception, was taken off the streets and found accommodation.
Does “Everyone In” still mean that while there is a public health
emergency, councils have the right and the responsibility to
house everyone, including those with no recourse to public funds?
Recently, local authorities have told the Select Committee that
there is a great deal of confusion about their legal position.
Does the Secretary of State accept that if those with no recourse
to public funds are not housed, “Everyone In” will have to be
renamed, “Some people in, and others left outside”? Surely that
cannot be acceptable.
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. In the light
of the health emergency we were in, and that in many respects we
remain in today, we took the decision to advise local councils
that although the law remains unchanged with respect to “no
recourse to public funds”, they should take into account the
health emergency, and more recently the winter weather we have
been experiencing, and they should offer a compassionate response
to people regardless of their circumstances or their country of
origin. That is what local councils have done. Thousands of
individuals who do not have recourse to public funds have been
supported through the Everyone In programme. I have met some of
them—just a week ago, I was with Westminster City Council in
Bayswater, where I met members of the public who had been
supported into safe accommodation, some of whom did not have
recourse to public funds.
As we leave the health emergency, thanks to the success we are
making of the vaccine programme, the law will remain unchanged.
It is important that we have a robust immigration policy, as
other countries have. I am working closely with my right hon.
Friend the Home Secretary to establish how we can use our
newfound powers as we leave the European Union to create an
immigration policy that does not attract individuals to this
country, but that, if people do come here and find themselves in
the precarious position of living on the streets, helps them in a
compassionate way to return to their home country and to rebuild
their lives there.
(Watford) (Con)
We recently announced that across my constituency of Watford, for
a period of time we had no rough sleepers on our streets. I thank
my right hon. Friend and his team for their support in helping to
secure more than £4 million, for which I lobbied, to be received
by charities and our local council to tackle homelessness in
Watford. Will he join me in thanking our incredible local
charities, including New Hope and One YMCA, for their tireless
efforts over many years, and continuing today, to end
homelessness and to transform lives for the better?
I am only too happy to praise the local organisations in my hon.
Friend’s constituency, such as New Hope and One YMCA. As I said
earlier, those who work on the frontline of tackling rough
sleeping—support workers, volunteers in soup kitchens, local
council staff and those working in many other spheres—are
incredibly brave, courageous people who are doing great and noble
work, which often goes unnoticed. They deserve our respect and
recognition today, as we see the fruits of their hard work in the
statistics that have been published.
My hon. Friend’s constituency is one of a number that have
recently reported zero rough sleepers. I named some others in my
statement, such as Ashford and Basingstoke, where people had been
sleeping rough but the latest count recorded none at all. That is
an incredible step forward. I praise those parts of the country
and I expect more to follow suit in the years ahead.
(Islington North) (Ind) [V]
2020 saw the deaths of 976 rough sleepers on the streets of this
country. That is a scandal, as indeed is any rough sleeping. Will
the Minister look with more care at the reasons why people are
sleeping rough, including unfair evictions in the private sector
and inappropriate use of the “intentionally homeless” rules?
Regarding those who are temporarily housed in hostels, does he
understand the stress they feel from not knowing what the future
will bring? A hostel is a roof over their head on a temporary
basis; what we need is investment—big investment now—in council
housing, so that move-on accommodation can give people a secure,
permanent roof over their head. The best way of achieving that is
through the construction of lifetime tenancy council housing at
social rents. Will the Secretary of State commit this Government
to building the council houses that are necessary all across this
country?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We are very
committed to building more homes. We want to build more homes
than any Government before—homes of all types and tenures and in
all parts of the country, including in inner-city areas such as
Islington, which he represents. That is why we have taken steps
such as enabling councils to borrow, and we are supporting them
through our record affordable homes programme worth £11.5 billion
to build more social homes, affordable homes and homes for shared
ownership.
The right hon. Gentleman rightly makes the point that we need
more move-on accommodation. That is why I persuaded my right hon.
Friend the Chancellor last year to bring forward the £430 million
that we needed to invest in 6,000 new units of move-on
accommodation. They will be in all parts of the country and every
council, including his own, has been able to participate in that
programme. Those homes will be built or acquired over the next
few years. He is right to say that more work needs to be done,
but I politely point out to him that enormous progress is being
made in his own local council, Islington. The count a year ago
was 59 individuals. The count for November, which we are
releasing today, was 20—so a huge reduction in rough sleeping in
his constituency, which I am sure he will praise.
