Lord Peston
Main Page: Lord Peston (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am not sure about it going wrong. It is correct that more people are sleeping rough. There are a number of reasons for that, some of which are that at least half the rough sleepers in London are not UK nationals, so they have to be helped in the way in which I described. The Government already give the Mayor for London money to support No Second Night Out, which means that people are getting help immediately, so they are not sleeping out, particularly on these very cold nights.
Baroness Hanham
Yes, my noble friend raises an interesting point because a number of people who sleep rough have additional problems, such as mental health or alcohol problems. It is very important that when they are being helped to reconnect, those services are reconnected as well. There are organisations that do that, and if UK nationals are involved we ensure that they receive the services that they need.
Lord Peston
My Lords, I apologise to noble Lords for intervening twice in the same Question Time, which is not my wont, but I am very intrigued by the Question. Will the Minister say whether her department actually collects data on the nationality of rough sleepers? Secondly, are Poles disproportionately represented in that database? Thirdly, is she aware that if she were looking for a good Keynesian expansionary policy to get the economy going, collecting useless data is one of the best things I can think of?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, useless data are useless; helpful data are helpful. Yes, we actually do collect figures about homelessness, which are important data. Otherwise, we would not know how many people there are or where they come from. We cannot start reconnecting people if we do not have the data to know where they should go or whether they need additional help. We do know the hotspots across the country for rough sleeping, and I am sure that the noble Lord would agree that that is a good use of information.