Oral Answers to Questions

David Mackintosh Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising such effective questions with such good effect. On circuses and wild animals, we have a manifesto commitment. We did not manage to meet it in the last Parliament. We license these things so strictly that I think we are now talking about one or possibly two circuses—[Interruption.] Two; thank you very much. We are still committed to legislating when parliamentary time allows.

[David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)]

Later today, colleagues from across the House and I will launch the all-party group on ending homelessness. Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the work of organisations around the country, including the Northampton Association for the Accommodation of the Single Homeless and the Hope Centre in my constituency? Will he pledge that, as a Government, we will do all we can to help homeless people and to address the causes of homelessness so that we can end the problem once and for all?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly welcome my hon. Friend’s launch of that all-party group. We need to work both on rough sleeping, where we face particular challenges at the moment—there are some good operations under way to try to deal with that—and on homelessness, at the heart of which is the need to build more houses. That is why we have an £8 billion housing programme to build 400,000 houses and we hope to build, by the end of this Parliament, 1 million new homes. That is the key. All the arguments about homelessness, in the end, come down to providing effective homes.