Leasehold Reform and New Homes

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) for securing the debate. He is doing a great service to leaseholders in every constituency and I can see that the Minister is determined to improve the situation for them. All Members receive loads of emails about this issue from constituents, who are often in very stressful situations regarding their leaseholds, and I hope that the wide-ranging reforms that the Government are pushing through will change that. Of course, for many, those changes cannot come quickly enough.

I want to raise one discrete issue that I urge the Minister to consider. When constituents contact me about an issue with leasehold, be it a service charge dispute or a problem with lease extension or parking, a theme that comes up far too frequently is that the leaseholder is required to receive advice on their purchase from a conveyancer recommended to them by the estate agent, who is of course the representative of the seller-freeholder. Although I understand that there is nothing unlawful or improper about that arrangement, its practical effect seems to be that the buyer does not get the robust and impartial advice that they need.

We have a particularly upsetting case in my constituency involving the purchase of a new build shared ownership flat using solicitors that the seller told the leaseholder to use. At no point was the purchaser told that if they wanted to extend the lease, they would have to do so before it dropped below 80 years—the marriage value threshold. They have missed that chance and now face a huge bill to extend the lease. That case may yet be greatly assisted by the abolition of marriage value, although I think the Minister should consider some of the unintended consequences that may come from that—but that is a separate question. The point remains that leaseholders, and particularly first-time homeowners, need clear and impartial advice about their rights and responsibilities, and any pitfalls and possible expenditures, during their lease term.

When I wrote to the Minister on this point, I was told:

“We can also say that we would expect conveyancers to deliver an effective service to their clients, including making them aware of any changes or conditions attached to the property before a purchase is finalised. It is essential that conveyancers deliver an effective service to their clients.”

Of course it is, but the problem is that few people have the means to take action when they do not receive an effective service, so the opportunity to hold conveyancers to account is limited for many people.

The Government should act to ensure that leaseholders have access to high-quality, unbiased legal advice. It must be relatively straightforward for the Government to prevent sellers from recommending conveyancers, simply leaving buyers to choose their own conveyancer, as most purchasers do already. One possible route to achieving that, alongside looking again at the rules relating to referrals to conveyancers—we actually need tougher rules—is an enhanced role for the Leasehold Advisory Service. As many people will know, that organisation provides brilliant advice to many leaseholders, but with additional resources it could perhaps do more to provide bespoke support in cases where it appears that the legal advice has somehow been dud. There does not necessarily need to be a cost to that; it might operate as a deterrent and straighten people up a bit.

Alongside new legislation, access to impartial advice and support when things have gone wrong would hugely empower leaseholders across my constituency, particularly in areas such as Denton and Springhead, and indeed across all constituencies, and we would spend less time late at night answering emails from people who find themselves in an unhappy and stressful situation.

National Security and Investment Bill

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

I am very much of the view that, as Shakespeare said, “brevity is the soul of wit”. Notwithstanding that, the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), made an incredibly professional and profound set of points that I hope the Minister listened to closely.

As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), did, I welcome the Minister to his place, notwithstanding the fact that the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), is off doing a fantastic job—I think it is fair to say—getting the entirety of the UK vaccinated, of course in partnership with our colleague in Scotland. I am sure that he regards it as a step up in terms of ministerial oversight of the Bill.

On the Bill itself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) spoke on Second Reading and on Report with passion and knowledge of the subject in respect of the scrutiny that should be provided by all of us when looking at such serious matters. We have tried to be constructive with the Government and to make helpful suggestions. I am pleased with many of the amendments moved by those in the other place that the Government are agreeing to—on beefing up scrutiny and perhaps offsetting some of the concerns that some of us might have had about the danger of investment chill, which was certainly real given the original nature of the Bill.

Improvements have been made, therefore, but there is still scope for further improvement. In that regard—as I said, I will be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker—I again urge the Minister to give cognisance to the wise words of the Chair of the ISC.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I welcome the powers that the National Security and Investment Bill introduces and I am very much in favour of the amendments moved by the Government in the other place.

Those amendments temper the impact on investment of the Bill, allowing a greater proportion of transactions and investment decisions to go ahead without requiring Government approval. Furthermore, the Government’s power to intervene on their own, if needed, will be retained. That is a good compromise between the Bill’s objectives: to grant the Government the powers to defend the UK against losing companies and expertise to unfriendly competitors, without stifling the investment that we need to become the home of the industries of the future. That is vital to our national security and to our future prosperity.

We must ensure that the technologies that are so frequently developed by our brilliant scientists here in this country can also transform themselves into successful world-leading companies here. I think of the many university spin-out programmes and how often extraordinary technology is immediately shipped off somewhere else. Developing more powerful computers and software, but allowing them all to be commercialised and deployed most effectively elsewhere only makes us less secure, not more secure. They will only be commercialised and deployed here if the Government protect them from being snapped up by our competitors, thereby damaging our long-term security interests.

We have seen the impact of such problems in the past. Only last week, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport called in the potential NVIDIA-Arm deal as representing a potential threat to our national security. If Arm, the Cambridge-based silicon fen semiconductor and software design company, can pose a threat to national security, so could the sale of other critical companies in developing industries.

Quantum computing is about to revolutionise the digital age, and the UK has some of the leading research establishments, notably in London and at the University of Bristol. However, many leading companies have moved abroad in the past. The British academics who founded PsiQuantum, the company that believes it is on track to build the world’s first usable quantum computer, moved to California some years ago. I have absolutely zero financial or other interests in that company—it is only that I wish to see the UK lead the world in quantum computing, with all the associated industry and benefits that will follow that.

The four professors from Bristol and London Universities recently made an offer to the Government to build that first usable quantum computer here in the UK, ensuring that the security offered by its cutting-edge technology is based in the UK. I think we can all agree that it would have been far easier and a lot less expensive if those academics had never left the country in the first place.

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.

Covid-19: Hospitality Industry

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this important debate. I will make just a couple of points, on dates and on data.

Earlier this afternoon, I rang a friend who runs the Griffin Inn in Sussex to ask about this, and he said that dates are vital. We must stick to any dates that we have. Over Christmas, of course, many establishments lost enormous amounts of money buying in stock that they then could not use. In his case, I think it was £25,000-worth of stuff.

On data, some people are having a very good time of it. Supermarkets are making a fortune. Pubs and hospitality have been amazingly supported by the Government, but we must not forget the point made by Ian Eldridge, who runs a restaurant in my constituency called Bartellas, that they still have enormous costs. They have employer contributions, lease purchase deals and lots of monthly contracts, and of course they also have maintenance.

My second point on data is a plea to the Minister and, indeed, the Prime Minister: things do seem to be going, thank God, in a very good direction in terms of hospitalisation and deaths, and if we can unlock hospitality earlier, let us not be dogmatic about it—let us do it. Let us reopen well-run hospitality, because I would much prefer my constituents to be drinking there than cramped in their front rooms.

Rough Sleeping

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will try to answer as many of the hon. Lady’s questions as I can. I was sad that she could not be more fulsome in welcoming the achievements that have been made over the past year, because they are not just the achievements of this Government; they are the shared achievements of charities, local councils, volunteers and faith groups across the country. We have worked very productively across party lines with local government. In the remarks I have made and those I will no doubt make in answer to other questions today, I praise the councils that have made tremendous efforts—councils such as Birmingham City Council, which has gone to huge lengths to reduce the number of people sleeping rough. This is and should be an issue that cuts across party lines.

The hon. Lady says that the statistics published today are not her chosen method of measuring rough sleeping. She and others have made that point in the past, but this methodology has existed for well over 10 years. It is the most trusted measure of rough sleeping. It is independently verified by Homeless Link, and it uses a very similar methodology to that used by other developed countries such as Canada and France. I think she refers to the CHAIN—Combined Homelessness and Information Network—which is a different methodology and is not easily comparable. That takes an estimate of the number of individuals sleeping rough over a quarter, rather than on an individual night. I am confident that ours is the best way forward, although I am always open to suggestions on different ways one might choose to measure it. By any account, an enormous step forward has been made over the past year; I have not heard anyone who truly understands this issue dispute that.

The hon. Lady says that Everyone In came to an end and that we have not brought forward further support, but that is not correct. Everyone In is ongoing. As I have said, we now have 37,000 people who would otherwise have been sleeping rough on the streets of this country either already moved into good quality sustainable accommodation, be it in the private rented sector, in move-on accommodation or in social housing, or awaiting that move, with councils working closely on it. All those people also have wraparound care, looking after their mental health and other health issues they might face, to ensure that they can begin to rebuild their lives and become more productive members of society.