(Harrow East)
(Con) [V]
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the success of the
Everyone In programme, which has taken 37,000 people off the
streets. I also congratulate him on making sure that all public
services honour their legal obligations under my Homelessness
Reduction Act 2017 to ensure that homelessness is prevented. He
will know that every single case of homelessness and rough
sleeping is an individual case that has to be assessed. Will he
therefore commit to a national roll-out of Housing First so that
the network of support is built around those people who have been
forced to sleep rough, not just with a home, but with the support
they need?
I praise my hon. Friend for the work that he has done. It is
important that we do not attribute the whole of the success that
we are seeing this year to the Everyone In initiative. As I said
earlier, its roots lie much deeper than that, in the work that
has been done over the last couple of years. His Homelessness
Reduction Act played an important part in that. The statistics
that we have published today show that the average person
sleeping rough is a 26 year-old male, exactly the sort of
individual that the Act set out to ensure was given support and
that might not have been supported previously by local
authorities. He is also right to praise Housing First. The pilots
continue with £28 million of Government support, and the £430
million that we are investing in move-on accommodation is very
much in the spirit of Housing First that we need to get
individuals into a home and then give them wraparound care.
(Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) [V]
The Secretary of State promised that no one would lose their home
due to the pandemic. The moratorium on evictions has helped to
keep people off the streets, but it covers only those people with
rental debt up to six months, and of course the pandemic has been
going on now for something like 12 months. There are 1,500 people
in South Lakeland who are both private renters and members of
workforce groups that have been excluded from Government support,
with no income to pay the rent. How will he keep his promise to
them?
I am proud of the action that we have taken to support renters
throughout the pandemic. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw
attention to the moratorium on evictions that I introduced early
on with my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. We
have chosen to extend that on at least one more occasion to the
end of March. That enables people to be safe and secure in the
knowledge that they will not be forced out of their homes. There
are exceptions to it, but they are the right exceptions. There
are exceptions for domestic abuse perpetrators, for those who
have committed serious antisocial behaviour which is damaging the
lives of their neighbours, and for those who are in egregious
rent arrears of six months or more. We have to strike a balance
between the interests of the tenant and those of smaller
landlords as well, some of whom are in very difficult
circumstances. We have also created a six-month notice period for
evictions, which means that people have a very long period to
adjust to changing circumstances.
(Kettering)
(Con)
I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council.
Rough sleeping is the most extreme form of homelessness, and the
Secretary of State is quite right to prioritise tackling it. The
really good news from north Northamptonshire is that the number
of recorded rough sleepers has fallen from 62 in 2018 to 22 on
the latest count, and in Kettering the number has fallen from 17
to one. Will the Secretary of State join me in praising and the housing team at Kettering Borough Council for
the tremendous work they are doing to tackle homelessness and
rough sleeping?
I would be delighted to extend my praise to and his officers at the council. The statistics that
my hon. Friend has just read out are a real tribute to the hard
work that they have put in over the course of the year, in very
difficult circumstances during the pandemic. To see Kettering
Borough Council having a count of only one individual sleeping
rough is an enormous tribute to what they have achieved.
(Chesterfield) (Lab) [V]
The Secretary of State was right to praise councils for their
role. Here in Chesterfield, we have seen a big reduction in the
amount of rough sleeping during the pandemic as the council has
utilised the money provided by Government well. I agree with many
of the issues that he raised about the causes of rough sleeping
and homelessness, but I was alarmed that the role of welfare
policy was missing from that list. I am concerned that in
Chesterfield many of the rough sleepers I have spoken to tell me
that, while they are aware that council flats are available for
them, the amount of benefit they receive means that the rent
would be unaffordable and they would end up being evicted again.
I fear that once the eviction ban ends, we will see a big
increase in the number of rough sleepers again. Can the Secretary
of State say a little bit about the role of welfare policy and
whether, by looking at issues such as the bedroom tax and the
levels of rent being paid, we can take steps to ensure that this
welcome progress is not lost when the eviction ban is ended?
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. We must have brief questions if I am to get everybody in,
because we have two big debates and a Select Committee statement
after this. So, brief questions and fairly succinct answers
please.
