Homelessness Reduction Bill

Lord Bird Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I am pleased to support the Homelessness Reduction Bill. In the 25 years that I have been involved with the Big Issue I have rarely seen the word reduction—or even prevention—used in relation to homelessness. Reduction and prevention are, of course, not the same. Prevention is a science that we have not yet arrived at. The elements that make up homelessness are not yet defined adequately and scientifically enough so that we can begin the process of dismantling it even before it manifests itself.

What is so interesting about Mr Blackman’s Bill and the work of my noble friend Lord Best is that at last we have before us a mechanism for embracing that beautiful word “prevention”. But we have to go even further and start preventing in the schoolroom and in the ghetto, and we have to prevent people being bullied and pushed out because they are gay, black or Gypsies, or because their mum and dad have problems with drink and drugs. I look forward to that process beginning not just in this House but in the other place. We have to fall in love completely with the idea of social transformation. I shall not talk too much because your Lordships are all incredibly eloquent and have all the facts and figures before you.

I am reminded of that wonderful song by Ian Dury, which I will not sing: “There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever”—I will say “Bar stewards” rather than the word he used. Listening to the right reverend Prelates, the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, and everyone else, it is clear that we are all able to intervene in the lives of the poor and come up with some very astute observations and methodologies, but prevention is where we need to start.

I started the Big Issue 25 years ago with a man called Gordon Roddick, who, as your Lordships know, started the Body Shop with his wife. The Big Issue was a business response to a social crisis. We wanted to prevent people continuously falling into trouble. We did not look at what the 501—there are now over 2,000—homelessness organisations in London were doing; we said that we were going to stop people falling back into crime again and again, as that just complicated the problems.

What is so beautiful about the Bill is that it will prevent quite a number of people ending up selling the Big Issue. I thank Mr Blackman and my noble friend Lord Best for that because we have too many people doing that. But the real politics will be preventing Johnny, who is now three years old, living a disfranchised life and becoming a Big Issue vendor or a drug user in 20 years’ time. That is the big issue—that is where we have to move on to—and I am glad that we have started the process of dealing with prevention, bringing it forward in this House and out into the world, so that we can make progress on it.

Noble Lords will forgive me for stopping for a drink of water—I was out with a number of homeless people last night and got to bed very late.

I have developed something called PECC, which I have mentioned before. It stands for prevention, emergency, coping and cure. When you look at the vast amount of money that we spend socially on emergency and coping and at the very small amount we spend on prevention or cure, you can see that we live in a topsy-turvy world. Mr Blackman’s Homelessness Reduction Bill is a step in the direction of making “prevention, prevention, prevention” the best course that we can all follow. I am glad that he is following the work of the Big Issue. I am not saying that we are the great leaders—we are still learning—but now we really do need to move the argument on and become vitalised by the wonderful idea of stopping children becoming homeless 20 years after the seeds of discontent and problems enter their lives.

I declare an interest. I was homeless at the age of five because my mum and dad were enemies of the rent man when there was no Crisis, Shelter or SHAC, or all the other 501 or 2,000 organisations that there are now. We have to start defining the causes of homelessness. Some of it is self-perpetuating and some of it is to do with not being able to budget, but a lot of it is to do with the fact that the mechanisms that lead to you receiving a Section 21 notice can drive you into homelessness—an area where you need not be. That is the beauty and magnificence of this Bill. I am so pleased that we are debating it today and I am 150% behind it. God bless you all.