Homeless People and Rough Sleeping

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We are absolutely not complacent, as I said in my initial Answer. In fact, between October and December, when the snapshot was taken, our management accounts show that homelessness reduced by 27%—although I acknowledge that that is partly as a result of seasonal variations, which happen every year. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 was the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades. Since it came into force in 2018, over half a million households have been prevented from becoming homeless or have been supported into settled accommodation. As a demonstration of our determination not to be complacent, we have put £2 billion into the fund to help reduce homelessness. The noble Baroness is entirely wrong to use 2010 as a comparator, because that is when the statistics were started on this basis. She might like to know that we are almost up to the level of highest number of households in temporary accommodation, which was in 2004.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the one silver lining of the awful tragedy of the Covid pandemic was the Everyone In project, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey? But the chance to keep every homeless person in was then, frankly, squandered. Will the Minister agree to look into that wasted opportunity—the extraordinary waste of the chance at that particular moment? Will she come back to the House and explain why the Government have wasted that one critical moment when everyone was in, which could have been used to hit that specific target in the Conservative manifesto? That is clearly not going to be reached, as evidenced by the statistics yesterday.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think we can all agree that the statistics yesterday were deeply disappointing. That is certainly a reflection of the cost of living, with a number of people being evicted from rental accommodation having fallen behind in arrears. However, there is much that we are doing to help: we have the rough sleeping initiative, Housing First, the Night Shelter Transformation fund, supported housing, and we are funding local authorities to provide assisted housing. We are doing a number of different things, which are all wrapped up in a £2 billion package, and, having spoken to the banks, I can assure the noble Baroness that we are all fighting the same war and that we still stick to our manifesto pledge to get rid of homelessness.