Rough Sleeping

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for bringing this Statement to the House this afternoon. I draw the attention of the House to my relevant registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Government promised to “bring everybody in” during the pandemic and, despite good work done in the first wave, today we sadly have many people sleeping rough again on our streets, many very close to this building. The people sleeping on the link bridge between Waterloo station and the street, who I have mentioned before, are still there: I saw them yesterday on my way to this House. According to the Government’s own figures, there were 2,688 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020. People who are homeless are three times more likely to experience a chronic health need, including respiratory conditions, putting them at higher risk of poor health outcomes, including from Covid-19.

It is tragic that in one of the richest countries in the world, in one of the richest cities in the world, we have people sleeping rough on the streets tonight. So, can the noble Lord tell the House why the response to the homelessness situation of people living on our streets was so much better and more effective in the first wave in comparison with the second wave? What happened in government that led to the response being so much worse this time around? What happened to the Everyone In policy? It created a safe space for people to access the support needed to move on from homelessness.

On the wider picture of homelessness, the situation is even worse, with people living with friends and sleeping on sofas, including up to 130,000 children in England. The Government have a manifesto commitment to end the blight of rough sleeping in England by 2024. The response by the Government to this pandemic must surely be part of the plan to deliver on that commitment, and not an obstacle that puts the policy pledge in jeopardy. What we need from the Government is a strategy in place to ensure that people experiencing homelessness can move on from homelessness or expensive temporary accommodation into secure, safe, warm, dry, long-term accommodation that enables them to start rebuilding their lives.

Local authorities should be congratulated on the work they have done, with limited funding and unclear guidance from the Government. Will the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, identify for the House the various sums of money that are mentioned? Which of those are new money and not just restatements of previous funding commitments?

Housing First is a recognised and accepted method of ending homelessness for people with multiple needs, including mental health issues and addictions. The scheme is in place in Scotland and is being piloted here in England, but the fact is that many people experiencing homelessness in England will need a Housing First offer to finally end their homelessness. There are three pilots in place, which provide around 2,000 places, but this is a long way short of the investment and commitment needed to deal with the issue finally. So when does the Minister expect a decision to be made on rolling out the scheme in England, as has already been done in Scotland, and when does he expect funding for the rough sleeping accommodation programme to ensure that a long-term housing solution is not just an aim but a reality, which is not the case today?

[Baroness Grender (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for bringing us the Statement. There is no doubt that Everyone In last spring was a significant achievement. Louise Casey, now the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, wrote in her email at the start of the pandemic, after her first week in MHCLG:

“I don’t care what’s happening; I don’t care what’s going on, you’ve got to get everybody in.”


Rough sleeping was treated as an urgent public health issue, resource was prioritised and brought forward, and central and local government worked in tandem with all the charities and the hotel sector and lined up safe accommodation. This was without question a success. But, as so many witnesses to the APPG for ending homelessness made clear, these numbers are never static. Homelessness, like a river, expands and grows. Substantial boulders are the only thing that stop it at source, and those boulders start with social and truly affordable housing.

Will the Minister explain why social housing build last year was only 5,716 homes, far below both Shelter’s annual target and the National Housing Federation’s goal of 145,000 social homes per year? Tomorrow in the Budget we are expecting to see a significant subsidy, not to social housing but to first-time buyers, who will be encouraged to borrow 20% of the purchase price. Will the Minister say where that money is likely to go? What is the possibility that it will end up in the profit margins of the large developers, many of which donate regularly to the Conservative Party? To prevent an increase in the number of people sleeping rough, rapid access to secure, long-term accommodation is vital. This period, following the achievement of Everyone In, is a unique opportunity to do just that and never return to the levels that were way too high just before this pandemic.

The target date of the manifesto commitment—as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—is fast approaching, and policies need to be in place now. So surely—as the noble Lord also said—it is time to commit to a rollout of Housing First across England, instead of continuing with the pilots. The scale of current provision is 2,000 places, which falls far too short of the 16,450 places needed that were identified by the charities Crisis and Homeless Link. Can the Minister explain what is preventing the Government rolling out these successful pilots now?

It is welcome news that local authority guidance is encouraging registration of people sleeping rough with GPs, but why are the Government not following the success of some London boroughs, together with Liverpool and Oldham, which are using current JCVI guidance to vaccinate homeless people, in order to mitigate health inequalities? Some local authorities are unclear about this; will the Minister commit to clarifiying the issue? Even at the height of Everyone In some local authorities turned homeless people away. Can the Minister explain why? Does his department know why there were 2,600 people, or more, sleeping rough in October, and how many of them had no recourse to public funds?

The Statement rightly refers to research in the Lancet but not to the wider arguments used. It was clear that what was critical was the absolute refusal to resort to emergency shelters at all. So why are the Government considering using them? Large cities in the US continue to use emergency shelters, to huge detrimental effect. If social distancing is still advised next autumn, should emergency shelters not be ruled out? Can the Minister explain, in detail, in what circumstances they will be used?

The Statement refers to many of the underlying reasons for rough sleeping but fails to mention the precarious position of so many in the private rented sector. Why is that? While it is welcome that the pause on evictions has been extended, that has not stopped every stage of the process. Will the Minister acknowledge that, during the winter lockdown, 500 people were evicted from their homes and that last month 445 were either in arrears or served with eviction notices? Does the Minister agree that if the landlords’ associations and charities have united to ask for assistance, in the form of grants to tenants to keep roofs over their heads, this should be a priority to prevent homelessness?

As we continue to see the economic impact on people’s incomes, it is worrying that there is no longer-term strategy from the Government to ensure that people will be able to keep a roof over their heads. We are expecting unemployment to rise by this summer. The Government have frozen housing benefits once again. Can the Minister give reassurances that the Government are looking at ways to support people to prevent homelessness, including by helping them to avoid eviction due to arrears? Finally, is there any news on the long-awaited end to the use of Section 21, which has such an impact on vulnerable tenants?

There are many paths to homelessness. I sincerely hope that this period has been a pause and we can move forward from here. However, unless some of the problems in areas which give rise to homelessness—such as the private rented sector—are anticipated and stopped in their tracks, we will continue to see rises in homelessness.