Rough Sleeping

Debate between Neil Coyle and Kevin Foster

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle]

Absolutely. The costs of getting this wrong are far greater than the costs of the up-front preventive measures.

The sector is unanimous, and it is a recommendation of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, that adult safeguarding reviews should become the norm for any adult rough sleeper who dies on the streets. We have them for children’s services, but there is not an automatic assumption that they will be done for adults, and there should be. A review should be done in a no-blame culture, so we can identify what interventions might have helped to prevent that death on the streets. I hope the Minister will commit to that today.

I have an example of a really difficult case. A woman whose sister had died in Ghana came to my surgery. The day she left to go to her sister’s funeral, she wrote to the police, the council, the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the GP and others begging for help for her grandson. She had looked after her grandson as he grew up—his mum had died and his dad was never on the scene—for as long as she possibly could. However, his mental health had broken down and his behaviour became too much, so he was supported elsewhere, in sheltered accommodation.

What happened next was tragic. The grandson was not getting the mental health support that he needed. His behaviour became erratic in the shelter and problematic for other residents, and he was evicted. He was beaten to death in Walworth. He had stolen someone’s bike and pawned it, and the people he had stolen it from found him and beat him up, and he died. The morning his grandmother got back from Ghana, the police knocked on her door to tell her he was dead, despite the fact she had begged everyone to provide an extra, small intervention that could have prevented such an awful occurrence. Personally, I think the mental health services should have done more in that case, but we need to learn from incidents like that, to make sure that all avoidable deaths are actually made avoidable.

There is a question mark: are homeless people worth less, somehow? They have been made to feel that way. Being homeless is a dehumanising experience and the lack of human contact—even eye contact—is something that comes out in homeless group sessions, when we talk to homeless people directly.

There have been some bizarre policies. At Poole Borough Council the solution to rough sleeping was to introduce public space protection orders, which imposed fines on homeless people. Unsurprisingly, those fines were not paid when the council attempted to impose them, because homeless people do not have much money. It was a bizarre attempt at policy, but perhaps not as bad as the Cardiff Conservative councillor, Kathryn Kelloway, who was so outraged at the indecency and indignity of homelessness that she called for homeless people’s tents to be torn down—not because they had new homes, but just to take away their tents. That was shameful. She was suspended by the Welsh Conservatives, but less well publicised is the fact that she has already been readmitted, which speaks volumes.

Perhaps I have talked for too long, but I want to touch on some other issues. The private rental sector is the fastest growth area for people becoming homeless. Lots of organisations, some represented here today, are calling for no-fault evictions to be scrapped and section 21 reformed. There are lots of reasons why I want more rent controls and longer tenancy agreements to try to prevent some of this, as well as an increase in expenditure on help to rent, to try and get more people into the sector where possible.

Hon. Members have already referred to domestic violence, which I will touch on. The Government statistics, which I have taken from the House of Commons Library briefing, are astonishing. From April to June 2018, 4,500 households were owed a statutory homeless duty where the reason for losing their last settled home was

“violent relationship breakdown with partner or associated persons.”

That is 8% of all households owed homeless duty. The Women’s Aid annual survey 2017 found that housing was the most frequent co-presenting issue for women experiencing domestic abuse, above health, justice, finance and children.

The crisis in refuge funding has been driven by the demise of the Supporting People programme. If there is one specific programme that should be rebuilt, it is that one. In 2015-16, one in 10 homeless acceptances were due to domestic violence. Half of St Mungo’s female clients have experienced domestic violence and one third said domestic violence had contributed to their homelessness.

There is an issue around the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. Fleeing from domestic violence does not automatically make women a priority need. They still have to meet the vulnerability threshold in the legislation to meet the criteria for assistance. That needs addressing, because councils are getting this wrong. The Women’s Aid project No Woman Turned Away looked at the reasons given to women for not getting homelessness assistance—we should think about the circumstances in which councils are doing this—which included the woman needing proof of abuse. Some women were deemed to be intentionally homeless as a result of being beaten up by a partner. That is not an acceptable excuse to try and deny someone the support they need. Some were even told to return to the violent partner, rather than get help from their council. Those circumstances must change.

