Homeless People: Prevention of Deaths

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, I draw to the attention of the House my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the Minister for repeating the answer to the Urgent Question given in the other place earlier today.

We have seen a huge rise in rough sleeping. We can see it in in every town and city in this country. This simply was not the case 10 years ago. Just look at Westminster tube station—I come in via the tube station almost every day; I have been in this House nearly 10 years—and it just was not the case. Every day now there are more and more homeless people in the tube station. It is absolutely appalling and shameful in one of the richest countries in the world.

There is the widest possible agreement—from homeless charities to the National Audit Office to cross-party Select Committees—that government policy has not helped in this respect. Today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 726 homeless people died last year. That is up by half in the last five years.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, does he accept that the £10 million in respect of the cold weather fund will be insufficient and that further funds will have to be provided for this fund? Secondly, will he agree to meet me and a delegation of local government leaders and charities to discuss the inadequate levels of funding being provided for the Homelessness Reduction Act? It is a good bit of legislation, but we need funds to make it work.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the rest of the House that one death in this way is one too many. I am very sorry to report that there was one further death in Wiltshire last night, which noble Lords may have heard of.

I will answer the noble Lord’s two questions. First, on the £10 million, we believe that this is enough, but clearly this is such a serious matter that we will keep this very much under review, but this is a figure that has taken account of the statistics. Secondly, of course I would be very pleased to meet the noble Lord and anybody else he cared to bring along to discuss the level of funding for this important matter.