Deaths of Homeless People

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Luke Hall

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

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.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (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.

[Luke Hall]

As I said to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), 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.