Homelessness

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness for the reference to downloading the StreetLink app backed by Homeless Link. That is very valuable advice and I encourage people to do that. On her second point, as I indicated, this is not just about money. Of course the money is important, and we have committed money to it. We announced money just this week in relation to 11 more hubs and we have the rough sleeping initiative areas that were announced previously: much money is committed there. We have to make sure the money is properly spent, so, yes, it is about the money, but it is not just about that, and nor is this problem unique to England. Sadly it is, broadly speaking, a pan-European problem. There have been some successes in Finland and we had a representative of Finland on the rough sleeping advisory board. Our noble Lord, Lord Bird, is on it, as are the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, Andy Street and others. It meets regularly and it is taking action and taking the initiative. Once again, I encourage local authorities to look at whether they can bid in for some of the money relating to cold weather. The point is that it is not just about money, important though that is.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, some years ago I took part in one of those rather insane television programmes which meant that I slept on the streets for about eight nights. Even though I was completely safe and I knew that it was coming to an end, I cannot begin to describe the feelings of hopelessness and terror that it induced in me. It was not just that I was hopeless and terrified and had nothing but that I had nowhere to go. I was frequently told, “Go and get a job”—which was quite impossible. I was wearing rubbishy old clothes and had carrier bags and I was not even allowed to sit in a café. It seems to me that we put charity money into keeping people perhaps safe overnight—and safety is very marginal in some of these shelters, especially for women, as I know—but they have to be helped to get out of this situation and to get jobs. It is not enough to hurl a few pounds to give them a hot dinner over Christmas. This is about the rest of their lives and the cost and the shame to all of us. I beseech the Government to take this much more seriously.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Baroness. First, I do take this extremely seriously. The noble Baroness is right that there is a short-term issue of getting help immediately, which we should not belittle as it is a real issue and it is right that we do that—but there is a longer-term issue, particularly about finding jobs. The noble Baroness is right about that. That is why some of the commitments that we are making in the rough sleeping strategy relate to just that: the wraparound, the commitment to see that individuals—and these are individuals, very much so—are helped and that we ensure that help gets to them, particularly in relation to finding jobs. I agree with that.