The hon. Lady also says that councils have not got the funding they need for the future, but again that is not correct. We have provided at the spending review a 60% increase in the amount of Government spending on rough sleeping and homelessness services, bringing it to more than £750 million in the next financial year. This is not primarily now an issue about funding; it is an issue about delivery and commitment, and there are wide variances across the country between councils that are grasping that and those that still have more work to do.

The hon. Lady has also in the past argued that we should not take the targeted approach that we did this winter and that we should have more of a scattergun approach across the country. We rejected that advice and decided to focus resources and effort on the places where it was really required. The statistics I am publishing today—both the snapshot and the statistics for December and January—validate that approach, because they show that in some parts of the country, such as Westminster, that extra effort has made all the difference. I praise the individual council leaders we have worked with, again on a cross-party basis, be it Rachael Robathan in Westminster or Georgia Gould in Camden, whose support has been much appreciated. I hope that we can work across party lines over the course of this year. I hope I can work with the hon. Lady, and I see opposite me her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who made a great contribution on this issue when he was the shadow Housing Minister. We want now to move forward to capitalise on the immense efforts and achievements of the past year, and to end rough sleeping once and for all.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State shares my frustration at the constant attempts to weaponise rough sleepers as an example of wider ills in our society. He knows very well that the rough sleepers are primarily—99% of them—people who are mentally ill, people who have addiction problems or, normally, both. I would love to hear some examples of how his new initiatives will work on the ground to build on the success of Everyone In. Finally, it is great to see a Secretary of State who actually realises that in a civilised society the only people who should be on the streets are those who choose to be.

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his very long-standing commitment to this issue. On one of my first nights in this position, he and I went out on to the streets in the west end, and it was one of the most interesting and important visits I have done over the past 18 months. He is right to say that our ambition should be that as a civilised society nobody should feel the need to sleep rough on the streets and that we should be addressing the causes of rough sleeping, which I think are primarily related to health; this is about drugs, alcohol misuse and mental health. We need to be tackling those causes, which is what we intend to do over the course of this year, bringing together the relevant parts of government to have the most coherent, holistic strategy we have ever had. The statistics speak for themselves: 60% of those sleeping rough have serious substance misuse issues; 49% need drugs support; 23% need alcohol support; and 82% have mental health vulnerabilities. So that has to be our focus going forward: the marriage of health and housing, for the first time.

My hon. Friend also makes a point, which was alluded to by the shadow spokesperson, as to why we had not managed to get every individual off the streets even during the height of our efforts with Everyone In. There are some people who, for a range of reasons, are exceptionally difficult to persuade to come in off the streets. Sadly, we will never live in a country where there is not a single person sleeping rough on the streets, but the litmus test for a civilised society must be that nobody has the need to do so and that everybody is offered support swiftly—this is about not so much no second night out, but no first night out.

Covid-19: Faith Groups

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on calling this important debate. I welcome the new Minister, who is uniquely qualified to be dealing with the overall subject of housing.

The right hon. Gentleman said that it was thought that faith groups would try to convert people. That certainly has not been the case in my constituency over the course of the pandemic. I am sure the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) will agree that our Sikh temple, the gurdwara, has had what in years past would have been described as a very good war. During the first lockdown, its langar delivered 64,000 free shared meals to individuals and to the local hospice and nursing homes. At the peak, it was doing 1,300 meals a day. When the European lorry drivers were trying to get home for Christmas, it did 800, 1,000 and then 1,500 meals a day. So far in this lockdown, the gurdwara has provided over 25,000 meals, and when the local hospital ran out of scrubs for the staff, it got fabric from Malaysia, had it sewn in Leicester and then distributed the scrubs.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I can certainly attest to that. My father, who served as a president of the Gravesend gurdwara, constantly told me about the amazing work that the gurdwara does. This time round, absolutely incredibly, the Gravesend gurdwara teamed up with Khalsa Aid, a charity based in Slough, to go out and feed thousands of stranded lorry drivers on the M20. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that that amazing concept—working together for the betterment of all—illustrates that faith can be a source of so much good?

[Adam Holloway]

I do agree. The hon. Gentleman is being modest. He also played his part in the gurdwara when he lived in Gravesend.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that, while the Church is filled with imperfect people, of whom I am one, those imperfect people want to do all they can to help others. From schemes such as ringing elderly constituents regularly, delivering shopping or prescriptions, or holding distanced meetings, the love shown by those making up so many denominations, Churches and faith groups has been heartwarming. It reminds us of the scripture text in John chapter 13, verse 35:

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”.

[Adam Holloway]

Indeed, and by thy works shall we know you.

The Gravesend Methodist church, in fact all the churches, found that many of their volunteers disappeared early on, because they were more elderly and often in vulnerable groups. So we saw the Gravesend Methodist church, under Minister Tony Graff, enable Vicki Clarke and Chris Ward to look after the homeless. Every Christian church—that I know of, anyway—handed out food to people, including the City Praise Centre and Terry with his van. I thank all of them.

There are not many MPs here in Parliament at the moment—there are an awful lot of workmen, I notice—but I say again to the right hon. Member for East Ham: thank you for calling this debate, because I know that an enormous number of Members of Parliament who are not here today are extremely grateful to the faith groups for what they have done during the past few months.

Winter Homelessness Support

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I recall sitting outside Charing Cross station watching a guy drink water from a puddle like a dog, and up to several thousand people passed him before anyone did anything about it. Likewise, kids in the summer have a bit of a party and take loads of drugs, but the weather changes and they are addicted. They need to be got off the streets before what started as a party ends as a nightmare. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Nickie Aiken]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

As I want to ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak in this debate, I do not have time to go into the detail that discussion of the other issues faced by economic migrants and modern-day slaves who find themselves on the street would deserve, but I will turn to them briefly. Their issues are as complex as those of people dealing with health and addiction issues, especially as agencies are often hampered in the support that they can offer because foreign nationals may not have access to public funds.

To help those cohorts requires much greater co-ordination across government, between the Home Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local authorities. In the case of modern-day slaves, those people desperately need our support, but the difficulty in law is how to criminalise their gangmasters without criminalising those who have been trafficked on to our streets. What support or help should we offer them? Would they like to return home? Should we help them return home? Such matters can only be truly addressed by a deeper and honest conversation across Government, local authorities and the charity sector.

For too long the elephant in the room has been the issue of the “no recourse to public funds” category and whether to suspend it—a difficult decision, I recognise, but one that does need addressing. As I have highlighted, the issues around rough sleeping are complex and there are no easy answers. If we are to achieve the Government’s laudable aim to end rough sleeping, greater support for health and addiction issues, and a reassessment of both the Vagrancy Act and the no recourse to public funds rules are all required.

I recognise and welcome the increased focus and funding that the Government have provided to local authorities to support rough sleeping this year. The Government are clearly determined to end rough sleeping and I look forward to providing support to Ministers to achieve our shared goal. I look forward to the contributions of Members and the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing the debate. She actually knows what she is talking about in this regard, having grappled with the centre of gravity for street homelessness in our national life.

What is street homelessness? To me, street homelessness has almost nothing to do with housing. In my experience—I have got some; I reckon that I have spent four and a half to five months of my life living on the streets of various cities, here and in the United States—street homelessness is actually a health issue. We are only ever going to deal with the problem if the Government understand that, and if the fabulous Minister present today were to spend most of her time in the Department of Health.

Street homelessness is about mental health or about addiction, and very often a combination of the two. I know that the media and lots of us in all parties in the House like to present homelessness as the fault of the evil Government of x hue or y hue, and of the evil bedroom tax, and benefit cuts, or whatever else. In my experience, there are people on the streets who would fit into that category, and I am in no doubt that there are tens of thousands of homeless people in the so-called sofa-surfing arena, but of the street homeless people, only a tiny number fit in that category. Everybody else is drug-addicted or mentally ill.

Actually, I would add a new thing that had not occurred to me until the Minister mentioned state intervention just now, because there is another thing that the street homeless have in common—including the lady with maggots, who I have not met yet but will seek out—and that is that they no longer have family or friends who are interested in them.

I am all for the small state, but I actually agree with the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster that the state has got to take a bigger role in the lives of this really relatively small number of people—possibly 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 people nationally, but obviously that figure twirls around. I think we need to ensure that.