I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is
right to raise some of the other causes of homelessness and rough
sleeping. That is why we increased the local housing allowance to
the 30th percentile, and why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor
uplifted universal credit during the height of the pandemic, and
of course we brought forward the furlough scheme and others to
support vulnerable people over the course of the year.
(Carshalton and Wallington) (Con) [V]
Carshalton and Wallington is proud to be the home of the amazing
local charity Sutton Night Watch, which brings together multiple
local agencies, not just to put a roof over people’s heads but to
provide them with support for addiction, benefits, job hunting,
mental health and much more. I have seen it completely transform
people’s lives. The Government have done amazing work to support
charities and councils with help for rough sleeping, so can my
right hon. Friend outline how we are going to build on that
support to help charities such as Sutton Night Watch to bring
this to an end?
My hon. Friend represents one of the parts of the country where
the snapshot showed that only a single individual was sleeping
rough on that night in November, so I pay huge tribute to
everybody involved in that in Carshalton and Wallington. Like
him, I praise the Sutton Night Watch charity. We will be
supporting charities and local councils over the course of next
year, not least with £750 million of Government funding.
(Luton South) (Lab) [V]
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’
Financial Interests as a sitting Luton councillor. We heard
earlier that almost 130,000 children were homeless and living in
temporary accommodation before the pandemic, and that is almost
double what it was a decade ago. Very urban councils such as
Luton have no space left to build on, and the so-called duty to
co-operate policy has failed to ensure that housing demand was
met by neighbouring councils. What does the Secretary of State
propose to do to tackle this issue and help councils such as
Luton to ensure that good-quality, genuinely affordable social
houses can be built for homeless families, which will maintain
their community ties?
Luton Borough Council’s area has seen a 65% reduction in rough
sleeping, according to the numbers that were published today, so
I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome the considerable steps
forward by her local council and community. She is right to raise
the need to build more social and affordable housing. That is why
we have the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme, which I
hope that the council and housing associations in her vicinity
will participate in. I do not accept that Luton cannot build more
homes. There are plenty of imaginative ways in which a community
such as Luton could be building more, through urban regeneration,
through building upwards and through gentle density.
(Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Over the past 20 months we have had a reduction of 49% in the
number of rough sleepers in Milton Keynes. That is incredibly
welcome and it is down to the hard work of the Everyone In
programme, and the millions of pounds of Government funding
allocated to the local authority and local charities, but most
important—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of
State will agree—it is down to the team effort of charities such
as The Bus Shelter MK, the Winter Night Shelter Milton Keynes,
the YMCA, the Salvation Army and the national charities such as
Shelter and Crisis.
My hon. Friend is right. This is a collective effort across the
whole country and in every community. I join him in praising
everyone in Milton Keynes for their hard work. To have achieved
almost a 50% reduction in rough sleeping over the year is a huge
achievement.
(Warrington North) (Lab) [V]
Official statistics estimate that 4,266 people were sleeping
rough at the start of the pandemic, but the Government claim to
have helped 33,000 rough sleepers into emergency accommodation.
How does the Secretary of State square that circle, and will he
commit to provide a richer and more frequent picture of
homelessness and rough sleeping across the country to ensure that
everyone’s basic human rights with regard to shelter can be met
both as we come through the pandemic and in the longer term?
The numbers that we publish today are a snapshot of a single
night in November. Those are the most robust data sources that we
have. They are the ones that we are able to measure ourselves on
because they have been in place for more than 10 years now. I
think that that is the right way forward.
The Everyone In programme did not help just those individuals who
were actually sleeping rough on the streets. It also helped many
people who were sofa surfing or in other forms of precarious
accommodation who were at risk of ending up on the streets. So
the success of the programme has been not just to get people off
the streets but to help many thousands of other people who were
otherwise in difficult circumstances to begin to move forward
with their lives.
(Guildford) (Con [V])
I was pleased once again to support my local charity Guildford
Action and raise funds to help train volunteers on how to use the
life-saving drug naloxone by sleeping out at the end of November
last year. The Government, working with local authorities and
charities, have supported a huge number of rough sleepers during
the last year and kept the vulnerable safe during the pandemic.
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that those individuals are still
able to access services such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation
so that they can recover and get back on their feet?
Yes, they certainly are. In each of the interventions that we
have made over the course of the pandemic and will take in the
future, we have taken this housing and health approach, in which
we try to ensure that individuals are not merely brought off the
streets and helped to live in better quality accommodation but
given wraparound care so that we can begin to address substance
misuse, mental health and other issues and reintegrate them into
society. That is very much the strategy that I and my right hon.
