Rough Sleeping

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend on his tireless work that started in the early 1990s with the launch of the Rough Sleepers Initiative. Recognising that the moral mission of ending rough sleeping will be difficult shows the need to work in harness not only with our health partners and others in local authorities, but also with the community voluntary sector to deal with the underlying problems. The Housing First principle is first to find secure accommodation, then to deal with issues so that the person involved does not return to the streets.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, homelessness and sleeping on the street is never done by choice. It is about our societal and institutional failures. Some 250,000 people, including 130,000 children, are regarded as being homeless and significant numbers of them are sleeping on the streets. They may have no recourse to public funds or be fleeing domestic violence. Among those sleeping rough, there are serious concerns about mental health and substance misuse, for which they do not have any access to services. Last year, almost 1,000 people perished on the streets.

Through the outstanding leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, the Government have made incredible advances and provided necessary services, which is to be commended. Does the noble Lord accept that banning evictions and regulating the private rented sector, along with supporting local councils to meet and manage housing needs and additional support services, are the correct solutions? They would have the most impact and be the most genuine way of eradicating sleeping on the streets and homelessness.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have already made a commitment to ending Section 21 no-fault evictions. I shall return to my previous answer and point out that we have seen a further decrease in the number of people aged 25 or under who have been sleeping rough this year. It is important, if we want to end rough sleeping, that we see a decrease in numbers among our young people.