Deaths of Homeless People

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government what he is doing to prevent the deaths of people who are homeless.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

Every death of someone sleeping rough on our streets is one too many. Each is a tragedy, each a life cut short. In particular, I share the sadness that every Member will feel on learning of the death of a homeless man close to Parliament only yesterday. As you say, Mr Speaker, while we must allow the investigations to take place, I will be asking Westminster City Council to refer this to its safeguarding adults board to look into the matter and see that lessons are learned and applied.

Today’s publication of Office for National Statistics data on the estimated number of deaths of homeless people is stark, with an estimated 597 deaths of homeless people in England and Wales in 2017. It is simply unacceptable for lives to be cut short in this way. I believe we have a moral duty to act. The Government are committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and ending it by 2027. Last week, we published our rough-sleeping strategy delivery plan, which sets out how we will do this. It gives updates on progress we have already made on the 61 commitments in the strategy and sets out clear milestones for activity.

That said, this is about action now. Our rough-sleeping initiative, backed by £30 million of funding this year, is delivering at least 1,750 new bed spaces and an additional 500 outreach workers in areas across the country where rough sleeping is most prevalent. Only this week, we announced the location of 11 rough-sleeping hubs across the country to provide immediate shelter and rapid assessment now, which will help thousands of people over the next two years.

Today’s statistics underline the need to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. We are investing £1.2 billion to reduce and prevent homelessness. Much of this funding is already having an impact, providing vital support to help people off the streets for good. Early intervention and prevention are the key, and that has been the focus of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which came into force in April this year. We will continue to work tirelessly with local authorities and partners across the country to ensure we provide the advice and support they need, but I recognise that this cold weather period is a particularly difficult time. That is why I launched an additional £5 million cold weather fund in October. The fund has already enabled us to increase outreach work further and to extend winter shelter provision, providing more than 400 additional bed spaces.

The death of anyone who is homeless is a tragedy. We remain focused and resolute in our commitment to make rough sleeping a thing of the past, and where we need to do more, we will.

[Melanie Onn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I share your sympathies with the friends and family of Gyula Remes, the 43-year-old who died two nights ago in the underpass to the entrance to this Palace in which we all sit. I am sure that all colleagues will be as distressed and shocked as I was, but this is not the first time. It is not even the first time this year: in February, another man died in the same place. So what will it take to shake this Government out of their complacency and out of their outsourcing of responsibility?

Today, the Office for National Statistics data tells us that there were an estimated 597 deaths of homeless people in 2017 alone. Not only could the actual figure be much higher, but it is one that has gone up by 24% since 2013. These figures are the result of an increasingly fracturing system of social security and support. They are the result of Government decisions and Government choices. Five thousand people on any given night can be sleeping rough in this country. Crisis estimates that 24,000 will be sleeping rough in cars, tents and makeshift beds this winter, while 120,000 children are without a permanent home. This cannot be acceptable.

When social security payments are delayed, frustrated or stopped; when mental health services are overstretched, with thresholds so high as to be inaccessible; when council budgets are slashed so that outreach services are lost and drug and alcohol support minimised; when we have an explosion of insecure work; and when people struggle to see their GP—all of these combine to leave those at the highest risk of homelessness out in the cold, and that is literally.

Rather than blaming vulnerable people, as the Secretary of State did in his article yesterday in The Guardian, for these failings, saying that it was their fault—relationship breakdowns and irresponsible behaviour—will he say whether he recognises that the welfare state should be a safety net for our society? If he does, will he say that it is not currently working? Will he acknowledge that more support in the availability of and access to health support—mental and physical—is needed, and that homelessness and homeless deaths should be treated as a public health issue, not solely one of housing?

Does the Secretary of State accept that selling off council houses and housing association properties reduces the number of properties available for local authorities quickly to house vulnerable people in? Will he match Labour’s £100 million cold weather plan to give every rough sleeper somewhere to stay during the winter? This place has proved, under previous Administrations, that it does not need to wait nine years to solve a homelessness problem. If previous Administrations can do it, why cannot he?

[James Brokenshire]

I would say to the hon. Lady that I share a great deal of her focus, her attention and the issues she has flagged up to the House this morning. I would challenge her very firmly on what she said, in a direct accusation, about my own viewpoint on rough sleeping. No one—no one—chooses to be on the street. No one chooses that life.

The figures that the hon. Lady rightly highlights are stark, as I indicated in my initial response. What is also stark is the 50% increase in the number of deaths linked to drugs that those figures highlight as well. Therefore, these are complex matters to do with mental health and addiction. Sadly, the evidence does point to the fact that issues such as, for example, the loss of tenancies are factors that lie behind this, as are issues of childhood abuse. There are other factors, too.

That is why we published the rough-sleeping strategy in August, which was to cover all these issues—not just my responsibilities in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but those in relation to welfare and to prisons; we see some of the issues in relation to prisoners simply being released out on to the streets. It is intended to cover, and is covering, all those grounds. I did highlight the action that is being taken now.

The hon. Lady highlighted issues relating to universal credit and the work we are doing with the Department for Work and Pensions to see where further steps may be taken, knowing that some who are vulnerable might find it difficult to find their way through the system. The DWP is providing support and, equally, we are providing additional funding and support through our navigator project and others so that those who are in the most need, the most vulnerable, are able to get the support they need.

There is absolutely no complacency from me or from this side of the House on the need to deal with the urgent issue of rough sleeping and homelessness. It is something that we are taking hugely seriously as a priority, especially in the current cold weather. That is why I have underlined the action that we are taking now. No one chooses to live on the street, and no one should die as a consequence of being homeless or as a consequence of rough sleeping. That is why we are taking action and why I have committed an initial £100 million through the rough-sleeping strategy, in addition to the £30 million that councils are receiving directly this year. That is part of a £1.2 billion effort over homelessness.

There is a sense of action, of purpose and of bringing about change, and that is firmly what I intend to do, and what I am doing, through various measures. I recognise the need for a cross-party spirit, and we are working with the Mayor of London, the Mayor of Manchester and others to ensure that we make rough sleeping a thing of the past and that we deal firmly and in a committed way with the issue of homelessness more broadly.