The other observation that I will make—again I agree with the right hon. Member for East Ham—is that ultimately, of course, lack of housing is going to impact the people at the very, very bottom, and we need to sort that out; but we should also be mindful that we are increasing our population, and we still are under this Government, to the tune of 1 million people every three years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Miller, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this debate.

I cannot think of many things worse than being homeless. Maybe it is not surprising that homeless people are three and a half times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. The suicide rate among rough sleepers is estimated to have increased by 30% in just 12 months, and Birmingham has recorded 25 homeless deaths over a 12-month period—not all of them suicides, but that is the second highest rate in the country. More people will almost certainly perish on our streets this winter. In Birmingham, over 3,500 house- holds are homeless, living in temporary accommodation, which includes bed and breakfasts and some pretty grim hotels. Some 16,000 households are on the Birmingham housing register.

It is not a lack of will that causes these problems. We saw during the Everyone In programme what can be achieved, and I really admire the energy and determination of Birmingham Councillor Sharon Thompson in trying to make a difference. However, we need a more joined-up response, and we need to agree that homelessness is as much of an evil as hunger or disease. I do not wish to strike a discordant note in this debate, but I was slightly surprised by the emphasis that the hon. Members for Cities of London and Westminster and for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) placed on people’s social problems, at a time when so many prominent voices in the Tory party have been promoting Housing First as a policy. I would be really interested to hear from the Minister whether there is a view on that.

Birmingham is a generous city, and The Birmingham Mail’s #BrumWish campaign has raised money from its readers for more than 2,000 presents for children living in homeless accommodation this Christmas. However, we cannot solve homelessness with donations: we need action to address the lack of affordable housing. Private rents in Birmingham are already too high, and with the economic uncertainty that lies ahead, there will be a further increase in homelessness unless some practical measures to address exorbitant rents are introduced.

[Adam Holloway]

I totally get the hon. Gentleman’s point about 60,000 people on waiting lists, emergency accommodation and everything else, but this is what we always do. We are always conflating the homelessness of the sorts of people the hon. Gentleman is talking about with the street homeless, who are sometimes used as a thing to batter Government with. I think there is a very big difference between the entrenched street homeless and the sorts of people that the hon. Gentleman is describing. They are different, and we will not help the street homeless or our cohorts unless we accept that there is a difference between the two groups.

[Steve McCabe]

I guess my point is that we should be helping both. I would say it is as simple as that: I do not really want to divide and separate these people, but to help both groups.

We also need strengthened arrangements to prevent developers wriggling out of obligations to provide affordable housing by fiddling figures to disguise their real profit margins at the expense of homeless people. That is what is happening in my city, and I will wager that it is happening up and down the country. As the Minister will know, too many people in Birmingham and elsewhere are placed in expensive and dodgy exempt accommodation, draining the public purse of money that could be put to much better use in tackling homelessness on both of these fronts. We should be dealing with the people on the streets, but if a child is sharing a bed with their three sisters and mother in a bed-and-breakfast house in Birmingham, they do not have much of a future, either.

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[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Miller. I commend the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on her commitment to ending homelessness and on the skills and knowledge evident in her speech. We have had a thorough and impassioned debate, rightly so, but I hardly know where to start. We have had these debates before and I am sure the Minister can already guess some of the things I am going to say—but I think they bear repetition.

Government MPs made my point for me when they called for better funding for mental health and for drug and alcohol addiction services. The fact that those services are lacking and that we need to fund them is a sign of what has happened over the last 10 years. It is also an illustration of the fact that acts have consequences. When Governments take decisions in—let’s just pick a year at random—2010, the consequences can be felt 10 years on. They still are. They are outside the door here and they are on the streets of Bristol, Rochester and Strood and Westminster. They are on the streets in all our constituencies, but they are also—it is related—in temporary accommodation across the country. The two things are related; it should not be either/or.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said, living in temporary accommodation is a bad way to live. It is bad for children and it is bad for children’s education. Across the country today, 130,000 children will be living in a place where there is not only usually nowhere suitable to cook a safe, healthy meal, let alone a celebratory one, but where there is no way to do homework, where there is no wi-fi signal, where they will fall behind in school. That will hurt us all.

That child who is falling behind in school because of their time in temporary accommodation could be the child that develops a cure for cancer, or comes up with some radical way of improving environmental cleanliness, or something—anything. We are going to lose out on their potential, because they are falling behind because they are homeless. That is a consequence of Government decision making.

I will touch briefly on rough sleeping and then on other forms of homelessness. First, I have some questions for the Minister. How much exactly of the Protect programme and the cold weather fund has made it out of the door, as of today? As I understand it, although the £15 million Protect programme was announced and a £10 million cold weather fund was announced, on Monday only £9.8 million of the Protect programme had been allocated. Why not the rest of the money—the other £5.2 million?

Have councils actually got the cold weather fund in their hands? It is cold already. The Government worked well with councils and charities in March to bring everybody in, but it is colder now and there is less money, and my council and councillors across the country are telling us of their struggle to keep going.

Rough sleeping is the tip of an iceberg; I know the Minister will expect me to say this, but I believe it to be true—it is the sharp end of a broken housing system with escalating private rents, widening inequality of income and people in insecure jobs who get into difficulties the minute disaster strikes because they have never been able to save money because their income is so unstable.

There is a chronic lack of supply. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) mentioned, there is no way of solving homelessness without addressing supply and, equally, there is no way of addressing supply without addressing social housing—truly affordable housing, council housing or housing association housing, with support. The system we have at the moment is being exploited in cities across the country, where exempt accommodation, although sometimes run very well, is often run badly. It is paid for from the public purse. This is not just an issue of morality. There is also the issue of cost.

[Adam Holloway]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am very aware of time, because I know the Minister has a lot to say. I will continue, if the hon. Member will allow; he has intervened on various speakers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) rightly highlighted the number of people who die while homeless. Pioneering work in my city of Bristol by the journalist Michael Yong showed the humanity behind every one of those stories as well as, I am afraid to say, showing that they were preventable deaths. A policy failure lay behind almost every case.

Too often homelessness, particularly street homelessness, is seen as a sad but inevitable fact of life or a moral failing on the part of the person who is homeless, and it is neither. It is a consequence of decisions taken by Governments. It can go up, but it can also go down. We must make it go down and end it. I am talking about not just street homelessness, but making sure that the underlying causes of wider homelessness are tackled.

Homelessness

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I shall be fairly brief. Over the years since the early 1990s, I have spent several months living undercover for television programmes on the streets of London, Birmingham and New York. Between when I first did it in 1992 and the last time I did it last year, I observe that almost nothing has changed. We still have the scandal of people with the most difficulties in our society—the untreated mentally ill and the drug addicted—prowling the streets of our cities. I therefore entirely agree with the Secretary of State—this is also my own experience—that street homelessness is primarily a health issue, not a housing issue.

I remember in the 1990s seeing a guy drinking like a dog from a puddle by Charing Cross station. I saw a similar thing last year. Things have not changed. Last year, I was sleeping next to a guy called Andy by the goods-in entrance of McDonald’s at Victoria among all the people smoking Spice. Andy was probably drinking 30 cans of beer a day, but he was not actually homeless. It was extraordinary. He had a flat—he showed me the keys—but Andy was living in Westminster for two reasons. First, he was lonely in his flat in north London. Secondly, how on earth is an alcoholic going to generate enough money to buy beer if not from begging on the streets?

I did not meet him, but a friend of mine reported that a guy who had been a heroin addict in Covent Garden for many years—he eventually had his leg cut off—absolutely maintained that if the public were not so generous and did not enable people to buy heroin and alcohol, he would have got off the streets an awful lot earlier. The reality is that many people choose to be on the street—[Interruption.] Before anyone stands up in outrage, let me say that there is a reason for that. People like Andy who are addicted to a drug have a problem: they need money. They cannot get money from begging if they are sleeping on the floor of one of the Government’s “no second night out” hostels, and they cannot get money to buy heroin if they are sitting in their council flat; they get it by being out on the streets.

When I was taken off the street under the “no second night out” policy, I was whisked off to a warm, safe place, but if I were a drug addict, there is no way I would have wished to be there. I would have felt safer and freer going back to my place on the Covent Garden piazza.

The reality is that, overwhelmingly, these are ill people. There are about a dozen rough sleepers in my constituency and, according to the excellent Gravesham Sanctuary homeless charity, the majority of them are addicted to drugs or alcohol. [Interruption.] This is my experience. Members who are shaking their head should intervene.

