Vagrancy Act 1824

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for calling for this important debate. As the Secretary of State and the Minister often point out, street homelessness is primarily a health issue. The hon. Lady bangs that drum all the time, and it is extremely important that we are to understand this. We constantly hear that homelessness is all the fault of the evil Government and the bedroom tax or whatever else. I know there are big issues around housing and lots of people who are homeless but not on the streets. That must be addressed, but to conflate those groups does nothing to help the street homeless. If we are serious, it is time for all those organisations that use the street homeless almost like a showcase group to highlight those other areas, to bang the drum and to hit at the Government, to stop doing that or we will not get anywhere. Repealing the Act may be an opportunity for a wider effort by both the Government and the Opposition.

The Act makes it an offence to beg. While I would welcome any changes and getting rid of the Act, we must preserve that in one way or another. I have met a lot of rough sleepers who freely admit that they are begging in order to find the cash to buy drugs or alcohol. The fact that they have received this generosity from the public keeps people on the streets much longer than they would be otherwise. I have often cited the example of a guy at St Mungo’s—I did not meet him; St Mungo’s told me about him—who had been around Covent Garden for many years and who had ended up having his leg cut off because of the long-term impact of sticking needles in his arm. This guy apparently says that if the public had not been so generous, he would have been off the streets an awful lot earlier.

A few years ago, when I did my last programme, I remember sleeping around the back of the “goods in” entrance of the McDonald’s by Westminster Cathedral with all the people who had taken spice. It was awful. There was one guy who clearly was not on spice—he was a drinker—and I slept next to him. He was called Andy; we made friends. The reason Andy is on the street is because that is the only way he can get money to get beer. Many of the people that my hon. Friend spoke about are on the street, despite the extraordinary success of Everyone In, because they need money to buy drugs.

If someone needs £150 or £200 a day to buy heroin, and is ill because they have been heroin addict for a long time, it is going to be hard for them to find any other means of paying for the drugs than by begging. People can make a lot of money begging. Some 25 years ago there were groups begging in Regent Street—what we call walking begging—that were getting £200 in a day. It is the same for some people in towns such as Winchester, particularly at the height of the tourist season. My appeal is that if we do something about the Act, we should keep the provisions on begging.

At some point we have to think about what we do for these people who are addicted to heroin, for whom I have a huge amount of sympathy. They have got to buy the drug somehow or they have to get some sort of treatment. To go slightly against what I am saying, if people are not begging for the money, they may be stealing for it. We need to have an honest discussion, at some point, as to whether we should medicalise the problem for people who are firmly committed to taking drugs. I end there, but I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster for securing the debate.