Housing for the Homeless

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My congratulations to my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing this debate. I hope the Minister is enjoying his new life in replying to it. I want to concentrate on one issue. I live in the city of Cambridge, where we have a homelessness problem and a council that does its best to cope with it. But one of the city council’s initiatives is to help the voluntary collection of money for homeless charities in the city. I suggested to it that it should do that as a statutory thing, but apparently it lacks the powers. Will the Minister look at giving local authorities the right to collect for charity, and the right to ask council tax payers to add a voluntary donation to their council tax when they pay it each month? Obviously, it needs thinking out—you cannot do it in a minute. However, it is a practical thing which, combined with government gift aid, would make a big difference.