If this debate is really about street homelessness, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care should be at the Dispatch Box as this is a health problem. I know the Government are genuinely determined to do something about it. In fact this guy here, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, came and spent a night out on the streets of Covent Garden with me last year. He did not make a big song and dance about it, and he did not issue a press release. My friend Chris, a former crack addict, took him round and showed him how the begging works and how, when people have the money, they go off and hunt for drugs before the cycle starts all over again.

I am convinced that this guy, the Secretary of State, has got the message that we will not deal with rough sleeping unless we see it as a health problem. We need to be honest about this. When people give cash to a beggar —not in every case, but in the vast majority of cases—they are buying heroin, alcohol or zombie Spice. We have to stop giving money to beggars. We need wet accommodation where people can take drugs and continue to drink, and we need good emergency psychiatric assessments.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks we should have wet accommodation, does he support consumption rooms or shooting galleries so that we can also help people to ween off these awful drugs?

[Adam Holloway]

The truth is that I do not know, as I have not looked into it.

There is no point spending all this money if none of it gets to the tip of the spear—to the people in real need and in real crisis. There needs to be drug rehabilitation when people need it and when they are ready for it. I had one guy who decided he wanted to come off crack, and it took three months for him to get a place in rehab. We have to make sure that people are put in accommodation in which they want to stay.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentions homes, but does he agree with the Secretary of State that recruiting support workers would be a good way of spending money? Does he agree that having a key worker, a mentor or, perhaps, some peer support is a good way of helping people not only to get into a home but to stay in that home once they are there?

[Adam Holloway]

Absolutely, and it is another hard reality. We cannot have groups of young people in what starts as a street party but soon descends into a ghastly cycle of addiction. We have to be more robust about moving people on to prevent them from falling into addiction.

I say it again: we will get absolutely nowhere in helping these people at the very bottom—why on earth do we have social security if we cannot deal with this?—until we do what this Government are doing and understand that this is a health problem. I congratulate the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is an absolute honour to follow the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and to listen to his maiden speech. I worked very closely with his predecessor on various issues. He was a very passionate man, and I can see that the hon. Member is already following in his footsteps.

I welcome the opportunity for this House to discuss homelessness and rough sleeping, and I thank the Secretary of State for the tone of his speech. I had the privilege of sitting on the rough sleeping and homelessness reduction taskforce as a junior Minister, when it was chaired by the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, David Lidington. He passionately believed that to support those who find themselves facing homelessness or rough sleeping on our streets not only did we need an understanding of the complexity of the issue, but we absolutely needed Departments and agencies working together as one team. Homelessness can be prevented in most cases, and in every case it can and should be ended. Other countries, such as Finland, have shown that to be the case.

I want to thank the brilliant charities and organisations that help support those who are homeless. Many are super-local—we have them in our own constituencies—and they are run by dedicated volunteers. I want to thank the brilliant advocacy organisations, such as Crisis, Shelter, St Mungo’s and Porchlight, which reach out to us as policy makers to make changes that make a difference. I also want to thank the teams in agencies and local authorities that work really hard to provide accommodation and support services, often with little recognition for doing so, including those in Medway, Maidstone, and Tonbridge and Malling Councils.

Chatham and Maidstone town centres border my constituency, and this is where most people will visibly see homelessness. I need to focus my remarks on rough sleeping, but if we had more time I would touch on homelessness as a consequence of the demand for housing.

[Adam Holloway]

One of the factors that I think people do not consider is that if we add a couple of hundred thousand to our population every year and fail to build new homes, at some point that will inevitably impact on the people at the very bottom.

[Tracey Crouch]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, and I also think it is really important for those of us with constituencies in the south-east that at some point we discuss the problem of having people who are normally housed in London boroughs being moved out of London and into other councils. Last year, 20,000 households in London were offered alternative accommodation outside the local authority that accepted their homelessness application. This is an important issue on which we need to have a debate.

I am a fully subscribed member of the official counting method does not quite work gang. It is a one-night snapshot in November, and it is subject to being skewed by various factors. I know the figures are not out yet, but unofficially I hear that in Medway, Maidstone, and Tonbridge and Malling, the figures have declined. But just one person sleeping rough on our streets is one too many. Medway Council has received a significant chunk of the money that the Government have distributed, with £1.1 million to spend on specific activities. Measures introduced by the council included a Somewhere Safe centre, an assertive outreach team, a designated rough sleeper co-ordinator, 11 units of supported accommodation, and so on—exactly the holistic approach we need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Homelessness is a crisis and it has been a growing crisis under successive Tory-Lib Dem and Tory Governments in the past 10 years. Members from across the House have articulated well the causes of and potential solutions to that crisis, none more so than my hon. Friends the Members for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), who made their maiden speeches this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead was right to praise the feminist socialist Teresa Pearce, who once honoured me by calling me “sister”. My hon. Friend spoke of her Ghanaian heritage and the fact that she was told that she would never make it in politics. Clearly the message bearer did not have quite the measure of the lady who is sitting behind me today. My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead is representing the place he calls home, where he was born. It had been 40 years since somebody from Birkenhead had made a first speech in this place, and he was right to praise Frank Field and his work in tackling poverty. No one can speak with authority better than people who work with homeless people. I am sure that my hon. Friend will bring great knowledge to future housing debates.

The hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) said that homelessness was a health problem and that people should not give to beggars as the vast majority of them buy drugs with the money. I disagree. He is right that the failure of all manner of services is to blame, but it is under his Government that they have collapsed.

[Adam Holloway]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will not, no.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) lost his own dad to alcoholism. We heard a longer speech from him on this subject in Westminster Hall just a few months ago. He spoke of a homeless person in his area dying every 10 days, which he said was a moral disgrace. No wonder he was angry.

The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) highlighted the crisis created by high rents and the need for a greater housing supply. He is right. As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), said in his opening remarks, if social housing building had been maintained at Labour’s 2009 levels, the hon. Gentleman would have that supply.

The hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) agree that the Vagrancy Act should be scrapped, so instead of a review why does the Secretary of State not just get on and do it? He should scrap it, and while he is at it he should deal with section 21 as well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) used his usual concise approach in a targeted speech that offered solutions to the Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) focused on directly funded services, the short-term approach to which is failing so many rough sleepers.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) spoke about a third of her constituents working for less than the London living wage, with many people earning less than the total cost of their rent. What a disgraceful set of circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) talked about homelessness being one of the most important issues facing the country, and today’s speeches have illustrated that. He went on to say that we need to recognise more and more of the impact of welfare policy on homelessness, yet it appears that Government Members are in denial as far as that is concerned.

[Adam Holloway]

We are not going to get anywhere in helping these people in dire need if we continue to conflate street homelessness with some of the other things the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Street homelessness is primarily a health problem, and unless we accept and understand that we will get nowhere. We are no use to those people if we talk like that.

[Alex Cunningham]

Health is of course an element, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the most recent Labour Government, which left government in 2010, had almost eradicated homelessness, but we now see increase upon increase upon increase. Members have talked about the number of people who are dying homeless. Yes, we need to tackle all these things, and it is not all to do with drugs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield also talked about how the reduction in benefits has affected homelessness, along with the reduction in funding for hostels and, of course, the lack of new social housing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about rough sleeping being the most visible form of homelessness—and don’t we know it? Every day that I walk into this place and every night that I leave, I see them in Westminster station, and if I walk along the way I see them there, too. I do not see any of them shooting up, to be perfectly honest.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) talked about no properties being affordable when people depend on the local housing allowance. There is just insufficient income for them to pay their rent. He talked about the need for a robust measure of homelessness, and said that such measures appear to be a state secret, because the Government will not tell us how they measure homelessness. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) agreed with that, and went on to name young people who are dying on our streets—on the streets of his constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) talked about the collapse of social care and mental health services, which has meant that people are not getting the support they need. Like others, he praised the charities and other organisations that work with homeless people. We could list 20, 30, 40 or 50 of them, as they were probably named in this debate and in previous debates, but, of course, they all need one very important thing, which is resources.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) talked about the hidden homelessness of families in temporary accommodation, highlighting the fact that 700 people in her area live in temporary accommodation, but they do not have that specific accommodation in the area where they should have it, which is in their home town. She also talked about the stress caused to children who actually end up living well away from their schools, and have to struggle to get there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) talked about homelessness being a direct result of the decision-making of the Conservative Government and also that lack of support to help private renters. I just hope that, tonight, we have a Government prepared to listen to my hon. Friends and to those on the Conservative Benches who share our concerns over failure and inaction. Knowing that there are thousands of children out there without a home to call their own should keep us awake at night. It is easy to play the blame game, which successive Governments have done, particularly over the past decade, but it is time that the Government took some responsibility for their failure.

