Prisons: Releasing Women into Safe and Secure Housing Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Burt of Solihull
Main Page: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Burt of Solihull's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberI think that robust categories are in place. We define homelessness, in accordance with the legal definition, as being where the individual does not have any accommodation available and reasonable for them to occupy, including where they may be rough sleeping, squatting or in a night shelter, emergency hostel or campsite. It is very important to ensure that we are all looking at the same data. We publish the data annually and I invite all noble Lords to look at those figures.
My Lords, the disparity between government figures and those of the independent monitoring board is because we do not have one standard measure of what acceptable accommodation for prison leavers looks like. It is not a sofa, and it is not a tent. Will the Minister commit to facilitating the production of one standard measure? What we do not measure, we cannot manage.
I absolutely agree with that point. I have said from this Dispatch Box, on a number of areas, that data is absolutely critical. We need to ensure that we are looking at the same thing. I set out the legal definition of homelessness, and we publish statistics on this. I am pleased to say that there has been an improvement in the figures recently. The percentage of prison leavers recorded as either homeless or rough sleeping has fallen from 16% to 12%. We want to make that even better.