Rough Sleeping

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and that of Mr Sharma before you. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing this debate and thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for their tireless work as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness.

This is a debate about rough sleeping, so I am thankful for the experiences and expertise shared today, whether that comes from a constituency or a wider perspective. I am grateful to hon. Members for their speeches and questions; I hope to answer them as I work through my speech, but given the time limit, I may not answer them all.

Ensuring that everyone has a decent, affordable, secure home is a core priority for this Government. That is why we have made a commitment to halve rough sleeping, as everybody has said—I am glad that everybody knows it—by 2022, and to end it by 2027. It is an ambitious target, but it is essential that we achieve it. Underpinning that bold commitment is a concerted cross-Government effort to address homelessness in all its forms.

As hon. Members will know, last year we launched the rough sleeping initiative, working with the areas with the highest levels of rough sleeping, and with the support of charities and experts from across the sector, many of which we have heard about today. We announced the rough sleeping strategy, backed by £100 million, and introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, the most ambitious homelessness legislation in decades, with prevention at its heart. In total, we have committed £1.2 billion to 2020—a not insignificant amount of money—to ensure that the most vulnerable in society have the support they need.

I, for one, am encouraged by the figures published last week which show that our approach is working. This is a significant moment. For the first time in eight years, the number of people sleeping on our streets has fallen. That follows year-on-year increases, with an average annual increase of nearly 16%, so we are moving in the right direction. To be clear, our rough sleeping initiative has been up and running for five months in those 83 areas, and those areas have seen a 23% reduction in the count. That is just the beginning; we are bringing in further funding and embedding services. I look forward to seeing progress at the next count—which will deal once and for all with any question of my resigning.

I know we still have a way to go and, as many of you have remarked, it is simply unacceptable that people have to sleep on the streets in 2019. That does not reflect our country, which we want to be the best, which is why I am determined to put a stop to it. The cross-Government rough sleeping strategy, announced last August, is the blueprint for sustained action, looking across the spectrum from prevention to intervention to recovery. In the six months since our strategy was published, we have focused our energies on delivering key commitments that will help those in need and prevent people from sleeping rough in the first place.

We have announced the early adopters of our rapid rehousing pathway, an approach that a number of hon. Members have called for today, which includes 11 areas with Somewhere Safe to Stay hubs. A hub has already started delivering in Nottingham, helping people to secure routes off the streets, with the specialist support that the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) was so keen to secure. We have also secured up to £30 million in the NHS long-term plan for specialist mental health services for people sleeping rough, which will be informed by the findings of a health provision audit to be carried out this year. We have provisionally allocated £34 million for 2019-20 to the 83 areas with the highest levels of rough sleeping to continue their excellent work supporting those currently on the streets, and opened up bidding for a further £11 million to all other local authorities to support them in helping people off the streets now.

There are particularly encouraging results in the 83 areas supported by our rough sleeping initiative, which is backed by £30 million of Government investment this year. In those areas, numbers have fallen by almost a quarter. Indeed, almost three quarters of RSI areas have reported decreases from the previous year. I thank councils across the country for working tirelessly to support people off the streets and into recovery. Those figures are proof of what can be achieved when we all pull together in the same direction.

In just seven months since the funding was announced, councils have used the investment to create an additional 1,700 beds and employ 500 dedicated staff, such as outreach workers, mental health specialists, nurses and substance misuse workers. This means that there are more people in warm beds tonight as a direct result of Government funding and the wrap-around support that goes with it. An excellent example of this is the local authority in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who secured this debate. It is receiving £615,000 this year, which provides funding for a worker from Solace Women’s Aid to support offenders who have experienced domestic abuse, and a further 72 new beds to tackle rough sleeping.

Some 33 Members have spoken in this debate, including both interventions and speeches. The right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) made a fascinating intervention—at the last count, there were no rough sleepers in Knowsley.

[Melanie Onn]

But there is no proper counting system—

[Mrs Wheeler]

With respect, that is not good enough—

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

Order. I advise Members not to conduct conversations bilaterally.

[Mrs Wheeler]

In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, the number of rough sleepers is down to 13. In Liverpool it has reduced from 33 to 15, in Torbay from 24 to 19, and in the Worthing and Shoreham area from 35 to 11.

[Neil Coyle]

One of the specific questions I asked was whether the Minister would improve the data collection to ensure that these figures were robust. There is a question mark over them.

[Mrs Wheeler]

People have asked these questions. Some councils choose to do an estimate, and some choose to do a count. Personally, I prefer a count.

The number of people rough sleeping in York has reduced from 29 to nine, and I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central on all her hard work in that area. In Ipswich the number has gone down from 21 to 11. In the Warwick area it has gone down from 24 to 12—the area received £370,000-worth of Government funding to help with this. I work very well with the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on these particular issues. Her area has received £583,000 of Government money and there has been a slight reduction in rough sleeping, but there is much more to do. We very much recognise the importance of the certainty of funding for services. The Chancellor has said there will be a spending review this year, and Ministers have made it clear that rough sleeping and homelessness are key priorities for this Government.

I shall crack on and then allow the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark to wrap up. We note the release of the first ever ONS death statistics—hon. Members have mentioned this—which will help us to ensure that we are targeting our action to prevent deaths. We know that the risk to life increases during periods of cold weather, which is why we launched an additional £5 million cold weather fund in October. The fund has already enabled us to increase outreach work further, extend winter shelter provision and—I am sure that Members will be pleased to hear—provide over 800 additional bed spaces. We are also ensuring that when a homeless person dies or is seriously injured, safeguarding adult reviews take place, where appropriate, so that local services can learn lessons from the tragic events and prevent them from happening in the future.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mrs Wheeler]

If I could just finish my sentence—it might help the hon. Lady.

We expect all local areas to conduct SARs according to guidance. We will also work with the LGA to ensure that lessons learnt from these reviews are shared with other safeguarding adult boards.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark raised the issue of female rough sleepers who have suffered domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is a devastating crime that nobody should have to suffer. Supporting victims of domestic abuse and violence is an absolute priority for the Government, and we need to do more to ensure that they are appropriately supported. We all agree that survivors of domestic abuse should have access to a safe home. Councils have a legal duty to provide accommodation to families and others who are vulnerable as a result of fleeing domestic abuse. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 requires councils to take reasonable steps to help eligible homeless families to secure accommodation.

[Nick Herbert]

They are exactly the kinds of vulnerable people who the Depaul Nightstop service is helping in half of local authorities. Would the Minister agree to meet Depaul, and perhaps visit a Nightstop service, to see how important and cost-effective it is and to see the potential for the roll-out that I mentioned earlier?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Absolutely. My apologies—when I mentioned the fantastic reduction of rough sleepers in his area from 35 to 11, I meant to say that I would be delighted to meet Depaul.

[Will Quince]

At the moment, survivors of domestic abuse are subject to a vulnerability test. Could the Minister look at removing that, so that it is an automatic priority need?

[Mrs Wheeler]

We will keep all such matters under review.

I hope that my remarks have demonstrated the Government’s commitment to halving and ending rough sleeping and to reducing homelessness. I thank hon. Members for their speeches and questions, and I thank all the charities mentioned today. I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and other hon. Members of different parties in the coming months and years. I also thank my brilliant team for all their hard work.