In 1997, Labour took action to tackle homelessness, and we achieved what organisations such as Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have called an “unprecedented” decline in homelessness. I can only conclude that, after nearly 10 years of Conservative-Lib Dem and Conservative Governments, this has never been, and still is not, a priority of this Government. Homelessness has dramatically increased since 2010 on every measure. No matter how the Minister tries to spin it, the Government have failed and they will continue to fail until they start taking tough action to tackle what is a tough issue. They will spout chosen statistics such as rough sleeping falling last year by 2%—2%! Can Members believe that we almost had the Secretary of State boasting that that was some form of success? It is a small drop that can be accounted for by a range of reasons that have nothing to do with Government action. The number of rough sleepers on the streets has more than doubled since 2010, but that is not a slight change. It can therefore be directly attributed to Government inaction on tackling homelessness and the devastating cuts to local authority services.

Despite the funding the Government have thrown at homelessness, it is not enough to fill the funding hole that they have created. We know all too well that it is not simply about getting people off the streets, incredibly important as that is. It is about all the other things that can lead to people becoming homeless: income; private renting; tenants’ rights; social care; local authority funding and resource; and mental health. They are all areas with fundamental problems that the Government have simply not done enough to address.

The Secretary of State spoke about a death being a sobering reminder of what we face today, but there have been an increasing number of deaths over the past 10 years under his Government, and we have still not had the action that is necessary. If they do not take action, the problems will not get fewer, they will grow and then they will take even more resources to address.

I met representatives of AKT—formerly known as the Albert Kennedy Trust—last year. I also met some young LGBT people who had difficulties with housing. House sharing can be more difficult for a young LGBT person. They may have experienced a family breakdown, which forces them to leave their family home, yet support from cash-strapped local authorities is limited for such people—if it exists at all. None the less, we cannot let it just be a case of handing out some cash in the hope that the homelessness crisis can get better.

We need strategic and concentrated efforts to ensure that housing works for everyone in this country: for young adults who currently spend two thirds of their income on rent; LGBT people who may have experienced family breakdown and need secure housing; veterans coming out of the armed forces, who may have little support in getting back into daily life, including getting a roof over their head; older people who need housing suited to reduced mobility, particularly some help to make it easier for them to downsize if they want to; survivors of domestic violence who feel that they have nowhere safe to live if they leave an abusive partner; children who should not be living in B&Bs or temporary accommodation after temporary accommodation; and lower-income families who need the grounding of a family home, so that they can get on in life. Right now, I do not really know what the Government are doing for these groups. You have to up your game, Secretary of State. We need solutions to this crisis, and we look forward to you finding them.

Housing and Homes

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I am going to speak about street homelessness, because what I observed recently in the seven days that I spent living on the streets of London and in my constituency was a very serious problem of accommodation for single men, and particularly single men who are mentally ill.

Twenty-seven years ago I did the same thing for several months, living as a homeless person but also a homeless mentally ill person. Some things were very similar, as we would expect, and some were very different. What was very different this time was that people like the Mayor of London, Westminster City Council and the Prime Minister are at last taking this problem enormously seriously. What was also very different was that, by my reckoning, about 60% of homeless people in London are born overseas. Indeed, when I was camped out in Covent Garden, I was sleeping next to a very nice Italian and Romanian couple. What is the same, though, is that the same mentally ill and drug-addicted people are still roaming the streets of our cities. The kindness of the public and of churches, mosques, gurdwaras and the staff of amazing organisations such as St Mungo’s was also the same.

What I learned this time round is that it is complicated. Each individual has a different reason for being on the streets, and their problem is not primarily homelessness, although of course that is a problem; it is the reason they are homeless that we need to address if we are going to get anywhere. For example, on one night I was camped out behind the goods-in entrance of McDonald’s by Westminster station. I am sure many Members have seen all those people taking this horrendous drug, Spice. I was sleeping next to a young man from the north of England who was an alcoholic, and he had four cans of beer by the time I woke up on the Saturday morning. He showed me the keys to his home, which was somewhere north of London, but was on the streets because he was lonely and an alcoholic.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and it enriches this place to hear the experience of those who have been on the frontline. Does he agree that his experience underlines why we should not jump to conclusions and generalisations about those who are on the streets, but should deal with each case on its merits?

[Adam Holloway]

Absolutely. We have to segment the homeless as much as we can. The Prime Minister has made an extraordinary commitment to end street homelessness within 10 years, but if we are really serious about solving the problem, we have to see people as individuals. We have to differentiate between different groups. We have to accept that some people have made a lifestyle choice. We have to ask whether the large number of foreign nationals really are here looking for work. We have to be honest and have the courage to look at whether the provision of services to homeless people is enabling able-bodied people to live on the streets, where they quickly get into a whole other load of difficulties.

We also need to think about whether public kindness is enabling addiction. The guy I slept next to outside the McDonald’s goods-in entrance got £30 on the Sunday night from kind members of the public, but that was enabling his addiction. Indeed, one of the homeless workers told me after I had finished making the programme that someone they looked after who was a heroin addict and was in a wheelchair, having lost a leg, firmly believed that if the public had not been so kind to him, he would have sought treatment a lot earlier, but he was able to continue with his addiction because of that kindness from the public.

We also need to accept that we cannot add to our population year after year and not build new homes and not expect that to have some knock-on effect on the people at the very bottom. We also have to accept the impact of the cost of housing. I was sleeping in the doorway of a shop on Tottenham Court Road, and two or three of the people there were actually going off to work, but they slept there because they would rather not, and probably could not, afford to spend £1,000 a month on housing. We need to look at whether, by lumping everyone together, we are making it harder for people who are in the direst need. Most of all, in this welfare state of ours, we need to try to rescue the people at the very bottom from roaming the streets of our cities.

I am making a brief speech because I had a Westminster Hall debate on this subject recently, and others wish to speak. We need to look at the root causes of homelessness, look at each individual and rapidly intervene when they need it, for the mentally ill and the drug addicted, otherwise we will get nowhere.

Street Homelessness

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered street homelessness.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thought I had had the most interesting February recess, but in fact you were sailing through the south Atlantic to South Georgia in rather hazardous circumstances, so I will defer to you.

In the February recess, I wandered into Covent Garden, armed with some cardboard that I had taken from outside a store, and I bedded down for a night under the awning of St Paul’s church. I was there with a very friendly Italian man and a Romanian couple, who were busy checking their phones before going to sleep. My idea was to spend as many days as I could updating myself on the situation of the street homeless in London. I first did that 27 years ago as a much thinner and fitter ex-Army officer, who had only just left the Army and who was trying to become a television reporter. In February, 27 years later, I was doing the same thing as a much fatter Member of Parliament.

I wanted to understand what the Government strategies are to end street homelessness. The Government and the Prime Minister herself have said that they want to eliminate it within 10 years. I wondered how we will do that and whether it will really be possible. I also wanted to look at what effect the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 is likely to have.

I emphasise that, from my perspective, this debate is about street homelessness, which is the obvious problem. There is, however, also the much bigger problem of sofa surfing, which I am not covering at all, although I acknowledge that it is very much there.

Some things have changed, and some things are the same. Things that are the same are the kindness and compassion of members of the public and of the charities dealing with this problem.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. One of the most profoundly moving things I have heard—possibly he heard it too—was after the recent passing of the Rangers and Chelsea footballer Ray Wilkins. On the radio, a moving tribute was paid live on air by a homeless man, who said that, when he was outside a tube station in London, the person who came to him, took him for a hot drink, gave him some money and changed his life was Ray Wilkins. That man said in his tribute that the world might remember Ray Wilkins the footballer, but he will remember the man who saved his life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Holloway]

What a lovely story—I thank the hon. Gentleman.

The other thing that has changed is that the Mayor of London, Westminster City Council, councils across the country and indeed the Government—I do not speak for the Government; I wish I did, but I am just a passed-over Back Bencher—are taking this problem extremely seriously, and I genuinely believe that. The No Second Night Out programme is a good example.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Earlier he mentioned voluntary organisations, and I am sure he agrees that we should pay tribute to those in Coventry, such as the Cyrenians. They are underfunded to a certain extent, which we could have a debate about, but the serious issue is what to do about the problem. We need go less than 100 yards from here, across the road, and every morning we can see someone sleeping rough just under cover where the bookshop is. It is a serious problem, so how do we tackle it? I understand that a private Member’s Bill became law last April—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief.

