Rough Sleeping Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Louise Haigh
Main Page: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield Heeley)Department Debates - View all Louise Haigh's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Rough Sleeping
Louise Haigh Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Neil Coyle
Sadly, my hon. Friend is right to be nervous. Of course, I gave way to the chair of the parliamentary Labour Party in the hope that he might call me in a debate at some point. Southwark was one of the earliest test areas for universal credit. My experience is that my hon. Friend will have more cases of rough sleeping as a result of the universal credit roll-out.
The 2% drop nationally comes with very significant variances. There was a massive 60% jump in rough sleeping in Birmingham. In Manchester, I believe it was about 31%, and 13% in London. There were not such high numbers overall, but there were statistically significant jumps in areas such as Doncaster, where rough sleeping is three and a half times what it was just a year ago. In Rugby, there is five times as much, and in Corby there is seven times as much, albeit from low bases. Those anomalies need addressing. The towns and cities with large rises need more significant attention. I hope that the Minister will address that.
I want to highlight areas that are doing better than others. Brighton has reduced rough sleeping by two thirds; Luton has almost cut it in half and Bedford has cut it by about a third. Some areas are doing better, and I hope that their perhaps better practice is extended. My own council has bucked the London rise of 13%. There were just three additional rough sleepers in Southwark last year, and it is leading work to train staff in other local authorities to implement the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I have been out with the police in Lancashire and Kent and have seen their joint agency approach to tackling homelessness. Does he agree that a whole-system approach is necessary, and does he share my concern that some police forces still use the Vagrancy Act 1824 to criminalise rough sleepers without giving them the support they clearly need?
Neil Coyle
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know she does a huge amount on policing. The police should not be picking up the pieces of failing systems elsewhere. That is an avoidable drain on their resources.