Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the number of rough sleepers was estimated to be 3,569 on a given night last autumn.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, this increase in homelessness is a national scandal. Will the Minister set out the target figure for reducing that over the next 12 months?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, we do not focus particularly on targets but on initiatives that will help reverse some of the trends that we are seeing. Nobody is denying that homelessness and rough sleeping are a problem, which is why we have protected and maintained central and local funding to deal with it, as well as the Homelessness Change programme which I have spoken about.