Friend the Health Secretary will be taking forward.
(City of
Chester) (Lab) [V]
I welcome these figures as they stand, although I worry that they
have been precipitated only by the pandemic crisis and we could
have had this action at any time in the past 10 years. I agree
with the Secretary of State that we have to bring together mental
health services, drug and alcohol addiction services and local
authorities, all of which have had their budgets slashed in the
past decade. What certainty can the right hon. Gentleman give to
those bodies beyond the current funding period that there will be
a long-term funding process on which they can rely to take this
programme forward?
The Health Secretary and I secured funding at the spending review
for the programme of support for mental health and substance
abuse. We also made a joint bid with the Minister of Justice to
help those people who are currently in prison to receive offers
of accommodation when they leave jail. More than 50% of those
people sleeping rough on our streets are ex-offenders, and that
is a very important angle that we need to address.
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about the success
of the programmes that we have run over the course of the year. I
praise Chester because I see that its numbers have reduced from
14 last year to just four in November’s count.
(Rushcliffe) (Con) [V]
It is great news that the Everyone In programme and the hard work
of my right hon. Friend, councils and charities across the
country helped to prevent 21,000 extremely vulnerable people
becoming infected with coronavirus this year. Can he confirm that
the £10 million announced last March by the Government to support
councils and their ongoing efforts to prevent rough sleeping can
be used to ensure that people who are sleeping rough or at risk
of sleeping rough can access a covid vaccine in line with the
priority groups outlined by the Joint Committee on Vaccination
and Immunisation?
Yes, I can. It was very important to us that those sleeping rough
were not left out of the vaccination programme, by oversight or
omission, so we launched the Protect Plus programme to provide
extra support to local councils so that they can work with the
NHS, weave those individuals into the local vaccination
programmes or get them GP registered, which is a good in itself.
That will ensure that when their time comes, they are vaccinated
so that even if they return to the streets, which of course we
hope they do not, they do so protected by the vaccination.
(Newcastle
upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]
During the recent cold spell, it was heartbreaking to see rough
sleepers in the heart of Newcastle in the snow. Newcastle City
Council has a bed for every rough sleeper, but hostel
accommodation is not suitable for everyone. Does the Secretary of
State agree that annual short-term programmes, however
successful, will not end rough sleeping, and will he provide the
long-term funding needed to support real change at a local level,
as well as greater access to social housing?
I pay tribute to Newcastle City Council, which has made great
progress over the course of the year. Its snapshot shows that the
numbers have almost halved compared with the prior year. The hon.
Lady is right that we need a long-term strategy. That is why we
have the rough sleeping initiative, which is now in its third
year, and we are really starting to see the fruits of that work.
I want to see that continue for many years. That is also why we
have created the multi-year Move On accommodation programme,
backed by £400 million, and of course I hope that there is a
multi-year settlement across Government later this year and that
my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be able to continue that
level of investment well into the future.
(Stockton South) (Con)
Brian and Stella Jones are two of the most incredible,
compassionate, inspiring people you will ever meet. They set up
the Moses Project in Stockton, which helps people who find
themselves homeless as a result of addiction. Every day they are
saving lives and giving people another chance. Does my right hon.
Friend agree that the charity sector has a massive role to play
in helping us to tackle rough sleeping once and for all?
Charities across the country, including in Stockton, should be
proud of the work they have done in that respect. This could have
been one of the most challenging and difficult issues facing this
country. In fact, as a result of their work and that of local
councils—I would like to think that the Government played a
significant part as well—we have a very different story to tell
today. We have protected some of the most vulnerable people in
society and we have something that is now looked upon across the
world as a great achievement.
(Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]
Councils have duties to the homeless but are underfunded by £2
billion by this Government. Hull City Council, which did an
amazing job during the pandemic with rough sleepers, is today
setting its council tax. Like many other councils, it will be
forced to ask the just managing working families to pay more tax
to fund these essential council services. Is this not again a
case of going back to the days of the poor keeping the poor,
because of deliberate political decisions taken by Government
since 2010?
