Vagrancy Act 1824

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this important debate, and I thank colleagues from across the House for taking part.

My goodness, it has been a long time coming, but it does look as though the Vagrancy Act might finally be scrapped. My simple question for the Minister is: when? How long do we need to wait for this review finally to be published? How long do we need to wait until this blight of a law is finally repealed?

As many have already said, the Vagrancy Act is an antiquated piece of legislation from 1824 and it has no place in modern society. It is 2021 and we are still criminalising people for rough sleeping. For years, the Liberal Democrats and colleagues from all parties have been urging action, and the price of inaction is high. Rough sleepers will continue to be arrested and prosecuted for being homeless.

I am told by those with lived experience that outside the official figures, there are many more people who may not be charged but who are threatened with the Act to get them to move on. From 2009 to 2019, 131 proceedings under the Act were brought by Thames Valley police alone. How much longer are we going to wait, and how much longer will the Government let this go on?

I started the campaign to scrap the Vagrancy Act in 2017, but the credit needs to go to the compassionate young people of Oxford. The genesis was a petition started by Oxford University students’ union and Oxford-based homelessness group On Your Doorstep. It arose in answer to the needless criminalisation under the Act of dozens of rough sleepers in Oxford. In February 2018, I introduced the Vagrancy (Repeal) Bill and raised it at Prime Minister’s questions.

Together with campaign lead charity Crisis and supported by Homeless Link, St Mungo’s, Centrepoint, Cymorth Cymru, The Wallich and Shelter Cymru, we officially launched the cross-party “Scrap the Act” campaign at an event in Parliament, with a 41-page report detailing the case against it. That included, critically, a lawyer-led review of the other Acts already in place to prosecute fraud and aggressive begging. MPs and peers from all parties heard stories from people who had lived experience of rough sleeping, and whose lives had been affected by the Act. It was heartbreaking, and we all resolved to do more to get the law repealed for good.

In August 2018, when the review was announced, we welcomed it as massive progress. Then we waited and waited. In January 2019 we debated it on the Floor of the House. It was again raised at Prime Minister’s questions with the then Prime Minister that February, and the Bill was introduced again in March 2020. When I heard the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government say on the Floor of the House in February this year—four years on from the introduction of the original Bill—that the Act should be scrapped, the word I said was “Hallelujah!”

Here we are in April 2021. The law is archaic and should be consigned to history, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State has said that he agrees. What now? The campaign has come a long way from its Oxford grassroots origin, and this debate is proof of that. I am saddened that the Secretary of State could not commit to a timetable in a letter to me last week. Will the Minister do that today? Will he guarantee that the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will be in the Queen’s Speech next month? This is the moment. I also agree with hon. Members who call for more, although I hope the Government will not use that as an excuse to delay the repeal.

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 was a step change, and I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for leading that work. I have been so grateful for his support in this campaign.

I also congratulate the Government on the Everyone In programme. I can tell the Minister that it has had a transformative effect on those who finally, for the first time, have a stable abode. I was told by council officers in Oxfordshire that the programme meant that, for the first time, many people engaged with the wraparound services that are available, and because for the first time they had the peace of mind of knowing where they were going to sleep night after night, it was possible to engage with them. That is why I believe that the “housing first” approach is certainly the way to go. We have had months of a pilot, in effect, during this pandemic. As outlined in the Public Accounts Committee report on the issue—led by me and the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan)—that approach also saves money. It is not just the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.

Above all, repealing the Vagrancy Act would indicate a step change in approach by the whole of society. I am sure that Members from all parties remember the death of Gyula Remes in Westminster underground station in 2018, one of the two deaths that year at the very feet of Parliament. How did Parliament react? By erecting a new gate, further down the entrance to the tube station, and pushing the homelessness out of our way—out of sight and out of mind. That will not do, but it continues. Just this morning, a member of my staff saw British Transport police moving on some rough sleepers from outside our tube entrance. When the staff member asked the police officer what had happened to the homeless people, the officer said, “We told them to get lost, in a nicer sort of way.”

We need a step change in our response to homelessness. Our response needs to be more holistic and more compassionate, and it has to start by repealing this cruel and needless law, which continues to be used to punish the homeless. It is a disgrace. We have produced the work detailing why the Government can move forward quickly. The Bill exists, so just pick it up. It sounds as though the review that the Government commissioned has come to the same conclusions as we did years ago. I ask the Minister to do the right thing. Let us act now together. Let us scrap the Vagrancy Act, and let us make up for the nearly 200 years of hurt that it has caused.