[Adam Holloway]

I have not come across the Cyrenians, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that across the road is an excellent sleep spot.

The No Second Night Out programme is a good example of an early intervention service. It was launched in 2011 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), now the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and it aims to ensure that no one, once identified, spends a second night sleeping rough in central London. More recently, Sadiq Khan has gone further and set up the No Nights Sleeping Rough Taskforce, trying to come up with new solutions. The taskforce brings together boroughs, voluntary organisations and central Government.

Apart from the proactiveness of the agencies that are helping, I noticed some other differences. In February 2018 the majority of the people I came across living on the streets were foreign nationals. One evening, at a soup kitchen on the Strand, there were—I will not exaggerate this—certainly 200 people. Various church groups—from Maidenhead, I think—and some Ahmadiyya Muslims, a Sikh group and an evangelical group were helping out. I wandered about while shawls and brand-new trainers were handed out, and I honestly did not hear English being spoken by anyone. I heard east European languages, Arabic and Italian.

The statistics seem to bear out my anecdotal evidence. Information collected by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network—the joint agency of people working with rough sleepers that is run by the excellent charity St Mungo’s—records that, in 2016-17, of the rough sleepers in London for whom nationality information was available, 30% were from central and eastern Europe. The figure for non-UK nationals overall was 52.6%; that does not include those who do not wish to give a nationality, and other sources put the figure nearer 60%, which was certainly my experience.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I note that the hon. Gentleman mentioned that those figures relate to London. Does he accept that, UK-wide, only 4% of rough sleepers in England are non-European Union nationals and 16% are EU non-UK nationals? Will he join me in thanking those faith groups who go out to serve all communities, regardless of background, and to help people who are in the direst of straits if they are rough sleeping?

[Adam Holloway]

Well, of course—the hon. Lady need not even have bothered asking the latter question, because it is a no-brainer, isn’t it? As for the numbers for the rest of the country, I do not know—I have not looked at them—but they are very interesting. There are many different people with different sets of figures, and I am sure that hers are correct. With the example of the numbers of foreign nationals living homeless in London, we can take our pick, but the CHAIN figure is the most reliable—I do not think that the figure is much more than 60%, but nor do I think it is much less.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Adam Holloway]

I will in a minute, but I have only got to page 3 of my speech, and I have quite a few more pages, some of which will go on to cover voluntary organisations, for example, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier.

[Mr Cunningham]

I have another slant on this.

[Adam Holloway]

Go on.

[Mr Cunningham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. One of the things that the figures mask is that some people are asylum seekers with no status, going from home to home. In fact, on Monday, I met a group of people who are concerned about this. The figure of 4%, or whatever it might be, belies the real figure. Does he agree?

[Adam Holloway]

Yes. As I said at the beginning of my speech, this debate is about street homelessness, and I totally accept that there is a much bigger and much less visible problem of people sofa surfing. Indeed, tomorrow morning I will be seeing an asylum seeker without recourse to public funds who is in exactly the position that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Going on to the reasons for rough sleeping in 1991 and now, the demographic of the people I met on the streets recently is clearly different, because of the foreign nationals, but the reasons for people being there are as sad and complicated as they always were. Once again, I met that seemingly intractable group—the mentally ill, the drug addicted and, in particular, people suffering from mental health issues. Of the what one might describe as “genuinely” street homeless, the overriding majority had some sort of mental health issue, which is compounded by living on the streets and by drug or alcohol addiction.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. At the last count in Cheltenham, there were nine rough sleepers, often with complex needs relating to substance misuse or poor mental health, as he indicated. Does he agree that, in those circumstances, there can be no substitute for qualified expert and intensive support, such as that provided by P3 in Cheltenham, and that we should continue to fund that generously?

[Adam Holloway]

I do not know P3, but I am sure that it does great work. I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will come on to that point. How we deal with the mentally ill and the drug addicted, how quickly they have access to support, and how the money goes to the teams on the ground is a very important part.

Some of the street homeless I spoke to were ex-soldiers. One guy had separated from his German wife, whom he had met during our time in the Rhine. She had taken the children back there, and he had been living in a forest in Germany for four months. He had come back to London before trying to head back down to the west country.

There are also ex-offenders, some of whom leave prison with £46 in their pocket, although I did not meet any of them. I am sure that there are also those who lost their homes as a result of benefits sanctions, financial problems or the breakdown of relationships, although despite speaking to many dozens of homeless people, I did not come across any of them. But, of course, there are many of them, and there will be many more in the sofa-surfer sector, which we discussed.

The most common theme was mental illness of some kind. If hon. Members have walked along the road to Victoria station, they will have seen all the people zombified out of their heads on this horrible synthetic cannabis, Spice. I spent a night sleeping there, round the back of the “goods in” entrance to McDonalds. I was looking for a suitable place to sleep, and I found a guy sitting on his own. I wandered up to him and had a bit of chat. He was an alcoholic and was quite lonely, and he was quite nervous of all the Spice guys in the area. He said that I could bed down next to him, which I did. He was 30, from the north of England and quite anxious for company. As we lay there in our sleeping bags—him drinking beer—he told me that he had a flat outside London; in fact, he showed me the keys. But he said that when he is in the flat, he just sits there, getting wasted, and sees nobody. I found it terribly sad that he was so lonely that he preferred to be out on the street. That guy illustrates the complexity of rough sleeping and why the problem persists, even when money is being poured into the system and huge numbers of different services exist.

[Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and going on to the streets to find out the realities for himself. I have to respond to the point about pouring money into the system. That is absolutely not the case; money is being poured into the system to react to a crisis. The crisis is caused by the breakdown of our public realm—the decimation of frontline public services and the lack of mental health services and drugs and alcohol services. On the one hand, the Government are pouring in ring-fenced money to tackle the problem, but the breakdown of the social fabric of our society—like in the ’80s and ’90s—is the reason we have such a high level of rough sleeping.

[Adam Holloway]

As I said, I would like to be in the Government, but I am not. We will hear from the Minister, who I think will confirm that enormous amounts of money are being poured in. The hon. Gentleman may have a case in terms of sofa surfers, but for the hard-core rough sleepers, I cannot agree with him. I did not come across the sort of people that he characterised. I accept that, in terms of the other group, he may well be correct, but I think that the number of rough sleepers has much to do with the very high levels of eastern European immigration over the last few years. But he is absolutely right that we still have the intractable problem that, whether or not people think we are pouring in money, we are not getting to the people at the very bottom—I will come to them in a minute.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his initiative to put focus on this issue. Over the Easter recess, I did the 6 am shift with police community support officer Steve Hart, in Sheffield, where I met all the people sleeping in doorways and stairwells. None of them were foreign nationals—they were all British—and they all had the sort of complex problems that he describes. I talked to the agencies that worked with them; the reason why those numbers have gone up each year over the last few years is surely that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) highlighted, starving money from local authorities has minimised not only their ability to deal with the issue, but a key source of funds for the charities in the third sector, which cannot provide the intensive support that people with complex problems need.

[Adam Holloway]

Again, I do not want to be a cop-out, but I will throw that to the Minister. If someone is fit and of sound mind, there are all sorts of services, although not quite 24 hours a day, that make it possible to sleep out. I am 52 years old and I was in the Army; to be honest, sleeping rough in central London is a lot more comfortable than going on exercise when I was in the Army. For those who are mentally ill, drug addicted, old or personality disordered, it is a very different thing.

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Adam Holloway]

Can I go on a little bit, unless the hon. Lady is desperate on this point?

[Laura Smith]

I will hold on.

[Adam Holloway]

We have to accept that some people are able to sleep rough in our cities because there are the resources to do so.

[Laura Smith]

Sorry, I cannot hold on. I have been out with homeless people in Crewe and Nantwich, and I do not relate to what the hon. Gentleman is saying at all. Does he agree that an area that needs to be looked at more closely is the high rate of benefit sanctions among homeless service users and the impact of those sanctions?

[Adam Holloway]

As I said at the beginning, this is a debate about street homelessness. I accept that is probably true in that other sector, but I did not come across it, and I am here to talk about my experience, so I do not know.