I do not like to disagree with the right hon. Lady, because she
is right on many issues, but she is wrong on this one, I am
afraid. Local councils have self-reported to my Department that
they have spent around £1 billion less on covid-19 issues than we
have given them, so we have overfunded local councils at the
moment. We will do everything we can to make good on our promise
to support them through the pandemic. We have increased the
amount of funding for homelessness and rough sleeping, as I said
earlier, by 60% year on year to £750 million.
I do not think that this issue is one of money today; it is about
commitment, and it is about delivery. The right hon. Lady’s local
council in Hull is actually one of the small number of local
authorities that have seen an increase in rough sleepers, from
six in the last count to 19 in this one, compared with the many
good examples in the other direction that I have been able to
report today on a cross-party basis. I think that further effort
between my Department and her local council, perhaps with her
support, is needed in the months ahead.
(Keighley) (Con)
Last autumn, I very much welcomed the Government’s allocation of
more than £1.4 million to Bradford Council for local schemes that
provide accommodation for people at risk of sleeping on our
streets. It is great to hear that further funding is on its way.
Of course, wraparound care to tackle issues to do with drug
addiction and alcohol addiction, as well as health and wellbeing
issues, is incredibly important. Therefore, would the Secretary
of State commend the work done by Project 6 and Homeless Not
Hopeless in my constituency, which are also working across the
Bradford district?
I would be happy to praise those local organisations for the good
work they have done, and I join my hon. Friend in praising
Bradford Council for its good work. It has seen an almost 60%
reduction in the number of people sleeping rough in its area over
the course of a year.
(Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
Far too many homeless people end up in poor-quality supported
housing where they do not actually get any of the support they
need to help them to deal with the underlying issues, and too
often they end up back on the streets as a result. Can the
Minister give an update on what is happening with the supported
housing pilots? When will he be able to bring in regulation or
better oversight of the sector, so that we do not see homeless
people ending up in that situation?
The hon. Lady raises an important point. She has worked on that
with the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, my
hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (), who is a parliamentary near neighbour of hers, in the
Bristol area. We have taken forward research to see whether
tighter regulation of supported housing is required, and we
recently decided to extend those pilots and provide further
funding for them, so that we can learn more before coming to a
judgment as to whether we need to put in place legislative or
other measures to protect people from poor-quality outcomes. I
would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that further, if
she would benefit from that.
(Cities of London and Westminster) (Con) [V]
I declare an interest, in that I remain a Westminster City
councillor. I pay tribute to Westminster City Council for a 27%
decrease in the number of rough sleepers on the streets of our
capital today. Obviously we have more work to do, and part of the
issue is the legislation that we are dealing with. The Vagrancy
Act is 200 years out of date, and I am campaigning with Crisis,
The Passage and St Mungo’s for repeal of the Act and to introduce
legislation that will respond to the 21st-century reasons why
people are still on the streets. Will my right hon. Friend agree
to meet me and those organisations, to discuss how we can work
together to repeal that legislation?
I join my hon. Friend in praising Westminster City Council, its
officers, its brilliant leader Rachael Robathan, and its very
good previous leader, both of whom have been extremely committed
to that issue. I have spoken to her and to Rachael Robathan
almost weekly about it and, as she says, Westminster has now
experienced a 27% decrease in rough sleeping, which is a
phenomenal achievement for all involved. I look forward to
working with her and Rachael Robathan in the future.
We have reviewed the Vagrancy Act and will be saying more in the
weeks ahead. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend. It is
my opinion that the Vagrancy Act should be repealed. It is an
antiquated piece of legislation whose time has been and gone. We
should consider carefully whether better, more modern legislation
could be introduced to preserve some aspects of it, but the Act
itself, I think, should be consigned to history.
(Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) [V]
I congratulate the Secretary of State but, further to the
question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East
(), in
Birmingham it has just been announced that Prospect Housing’s
exempt accommodation is to close, following serious safeguarding
issues. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that it is
not out of the frying pan into the fire for those 1,600
vulnerable people, and that they do not end up on the streets?
I will look into the case that the hon. Gentleman raises. I have
seen concerning evidence about some providers of supported
housing. That is why we are doing the work at the moment to see
what the true situation is, whether a tighter regulatory
environment is required, and, if so, how we deliver that. I would
be happy to take his advice as to how we move forward. I take the
opportunity to praise his council in Birmingham for its hard
work. Birmingham is one of the shining examples of success over
the course of the last year, and its rough sleeping count,
announced today, of just 17 individuals for a large
city—England’s largest local authority—is a huge achievement.