The “no recourse to public funds” policy is completely unacceptable on every level. Either we believe in human rights or we do not. NRPF denies people equality of opportunity and rights to family life. I will give some examples, but for those who do not know, let me first explain that it used to apply only to illegal immigrants to the UK—to those who had no lawful reason to be in this country. The coalition Government, to their shame, then extended it to families, including those with British-born children; there are now 50,000 British-born children, born to parents legally in this country, who are not entitled to any public support. The circumstances into which those families are driven are horrific, and in some cases they are the result of Home Office error.

On Monday, Mr Musari sent me a message. I am godfather to his son; when we first met in 2015, he was about to become homeless. He had been working, paying tax and paying private rent, but the Home Office told him to stop—apparently we did not want him working, contributing or paying tax—and he was made homeless while his wife was pregnant with their third child. They were put through the wringer so much that he nearly killed himself; he said that he thought his children would get more help if he were dead. Only on Monday, almost three years later, was the decision finally overturned, granting him access to public funds—it has taken that long to correct a Home Office error.

Let me give one more example from my constituency. A woman was told seven years ago, in court, that she had a criminal record and did not meet the “person of good character” criterion, so she would be denied access to public funds. She has just got her new biometric card, but it has taken until now to overturn the decision, because it was a case of mistaken identity. She has never committed a crime, in this country or anywhere else—not so much as nicking a pint of milk of from a supermarket, which I am sure we have all done. She too has been through the wringer: she and her son, now 10, were made homeless and were reliant on friends and family. That boy was three years old when this situation began as a result of a Home Office mistake.

The all-party parliamentary group has made recommendations, including reinstating access to legal aid so that people in those circumstances do not have to wait three and a half years, or seven years, to overturn awful erroneous decisions by the Home Office. It is unacceptable. The Zambrano restrictions, which deny people access, should be lifted for anyone with a dependant. No child should be put through this process as a result of where their parent may have come from.

It is completely unacceptable that Surrey Square Primary School in my constituency has 40 children in those circumstances. If my daughter Esme were old enough, those children could have been born in the bed next to hers in St Thomas’s hospital, but they are denied access to the same support that Esme might qualify for. The children get this. They understand how unfair it is to victimise their classmates and friends. The Government are missing what this divisive and horrific policy is creating in our schools, especially in areas such as my constituency.

I will touch on the criminal justice system, which a couple of hon. Members have already mentioned, and the cost of getting this policy wrong, with specific reference to criminal justice. I hope the Minister sees her role as a cross-Government one, because there is not just one solution to this; it touches on many other areas. The cost to the taxpayer of getting this wrong is extortionate, through councils, the NHS and mental health services, which we have already talked about. Rough sleepers experience higher levels of certain health conditions that result in hospitalisation, and that is not free.

The response to a question I put to the Ministry of Justice revealed some figures that I think are shocking. The total number of people going into prison has fallen slightly since 2016, but the proportion of homeless people going to prison has risen from 23% to 27%.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I am finding the hon. Gentleman’s speech of great interest, and he has obviously researched this subject very deeply, but I will tentatively point out that it has been going on for 42 minutes, and while I am enjoying it, it would perhaps be more appropriate, given that there are other people here, if he came to his peroration.

[Neil Coyle]

Finally, an intervention that I can say “Get lost!” to. Bad luck; perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not want me to take interventions. He will be pleased to hear that I am nearly finished, but his intervention was in poor taste, I think. Perhaps I will take a bit longer—I do not know.

As I was saying, the total number of people going into prison has fallen slightly, but the percentage of those people who are homeless has risen to 27%. Last year, that will have amounted to 27,000 people entering prison who are of no fixed abode—homeless, in other words. The average cost of keeping someone in a prison in England is £35,000; it is higher in Scotland and much higher in Northern Ireland, where it is more than £50,000. If we just use the England figure, 27,000 people at £35,000 a year means that the Government’s failure fully to address homelessness is contributing to a prison population costing roughly £945 million a year.

What a waste—what an awful waste. That is nearly a billion quid. I know the Government did not get their money’s worth out of the Democratic Unionist party, but this £1 billion would be much better invested up front in preventative services to stop the scandal of people being made homeless and forced into crime. We know who is among the prison population: people with mental health conditions, care leavers and people who are ex-forces, as has already been touched on. The Government should invest in those groups to support them and prevent them from becoming homeless.

I would like to think that this is linked to the rising and extortionate cost of getting this wrong, but, as touched on previously, the public will is there to tackle this problem. The public do not want people to be sleeping rough or to be made homeless. As an indication of that demonstrable public will, the intervention and support of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has done some brilliant work on this, meant that last year StreetLink had more referrals and more donations from the public than ever before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck.

