Youth Homelessness

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I was going to make a proper speech, but as hon. Members may have noticed, I have a small problem with my voice today. I shall be very brief and make just two observations.

I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this debate. My first observation, when the hon. Lady talked about building more homes, was that we need to start being honest. One of the significant reasons for our housing shortage in this country is net immigration. Last year, we took just under 700,000 new people and built just under 150,000 new homes. We do not have to be rocket scientists to realise that that is absolutely going to drive things in the wrong direction for the sort of people the hon. Lady was talking about.

Secondly, I believe I am the only person in Parliament who has spent a significant time living homeless on the streets of various cities in this country and overseas. In total, I think I have spent about five months homeless, including about four months on the streets of London, for television documentaries where I played the part without cheating. A big observation from that time is that the overwhelming majority of young people who are on the streets of Britain’s cities, and indeed those of the United States and so many other places in Europe, are there because of drug addiction. Until we start to treat drug addicts primarily as people who are unwell, and only secondly as committing criminal acts, we will get nowhere with this problem. Particularly for young people, but also across the board, the money, effort and rhetoric that we put into the criminal justice system to deal with drug addicts, who are sick people, needs to be diverted into the health system. Until that happens, we will continue to have relatively large numbers of sick young people living rough on the streets of our cities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Dame Siobhain. I speak not only as the shadow Minister responding to this debate on youth homelessness, but as a former Connexions manager. It was my job, with my team, to get people into education, training, work and housing.

Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this important debate. As a former shadow Minister and the joint chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness, she has a genuine passion for this subject, as she showed eloquently in her powerful speech. Like myself and many others, she is determined to provide the homes, support and housing that young people need.

Yesterday, as my hon. Friend said, this Government broke even more records on homelessness. Despite bold promises to end the most visible form of homelessness—rough sleeping—by the end of this year, in reality, rough sleeping, which affects many young people up and down the country, rose by 27% last year. That is more than double the number of people recorded as rough sleeping in 2010, when records began.

Despite spending a considerable amount of money—I imagine the Minister will reference a figure around £2.3 billion—the current approach is simply not working. It is broken. It is there for all to see, whether it be a visible form of homelessness on the streets of London, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and so forth, or the people many of us know who come to our surgeries and who are sofa surfing or living in temporary accommodation. Is the Minister confident that the Government will deliver on the target of ending rough sleeping by the end of 2024? What is not working? It would be useful to have a response in the not-too-distant future.

[Adam Holloway]

For street homeless people who are drug-addicted, part of the problem is that if someone needs to beg for a couple of hundred pounds a day to feed their addiction, the answer is not for them to be accommodated somewhere in south London. They need to be at a main station or in a capital city to get the money to pay for the drugs. I think the hon. Member will agree that that is a real conundrum.

[Mike Amesbury]

I do not disagree with the hon. Member. In fact, I recently met Baroness Casey, who has worked across Governments of all political colours, and she repeated that exact argument. I agree 100%.

Again, as referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, another record was broken yesterday: 112,660 families now live in costly temporary accommodation, costing around £1.8 billion a year—a 12.1% increase since last year. Shamefully, we now have 145,800 children living in temporary accommodation, and in that regard I pay tribute to you, Dame Siobhain, for all the work you have consistently done and will continue to do in championing their cause.

Youth homelessness is also up, with 136,000 young people presenting as homeless to local councils—a 5% rise on the previous figure of 129,000—and that is just the tip of the iceberg, if we take account of those who are sofa surfing, in temporary accommodation or bed and breakfasts, or sleeping in friends’ houses on a temporary basis and so on. As my hon. Friend said, young people are often overlooked in the homelessness emergency and get a raw deal from a system that is often overstretched and uninformed. A point echoed by hon. Members across the Chamber today is that training is required to remedy that.

