Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important issue. It is vital that we take steps to eradicate rough sleeping. We are fully committed to making sure that everyone has a roof over their head and, importantly, the security they need in their home. That is why we pledged in our manifesto to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027, and to at least halve it by 2022. We have committed £1 billion to tackling rough sleeping and homelessness, but this is not only about money. We are changing how councils approach the issue, so we are implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—a superb private Member’s Bill introduced by our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman)—to help more people get tailored support sooner when they are at risk of homelessness.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will know that I have raised the issue of antisocial behaviour on a number of occasions, particularly the scourge of motorbikes being used for antisocial behaviour. May we have a debate to look at what other measures we can introduce to deal with that, and in particular whether we can get all petrol stations to stop selling petrol to people driving motorbikes illegally and looking suspicious—as has happened in Hull with Operation Yellowfin, where 12 responsible petrol stations have agreed that they will not serve petrol—as one of the measures to try to tackle it?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue again. She brings up antisocial behaviour regularly, and she is right to do so because it is a scourge on many communities. She raises the interesting question of whether those selling fuel could do more, and I urge her to raise that issue at Home Office questions on Monday 4 June.