Homelessness Reduction Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 28th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before I call anyone else to speak, it surely must be obvious that this Bill has support from all around the House. There is very little disagreement and argument going on among Members. Therefore, I must urge Members to speak for fewer than five minutes. If everyone who has indicated to me that they wish to speak, and who has just stood wishing to speak, speaks for as long as the average speech so far, the Bill will not receive its Second Reading, because it will be talked out. The point is to raise your issues in the House, not to keep repeating what everyone else has said, thereby putting the Bill in danger. I implore Members to think not of their own press releases or the pieces of paper that they have in their hands, but of the point of getting the Bill through. I implore Members to think about other people as well as themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for bringing this important Bill forward to the House; I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for all her work in generating and fostering cross-party support for the Bill.

The hon. Member for Harrow East has already mentioned the staggering figures for people sleeping rough in London The 8,096 people whom we have failed and who are sleeping out on the streets of London should make us hang our heads in shame. The figures for my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn are not much better. The DCLG statistics show that the number of people sleeping rough on the streets in the Camden side of my constituency has increased by one third in the past five years; in Brent, in just one year and one borough, we have dealt with 55 homeless people looking desperately for somewhere to live. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has already outlined the very complex needs of some of our constituents trying to find houses.

The number of deaths of homeless people that have happened in my constituency recently is really tragic. I will give one particular example. After a bitter night, Steven Percival, a man who used to sell The Big Issue on the streets of Camden, was found dead on the steps of a NatWest branch. He was always smiling, and was trying to make ends meet, but in the end he died. It is not just that theirs are lives of hardship; the truth is that, for a lot of homeless people, there is no dignity in dying.

Putting aside the people who are homeless for one second, I also welcome the Bill’s inclusion of a duty to protect those at the risk of homelessness. There is an attempt to bring in personalised plans for those threatened with homelessness. In the Brent side of my borough, there are currently 700 people waiting to be housed in temporary accommodation because they cannot afford the soaring rents in the private rented sector. Brent already has the highest number of families in temporary accommodation, which makes us realise that they could be added to the overall homelessness figures. Again, these are statistics that should make us hang our heads in shame.

I am pleased that the Government support the Bill, but it is not enough to just pay lip service. There are a few conditions that need to be met before we can accept that the Government are fully behind these measures. First, they must allocate sufficient funds for the measures to be implemented—a point that has been made over and over again. Secondly, they must stop selling off council homes. Thirdly, they must regulate the private rented sector, eliminating revenge evictions and rogue landlords. Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, they must build more houses.

I will end on this note. I used to be a local councillor and I worked with excellent council officers. The worst thing we can do when someone comes to us and says, “I don’t have a bed to sleep in, I don’t have a roof over my head,” is to turn them away on a cold, bitter night. It is not a lack of will on the part of local authorities; it is a lack of resources.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I must congratulate the last few speakers who have been very brief and to the point. We can relax a little now. Five to six minutes is fine, but no more than that. The trouble is that if I say five minutes, those five minutes will become seven, so I am still saying five. Those who have taken two or three minutes should take the brownie points.