Rough Sleeping

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Patricia Gibson

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but I would suggest that the question is slightly more nuanced. If, for the sake of argument, I was running a hostel that people did not want to come into, I would be questioning why that was the case. As I have moved around the country, I have seen excellent examples of accommodation which people feel is safer, more secure and more appropriate than sleeping on the street. If the hon. Lady has examples of hostels where she thinks that people do not feel that degree of comfort, I would be happy to work with her and look at that with my team. We should be ensuring that all accommodation of this type, for particularly vulnerable people, is appropriate.

To run through some of the other things the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said regarding scrapping the Vagrancy Act, my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster reminded us what the Secretary of State said previously: we do have quite a busy legislative programme. It is almost amusing to me that it feels like we have barely had the previous Queen’s Speech, and already the hon. Member for Weaver Vale is talking about the next one. We have reviewed the Act, and are considering what action to take. We do not want to get rid of an Act and find that there is an unintended consequence; some useful element that we have thrown in the bin, but which we in this room would not be keen on losing.

With regards to long-term funding: the upcoming spending review is something way above my pay grade. However, it is something that I am contributing to as somebody who has experienced the vagaries of waiting for funding settlements in order to employ staff, and, unfortunately, as someone who has even had staff leave because they felt their position was insecure. We would all accept that, like the rest of us, the Chancellor has been through a pretty dramatic 18 months. We are moving into a more settled position thanks to the success of the vaccine rollout, and the economy seems to be getting back on its feet. Hopefully, the Chancellor feels suitably reassured and is able to give us a couple of years’ funding to provide that certainty.

With regards to a refreshed strategy, I am delighted to have spent a considerable amount of time discussing with Ministers in other Departments what they need to contribute to help us reach the ambition of ending rough sleeping during the lifetime of this Parliament. We have seen some fantastic schemes, such as work done with the Ministry of Justice on the accommodation and settlement of prisoners when they come out of prison—a very delicate time to ensure that they do not automatically reoffend and go back in.

[Patricia Gibson]

In the interests of working together and learning from one another—which is very important on an issue like this—regarding the Minister’s understandable comments about the unintended consequences of the abolition of the Vagrancy Act, he may wish to look at the Scottish example. This Act has been abolished in Scotland for decades. He may wish to look at how that has worked, and see if it can be applied to England.

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Under no circumstances do this Government have a monopoly on good ideas, so I will be happy to have a look at that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Patricia Gibson

Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

My right hon. and learned Friend will be delighted to know that we will update the regulations relating to fuel, power and ventilation this year, in advance of the introduction of the future homes standard in 2025. But we are not waiting for 2025; in the short term, our priority will be to implement an interim 2021 part L uplift. That sounds a bit esoteric, but it means that there will be a 31% reduction in carbon production compared with the 2013 standard. With regard to the point that he makes about performance standard versus design standard, I would be delighted to meet him and his constituent to discuss that further.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The SNP plans, during the next Parliament, to put £1.6 billion into decarbonising the way buildings are heated in Scotland. Ambitiously, that equates to one third of homes by 2030. Why are the UK Government failing to match Scotland’s level of ambition to decarbonise our homes?

[Eddie Hughes]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I am slightly disappointed, though. I thought she was going to rise to congratulate us on the social housing decarbonisation demonstrator fund, which has three excellent projects that are being progressed in Scotland. We on the Government Benches have no shortage of ambition to reach our net zero target by 2050. I look forward to working with Opposition Members to ensure we achieve that.

Levelling Up

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Patricia Gibson

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words and his question. I encourage him to work with his local council to develop bids along the lines that he has just set out. Those bids will be assessed based on deliverability, strategic fit and value for money. We hope that that strategic fit element will be partly determined by the good work of local MPs who engage with local councils to determine priorities for their area.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]]

I welcome the Minister to his place and thank him for his statement.

Although additional funding for communities is always welcome, I am sure the Minister will understand that it is greeted with a degree of scepticism. Indeed, the much-vaunted towns fund continues to be mired in controversy and allegations of pork barrel politics that just will not go away. According to the Financial Times, with this new announcement we are seeing more of the same today and the bias in favour of Tory-held seats in respect of so-called levelling-up funding is “pretty blatant”.

The Minister does not want to talk about methodologies—and no wonder. The Tory priority list ignores additional poverty-related criteria based on sparse rural populations, meaning that rural populations and islands are bumped down the list. However, Tory-held seats in Scotland have been ranked among the most in need of help from the Government fund, while coincidentally the seats in Scotland that the Tories do not hold have been given a lower funding priority that is not borne out by deprivation levels. Perhaps the Minister could explain that.

It is also clear that the Tory priority list ignores additional poverty-related criteria. We in Scotland can see that this is yet another step on the road towards this Tory Government completely bypassing and disrespecting the Scottish Parliament as they seek to impose their Tory priorities on Scotland’s democratically elected Government in devolved policy areas, which they already intend to do through the shared prosperity fund.

If the real criteria for benefiting from levelling up are not simply to have a Tory MP or live in a Tory target seat, will the Minister set out clearly what the criteria for the fund are and how the awarding of funds will be made completely transparent? The awarding of funds does not seem to be related to areas of deprivation in Scotland, so how can we believe that it is truly about levelling up and not just more old-fashioned pork barrel politics?

[Eddie Hughes]

I am slightly embarrassed, because the information that I have suggests that North Ayrshire in the hon. Lady’s constituency was in category 1 for the levelling-up fund, which seems counterintuitive given the speech she just made about the Conservative party prioritising Conservative areas. I imagine that that council, which I believe is Labour-run, will embrace with alacrity the idea of being provided with £125,000 of funding by the UK Government to help it to develop its bid. It is important that we are taking this opportunity to reach out to all corners of the United Kingdom; I hope that in future the hon. Lady is simply pleased about that.