[Neil Coyle]

Too long!

[Kevin Foster]

Given that heckle, I will be considerate as there are Labour Members who want to speak, even though I am not under a formal time limit.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on having secured this debate, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince). Rough sleeping is clearly an issue in Torbay, as it is in many other coastal communities. We have the contrast between those people with a £1-million boat in the harbour and a coastal apartment, and the people sleeping on the streets nearby.

The last count showed that 24 people were sleeping on the streets of Torbay. However, the Minister will know that from my time in local government, I have some suspicions about how the rough sleeper count is carried out: it is literally an exercise in going out and spotting homeless people. I suspect it is hard to work out another way of doing it, but if somebody is walking around, even though they visibly could have been sleeping on the street, they do not count towards the statistics. There is even some suggestion that if somebody is stood up with bedding around them, they may not be counted as a rough sleeper, even though most of us would look at them and see exactly what is going on.

The rough sleeper count is a measure that originates from Victorian times, and I am much happier with the way in which the Torbay End Street Homelessness campaign has set about doing a proper survey of those who are sleeping rough on the streets of the bay. Over the course of a week, people have been going out and engaging with those they find; not just spotting someone and saying, “There is someone who is sleeping rough,” but interviewing them about the reasons why they are sleeping rough, what their background is and what types of support services they have engaged with. It is clear that no one gets up in the morning and thinks, “It would be a great idea to go and sleep rough.” Some may feel it is their only choice in life, but we need to engage with those people and get genuine information that allows us to understand what has driven them to that position.

Another charity that works closely with those who find themselves on the streets of Torbay is People Assisting Torbay’s Homeless, a wonderful volunteer organisation that, sadly, is now trying to find a new home. It was removed from one of its previous properties because of a development going ahead, and now finds itself facing possession action by the local council. I certainly hope that the council will not implement a possession order until an alternative base has been found. I accept that the place offered up was temporary, but for PATH to be evicted and literally become homeless would be a rather cruel irony.

There is, of course, Shekinah in Torbay, which has provided a long-standing facility at Factory Row—the Leonard Stocks Centre, to which I used to be one of the closest residents. I recognise some of the comments that other Members have made about the issues that can occur, particularly when residents of such places are targeted, for no other reason than the evil intentions of those who are targeting them.

That leads us on, however, to a wonderful initiative that is happening in Torbay: the town’s night shelter, for which local churches come together and open their buildings to provide an option for those who are sleeping rough over winter. It is not just about having somewhere to keep warm and something to eat; it is about people finding a system of support and friendship, with a family or home atmosphere, to try to get them off the streets for good. Ultimately, it is not spending one night in a church hall that will make a difference to someone; it is having a system of support. I know that the churches in the bay are keen that their buildings should not just be magnificent Victorian structures that people visit on a Sunday morning, but places that really live out the gospel. That is a massive resource, and I know that some others are looking at how they can take it further.

I would certainly like Housing First to be extended into our bay, as we think it would make a great difference. The work of the Mayors of Merseyside, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands in driving that project forward is very welcome, and I do not see why it would not make a difference in Torbay. It has been slightly misconstrued as closing the hostel, but it is not: it is about making sure that people are supported from day one in terms of housing, rather than having to earn a right to housing via being in a hostel for a longer period of time. There will always be a need for emergency accommodation. Other Members have touched on the issue of housing supply, which clearly needs to be dealt with if we are to move forward.

I will conclude with some remarks about the Vagrancy Act 1824, which is a hopelessly out-of-date piece of legislation. I hope that in any review of that Act, we can take a mature cross-party approach, as happened with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and “to your credit, Ms Buck” your campaign for the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill the following year. That Bill became an Act, and it made a difference to people.

The 1824 Act is hideously out of date: it is both morally and practically wrong to think that homelessness can be dealt with by hauling people down to the magistrates court. I was only too happy to stand up against the idea of using a public spaces protection order against rough sleeping in Torbay—I did not see that as a practical thing to do at all—and I was pleased that councillors from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups made it clear to the independent administration that it was not something they would tolerate or accept. PSPOs should be used against antisocial behaviour. The act of sleeping rough—a person putting their head down and going to sleep—should not lead to them being arrested by the police; it should lead to them being supported by agencies.

This has been a welcome debate, and one that could probably go on for a lot longer. I hope that we will be able to take some comfort from the Minister’s response.