The hon. Lady said that she does not recognise what I was saying. I am not saying that even a large minority of the homeless are there because there are resources for them. I am trying to say, and I will develop this later, that we will get nowhere in solving the problem and getting to the people who are most needy if we just continue to talk about the homeless and feel sorry for everybody. We have to focus on the people in real need. Come out with me some time, and I will show you.

[Laura Smith]

I go and help the homeless in my community; we have great volunteers who also help them all the time. Thank you, but we are interpreting the issue completely differently. It worries me that you are not recognising some of the real, ingrained problems. I do not think that anybody would choose to sleep rough—I do not buy that.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I must make a couple of boring points. First, interventions are getting terribly long—Members must make short, one-sentence interventions. Secondly, any Member who says “you” means me. If Members refer to another Member, they must use the third person—“him” or “her”.

[Adam Holloway]

Thank you, Mr Gray. I can only go by my own experience. I am very keen that we should get to the people who are in real need and that we should start treating people as individuals rather than lumping them all together and suggesting that everyone has the same need. I am trying to be honest; I can only go with my experience of three months back in the ’90s.

[Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)]

rose—

[Adam Holloway]

I really should not allow another intervention, as I am on page four of 15 of my speech, but go on.

[Fiona Onasanya]

As you have just said—

[Fiona Onasanya]

Sorry. As the hon. Gentleman just said, we should not lump all homeless people together; rather, we should look at them individually. Does he agree that, based on his own experience, he is taking a broad-brush approach to all homeless people, and that that is incorrect?

[Adam Holloway]

Well, I am not—actually, I have just turned the page, and I am now on page five of 14. I hope I do not give that impression, because I certainly do not think that. People are on the street for a reason. The problem is not homelessness—although of course that is a problem—but whatever reason someone is on the street. I do not think we disagree at all, but I will get to the hon. Lady’s point.

What was my experience with No Second Night Out? That initiative is based on the idea that once someone is identified, they will not spend a second night out. That happens in cities up and down the country. I reported myself to the StreetLink helpline, and I was woken up at about 2 o’clock in the morning by two outreach workers and asked whether I would like to get in an Addison Lee taxi to go to the No Second Night Out south hub in Hither Green. No Second Night Out has three hubs in London—one in the east, one in the north and one in the south. I had a 3 am interview with a charming, extremely competent and razor-sharp member of staff, and I was then taken into an L-shaped room about a third of the size of this Chamber where about 30 people were camped out on the floor with their own bedding. I squeezed into the one remaining space between a refrigerator and some French windows. I got up the next morning, had a Pret A Manger sandwich and some coffee, and later had an assessment interview. Not wanting to take a valuable place, I made my excuses and left.

To be honest, I was quite relieved when I left. The thought of spending days or weeks sleeping on the floor in a cramped room between the refrigerator and the French windows did not appeal to me much. I can completely see how, for someone able-bodied and of sound mind, it would be much more appealing to sleep under the awning of St Paul’s church in Covent Garden or at the “goods in” entrance round the back of McDonald’s in Victoria, because people have freedom in those places. Also, if I were a drug addict, I do not think I would want to abide by the rules that hostels must have to protect the other people there. But if I had been ill or elderly, I would of course have been grateful for that place on the floor and the plan that St Mungo’s, which operates the initiative, has for people eventually to go on and find housing.

Even if I were Alastair Campbell himself, I would find it hard to put in terms quite how extraordinary the staff of St Mungo’s are. Having made my excuses and left, I was walking down the street, and I had gone round the corner from the hostel when its manager ran down the road after me and said, “No, no, no—you don’t have to do this yourself. Come back and we will sort you out.” It was quite remarkable.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Prior to becoming an MP, I worked for YMCA Birmingham dealing with homeless young people. Will my hon. Friend join me in celebrating the £2.2 million it was recently granted by the Government to refurbish its 72-bed hostel in Northfield, creating facilities for organisations such as Mind to provide support to formerly homeless people?

[Adam Holloway]

Absolutely. Indeed, I experienced that. For another programme I made some years ago, I pretended to be a homeless mentally ill person in Birmingham. When I was discharged from Queen Elizabeth psychiatric hospital, I went to that very institution and the people there arranged to look after me. That was 30 years ago.

[Laura Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Adam Holloway]

Yes, of course—I love the outrage.

[Laura Smith]

I find it unbelievable that the hon. Gentleman would pretend to be a homeless mentally ill person. That just shows how detached he is from the situation. I find that insulting.

[Adam Holloway]

All I can do is suggest that the hon. Lady watches that “World in Action” series from 27 years ago and draws her own conclusions about whether that was a good thing. Let us have a chat about it when she has done that.

Let us carry on with some realities. It is very depressing, after 27 years, to look at streets with the same cohorts of mentally ill and drug-addicted people on them—the people who fall through the cracks in the system. Although the police are more able to intervene when a mentally ill person is on the streets and local authorities have particular duties to those who are vulnerable due to mental illness, the reality is that someone who has had serious psychiatric problems is extremely unlikely to maintain a tenancy or stay off the streets for some time. Indeed, I had not appreciated the churn of people—even when people are engaged, the system does not seem able to keep them for the time that it needs to.

Let us be honest about the correlation between immigration and the rising number of street homeless. It is no surprise to me that, in 2016-17, 1,950 rough sleepers were migrants from Romania, Poland and Lithuania. Obviously, homelessness is a much greater risk when people are far from home and from familial support structures. It became clear to me that some migrants sleep on the streets by choice, preferring to sleep rough than to pay for accommodation. It is a no-brainer that years of high immigration and of successive Governments not building enough houses will have a knock-on effect for people at the bottom of society. Of course that will make rents unaffordable.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Scottish National party Scottish Government have presided over a decade-long slump in Scottish house building? We went from almost 26,000 new builds in 2007 to almost 17,000 in 2016. That is totally unacceptable, and it has fuelled homelessness in Scotland.

[Adam Holloway]

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), will attest to the fact that I am not well enough versed on what is happening in the rest of the country, so I cannot answer that question, but if my hon. Friend says that, I imagine it must be true.

On people from eastern Europe, perhaps it is time to ask ourselves whether it is exploitative to build an economy on cheap labour provided by those who can barely afford to accommodate themselves in our country. We could of course argue that those people are not strictly homeless, because they might have a home back home, but that is their reality when they are here.

My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) alluded to the housing crisis. We must face up to the inevitable impact of that crisis, and of the related issues of lack of supply and affordability, on homelessness. It is estimated that between 2010 and 2016, population growth, including net international migration, was around 1.58 million. The number of rough sleepers has increased by 169% since 2010. In 2016-17, the housing stock in the UK increased by around 217,000 residential dwellings—an increase of 15% from the previous year, but short of the estimated quarter of a million-odd new homes required to keep up with household formation.

It is not difficult to see that the sums just do not add up, including under this Government. Although the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 strengthens the duties of local authorities to provide advisory services to people threatened with homelessness and encourages pre-emptive action where house building has not kept up with population increases, it is absurd to think that that will not impact the people at the bottom of society who are often the most unseen—not those on the streets but those on sofas.

We must address the fact that homelessness impacts men and women in different ways. Rough sleepers are overwhelmingly men. During my recent stint on the streets, I saw only a handful of women whom I unscientifically judged to be street homeless—the big giveaway is people carrying bags and suitcases. CHAIN data for 2016-17 shows that only 15% of rough sleepers in London were women. Part of the issue must be that those who care for young children—typically women—are rightly prioritised in the allocation of social housing. However, somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten that men who live on the streets were once part of a family unit.

[Laura Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Adam Holloway]

I would love to give way again; the hon. Lady is so informed.

[Laura Smith]

Again, I am astounded by the misogynistic comment that it should be women who look after the children. I know that is a different issue to the debate, but I cannot let it go by.

[Adam Holloway]

I will read what I said again: part of the issue must be that the allocation of housing priorities goes to those who care for young children, who are typically women, and rightly so.

[Laura Smith]

“And rightly so”!

[Adam Holloway]

Yes, absolutely. It is right for housing priority to go to people who look after children, and typically they are women. Again, I am just stating the reality. If it is different, the hon. Lady should tell us.

Let us move on. We must recognise the particular challenge of mental health issues that affect men, and the way that men who battle for many years with the perceived stigma of mental health problems can be particularly susceptible to a sudden crisis that can lead to homelessness. I also learned about the ways homelessness affects women. Some women in London ride the bus for 24 hours a day to stay off the streets, and some go from place to place in return for a bed to sleep in.