Research by Centrepoint suggests that 67% of young people were not prevented from becoming homeless by local councils last year. I am keen to hear the Minister explain how she will ensure that local authorities, including councils, up and down the country respond to their obligations laid out in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

As a Wythenshawe lad, I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend refer to Lord Morris of Manchester, a previous MP for Manchester, Wythenshawe. She is right; almost 40 years on from his speech on youth homelessness in 1985—the year I left school—and despite innovations by the last Labour Government, which left office some 14 years ago, very little has changed. We still have a Government who lack political leadership, operate in silence, provide insufficient support and are certainly not building the genuinely affordable homes that people need. I came into politics because I genuinely want a socially just society. Ending all forms of homelessness must be a driving goal of any future Labour Minister or Labour Government. I commend the great work of all the charities here today—Centrepoint, New Horizon Youth Centre and Depaul UK—and the hundred youth organisations that came together and called for a national youth homelessness plan for the 136,000.

Let me outline what Labour’s approach would be. The four pillars would be, first, upstream and informed; secondly, cross-departmental political leadership; thirdly, the supply of genuinely affordable housing and supported housing for young people; and fourthly, providing a helping hand. Before that, however, an immediate intervention is required on section 21 no-fault evictions. Sadly, since 2019 nearly 80,000 households, far too many of them young people, have been put at risk of homelessness. We must have no more kicking the can down the road with the narrative of court reform. A Labour Administration will end no-fault evictions for good. They will be abolished.

Let me outline the pillars in turn. The first is upstream and informed. On youth homelessness, we need to get upstream of all the problems. All too often, young people become homeless when they are passed between institutions and fall through the many glaring cracks in the system. Early intervention and identification in schools and colleges will be required, with better support for children, parents and carers. I find this quite irritating, because I was previously a Connexions manager and had staff who did exactly that until the coalition Government abolished Connexions. We can learn from some of the good things of the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree mentioned data collection, which is a clarion call for the 100 or so organisations working in this area. It should be strengthened and not reliant on freedom of information requests. As my hon. Friend pointed out, that could be achieved by a simple change to the Homelessness Reduction Act.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, for individuals at the heart of the homelessness emergency, trauma and mental health issues are often at the core of their story. Homelessness could be prevented and ended for good if we had person-centred psychological support. I know that Centrepoint and other charities provide such support, but we need to hardwire it into the system. Trauma-informed care must be part of a successful strategy. That would please my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree.

The second pillar is political leadership on ending the silos. We have to stop Government Departments operating in silos. It was mentioned that a previous Minister attempted to do that, but let us look at when we have had some success. I mentioned Dame Louise Casey, whom I met again recently. We created a cross-departmental rough sleepers unit that sat in the Cabinet Office and drove that programme forward, and we saw a real reduction in rough sleeping and the use of temporary housing. That was 14 years ago under the Labour Government, and we can certainly learn from that as we work in the context of a new landscape, with metro Mayors and devolved Administrations across the UK.

Pillar three will be building more genuinely affordable homes—social homes, council homes and housing that is youth specific, with the appropriate stock. Supply is key. We have stated that a future Labour Administration will build 1.5 million homes over five years, and genuinely affordable homes—homes for social rent—have to be a fundamental part of the mix. We will build homes on a scale that people in this country have not seen in generations. Last year, the Government created 9,500 homes for social rent. There are 1.3 million people on the housing need register. If we take into account homes that were bought through right to buy and demolitions, the figure is minus 14,000 every year since 2010. The system is broken. We have to build the houses. Labour has to get Britain building again for all our people, but particularly young people.

Finally, the fourth pillar is about providing a helping hand. The Labour party is the party of work—that is what “labour” means. We were set up by the trade unions and the labour movement to provide good, secure work. The current social security system penalises people, particularly young people living independently and trying to get on with a job, education and training. That has to change. My colleagues in the shadow DWP team are determined to ensure that they have good, secure work. We will deal with the systemic issues. There was a reference to care leavers and council tax and so forth. We will provide a hand up to ensure that people can stay in their homes or move to other homes.

Ending youth homelessness is not just a moral imperative, as stated by my good colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. It costs over £27,000 per individual—£8.5 billion—but the issue is more important than that. It is about young people’s hopes, dreams and futures. I hope that in future as a Minister I can do my bit to provide hope, houses and opportunities.

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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.