Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

I strongly endorse Mr Conway’s work. The key word is prevention: that is the challenge and it is why, working with the charities, we are acting to prevent homelessness by dealing with its root causes and some of the issues behind it.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my interest as declared in the register.

In essence, the Minister’s reply repeated the response given by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) to an earlier question about bed and breakfast by quoting a figure from the period of the last Labour Government and comparing it with a lower figure from the present. Frankly, that is statistically unworthy of a Minister. Will the Minister and his colleagues now recognise that there was a dramatic reduction in homelessness and in the placing of families in bed and breakfast under the Labour Government and that, in both cases, that trend is now reversing? Will he accept responsibility for the problem?