We must also address the issue of how people’s generosity can sometimes be as much part of the problem as the solution. The man I met near Victoria station spent the night drinking beer bought with £30 that kind members of the public had come up and given him that evening. St Mungo’s staff told me of a client who had abused drugs for many years and had a leg amputated as a result, but who finally managed to get clean. This man told them that if he had not been given money by the public for so long he would have sought help much sooner. Begging is part of the problem—an able-bodied person can make quite a lot of money from begging on the streets of London. Generosity by members of the public is a factor in this; generosity can be enabling and mask those in real need.

[Fiona Onasanya]

Will the hon. Gentleman please clarify whether he seeks to assert that people would rather be homeless and hope for public generosity than in a place where they can have their own income?

[Adam Holloway]

No, and rather like the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), the hon. Lady is not listening. I am not saying that; I am saying that if someone is a drug addict, the generosity of members of the public can enable their addiction. I just gave the example of a guy who was on the streets for years and had a leg amputated, and who now believes that if the public had not been so generous, he might have sought help much sooner.

[Fiona Onasanya]

I recall the hon. Gentleman said that people can make money from being on the street—I am paraphrasing, but will he please clarify that point?

[Adam Holloway]

I will change that sentence. A person can make money in order to buy drugs to feed their addiction—that point was pretty clear in what I said.

An added complexity is that there seems to be a perception among some of those involved in helping the homeless that in order to access services someone needs to sleep on the streets. Surely we should be helping people earlier. The endless churn of people entering the system—many of whom could and should have been helped earlier—makes the job of organisations who are trying to care for those vulnerable, and trapped, people even more difficult.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about the trapped nature of many homeless people. I recently visited a homeless shelter in Glasgow and I discovered a vicious cycle for people who might get a job, but they cannot then secure it because they do not have a bank account, and they cannot get a bank account because they do not have a job or permanent address. That puts people into a spiral of despair, which may well lead to them having addiction problems—no wonder they have addiction problems given the cycle of despair they are in.

[Adam Holloway]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s overall point. I think the business of not having an address has been dealt with by quite a lot of charities, but it is clearly much harder to hold down a job for someone who also has the complexity of sorting themselves out every night and living on the streets. I definitely agree with that.

How should we tackle the problem? From my experience of sleeping rough in 2018, I would say that our priority must be to ensure that we do not make the mistake of lumping all rough sleepers together. That stops us recognising people’s problems, and often means that we not go far enough to tackle the underlying reasons for rough sleeping. We also need urgently to address how mental health problems experienced by rough sleepers are identified and treated. Since my recent experience on the streets, a link has been made between the scaling back of mental health services and a rise in homelessness. An outreach worker, and former rough sleeper, told me only yesterday how he literally begged a doctor to get him some sort of treatment when no mental health services were available to help him.

Outreach workers also speak about their frustration at the lack of emergency mental health assessments, and the desperate need for help at the right time and in the right place. A supervisor at the No Second Night Out hub in London said that sometimes when someone arrives who is obviously suffering from a mental illness, the charity has to hold that severely mentally ill person in the hostel for up to three weeks before they get a mental health assessment. During that time the support workers, who are not psychiatric nurses, have to try to contain the situation, which is hugely challenging. If the person is accepted into an NHS mental health unit—that does not always happen, particularly if the person is a drug addict—more often than not, as has been said, they are simply released on to the streets a few weeks later.

Clearly there is an urgent need for mental health teams to be embedded with outreach teams so that they can look at the needs of an individual and refer them without any delay for the treatment they require. Homelessness charities say that there is no point putting enormous amounts of money into general mental health budgets, where it just disappears. The money has to go to the tip of the spear and stay with those people as they go through the system, so that we do not get the churn I have spoken about.

Thankfully, the problem of homelessness seems to be higher up the political agenda than ever before, and the Government’s 2015 Budget increased central Government funding for homelessness programmes to £140-odd million over the following four years. However, it is important that that money is used correctly, at the tip of the spear, focusing on the immediate needs of those on the streets and getting them the help they require, rather than being wasted on intervention that comes too late or does not tackle the root cause of someone’s homelessness.

If we are serious about this issue—I think the Government’s target is potentially over-ambitious—we must see people as individuals not just as homeless people. We must differentiate between different groups and have the courage to look at whether the provision of service is enabling some people to live on the streets, but obscuring others from the help that they need. We must think carefully about whether public kindness is enabling some addiction, and whether by lumping everyone together we are masking those in real need. In this country where we spend gazillions of pounds on a welfare state, we must try to rescue the people at the very bottom of our society from roaming the streets of our cities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)]

It is always a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) on securing the debate and on his extraordinary account of what he learned.

I care passionately about this issue, as do other Opposition Members, because homelessness is the ultimate symbol of the gross inequality that scars our country and, in my case, the city region of Greater Manchester. We are proud of the renaissance of Manchester, but we cannot celebrate the cranes in the sky, which represent growth and development, while so many people are sleeping in shop doorways before our eyes. This issue also matters to me because in the 1960s, a middle-aged woman was found sleeping in a Manchester park with her young twins. The police officer who found her said, “You can sleep here, madam, but the children can’t,” and they were whisked into care. That middle-aged woman was my grandmother, who was a war widow battling mental health problems, and the twins were my uncle and aunt. The point that I want to make is it that can happen to anyone, and anyone’s family.

Why do we face such a shocking situation—one that in my view is a repeat of the “no such thing as society” ’80s and ’90s? The hon. Member for Gravesham listed the range of people who could be rough sleepers. It is important to underline the need to look at things on an individual-by-individual basis, as there are many causes. Two points I want to make are that, first, many foreign nationals are of course not eligible for public funding, which creates a range of problems for the system and, secondly, that I do not think that the hon. Gentleman meant to say that someone is better off sleeping on the streets than being in the military. That would, I think, be a great indictment.

[Adam Holloway]

I just said that sleeping in central London, if someone is able-bodied, is no worse than being on exercises in the military. It certainly would not be the case for someone who was mentally ill or drug-addicted.

[Mr Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification.

I want to talk about the consequences of the slash-and-burn approach that has decimated public services as a consequence of the Government’s policies. The rhetoric is about a shift to prevention and early intervention, but the reality is that slashing and burning local authorities’ budgets has reduced them to providing their minimum legal responsibilities. Prevention and early intervention go out of the window. As for voluntary organisations, we no longer hear the term “the big society”. The reason why that was killed—that it was dropped and never mentioned—was that at the same time as the Government were talking about the growth in the importance of voluntary organisations, they were slashing the funding that they depended on. It is nonsense to talk about the big society. The alleged commitment to localism has proved to be complete nonsense. If you were running a business, Mr Gray, and you had a 50% cut in your budget over four years, you would go bankrupt or would be likely to go out of business. That is what is happening to local authorities under all political direction throughout the country. We are paying a heavy price for that.

I welcome the ring-fenced money that the Government have made available to tackle the issues, especially in Greater Manchester, but the irony is that the money, which is not adequate, is necessary only because of the impact of their social policy failures and cuts. It is right, therefore, that in a debate of this kind we do not say, “Take the politics out of it.” There is a rough sleeping epidemic as a direct consequence of political decisions. However, it is incumbent on an Opposition to offer creative and positive solutions, and Greater Manchester deserves tremendous credit for the innovative approach it is taking under the leadership of its Mayor, Andy Burnham, working with the 10 local authorities, the voluntary sector, faith groups and the private sector. The Mayor’s ambitious and morally right commitment is to end rough sleeping by 2020—seven years ahead of the Government commitment. They are committed only to ensuring that no one has to sleep on the streets of this country by 2027. I argue that that is a massive lack of ambition, in view of the humanitarian crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Holloway]

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their speeches, and the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) for his excellent intervention. It was fascinating to hear about the grandmother of the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis). Thank God we have moved on some way from that. I would love to hear more about Stan at some point.

We need to think about the realities of homelessness and see it for what it is, rather than how we would like to characterise it. Homelessness is of course a problem, but it is only a symptom. We will get nowhere if we do not get to the underlying problems these people face. As we have seen from this debate, if we cannot discuss this honestly, without the degree of ignorance and prejudice that we saw from a couple of hon. Members, we will get nowhere. We have to treat homeless people as individuals. We have to segment people to some extent, so that we do not mask the problems of the people at the very bottom of our society, who—at the moment and for generations—we have not managed to reach.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered street homelessness.