Homelessness

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

In the interests of being collegiate, I will seek to limit my remarks to eight or nine minutes in order to allow others to get in.

Let me first thank the official Opposition for tabling the motion. Understandably, because this is a devolved issue, the text of the motion refers only to the situation in England, but we all know that homelessness does not stop at the border. Even in my own city of Glasgow, homelessness is still a major concern, and that is something I will come back to later in my remarks.

Put simply, one person sleeping rough is one too many and we must always do more to eradicate the scourge of homelessness from our society. As well as acknowledging where we must improve, it is important to highlight what we are doing right in Scotland. I do not do this to give the Scottish Government a pat on the back; this is more in the spirit of sharing good practice. Having said that, I am incredibly proud that in Scotland we have some of the strongest rights for homeless people in the world. There is more to be done, though, to tackle rough sleeping, and I would like to touch on some of the Scottish Government’s actions and policies in my contribution today.

A couple of years ago, it was an honour to hear from Josh Littlejohn, the founder of Social Bite and a leading homelessness campaigner in Scotland, when he spoke passionately about the Housing First model in his address to the Parkhead Housing Association’s annual John Wheatley lecture. I was struck by the Secretary of State talking about Housing First earlier, but most people in the Gallery this afternoon and most people watching at home might not know what Housing First does. For their benefit, let me tell the House that it is based on the simple premise that accommodation should be provided as the first step in tackling homelessness, in order to create the stability required to deal with other complex needs and issues that a person might have.

The Housing First model derives from Finland, where it has delivered significant positive outcomes for people, so it is not hard to see why Social Bite threw its weight behind it. The Scottish Government have backed Social Bite’s Housing First programme, which is now starting to bring welcome results. Between April and December last year, 186 people were housed through the scheme, 91% of whom continue to sustain their tenancies. That is a remarkable figure that speaks for itself. It must be highlighted that this model truly shows that there has to be a different way of doing things to break the cycle of homelessness. The Conservative manifesto in December committed to expanding its own Housing First pilot, and the Government should be in no doubt that there are many Members on these Benches who will hold them to that promise. There needs to be a lot more than lip service and words in a manifesto, so we will certainly hold them to that.

Most of us know from our casework that many people who become homeless or end up sleeping rough have complex needs that require specialist support as well as a house. The usual approach—which has arguably failed—has been to provide support to get a person tenancy-ready before giving them a house, but that can mean that they spend long periods of time in temporary accommodation, making it harder for them to address the other issues they face. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said, for example, a number of people cannot get into temporary accommodation because they have pets.

At this juncture, I want to pay tribute to the Bethany Christian Trust, which has a project in my constituency that is supported very ably by Shona Howard, its community resettlement worker. At the end of October last year, I was privileged to be able to join Paul and Colin, who had been housed by the Bethany Christian trust in flats in the Tollcross area of my constituency. One of the things that I was most impressed by when I visited Paul and Colin at the New Charter was the fact that Bethany was not only housing them but proactively helping them to develop other life skills. For the guys in that case, it was through a cookery course. We know the benefits of that kind of wraparound support, not just for housing but for the wider community.

The Scottish Government’s £50 million Ending Homelessness Together fund is helping to deliver the actions recommended by the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group, because we recognise that we have much more to do to end rough sleeping in particular. Now, 39 of the 49 actions in the 2018 Ending Homelessness Together action plan have already either commenced or been completed, and plans for the remaining 10 are in place for this year. But we are under no illusion: the work is not finished. As the Secretary of State said, winter is always a particularly challenging time for homeless people, and that is why over £350,000 of extra funding has been provided to help people to stay safe and warm. This also involves a new multi-agency one- stop hub in my own city of Glasgow to support people who are sleeping rough and those who are at risk of homelessness.

Getting people off the streets and into warmth and safety is imperative, and we cannot do that without the support of the Glasgow Night Shelter, which is hosted by colleagues at the Glasgow City Mission. Last year, that centre provided beds for 691 people, and I commend the many churches—including my own, the Parkhead Nazarene church—that are taking turns to provide volunteers to staff the night shelter. We also need to provide accommodation for people on a permanent basis, and the solution to that is clearly to build more social rented affordable homes. That is something that the Scottish Government are committed to, with their record investment of £3.3 billion to deliver on the ambitious target of getting 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.

We cannot have a debate on homelessness without looking at supply issues and social housing. In the four years to 2019, the SNP Government delivered five times more social rented homes per head of population than were delivered in England and almost twice the number of affordable homes delivered in Wales. Meanwhile, under the Tories, we know that council house building in England has fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s, evictions are at record levels, and a mere one in five council homes has been replaced when sold. That firmly tells us that this Government have learned nothing from Margaret Thatcher’s disastrous right-to-buy policy, which left a lasting scar on my constituency of Glasgow East.

Homelessness can be triggered for a multitude of reasons, including mental health and addiction, but there can be no doubt that the spike in homelessness has not been helped by the austerity agenda imposed by the British Government over the past decade. Whether it is the swingeing cuts to social security or the punitive bedroom tax, people losing their homes or ending up in extreme poverty can be attributed to all those things. In Scotland, we have acted to end the punitive bedroom tax, but that comes at a cost of £150 million a year to the Scottish Government, so I guess that raises a broader question about the purpose of devolution and devolved budgets. For example, is devolution merely to act as a sticking plaster for bad policy made here in London? On so many occasions, Scotland tries to tackle issues such as homelessness only to have one hand tied behind its back while being hindered by bad law made in this place. Regardless of the constitutional settlement in these islands, Scotland will play its part to eradicate the scourge of homelessness in 2020, and we intend to work flat out until that is achieved.

As I said, I do not want to speak for too long, because I know that other colleagues want to contribute tonight, but I end by quoting Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, who said in September last year:

“Making sure that everyone has a home where they can begin to rebuild their lives benefits all of us. Once again Scotland has shown it is a world leader in tackling homelessness and this commitment is a major step forward towards it being the first nation in Great Britain to end homelessness for good.”

That is the mission, and we are intent on accomplishing it in the coming months.

[Several hon. Members rose—]