Winter Homelessness Support

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for the homeless during the winter months.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I am grateful that I have been able to secure this debate to discuss support for the homeless as we head into Christmas and the winter months. I am delighted that so many hon. Members are keen to take part in the debate and represent their constituents’ concerns. I hope that I speak for us all, no matter what our political affiliation, when I say that we want the issues of rough sleeping and homelessness to be solved. We all aspire to the same end goal—to see homelessness assigned to the history books.

I am extremely proud that one of the Government’s main priorities is to end rough sleeping by 2024. As hon. Members will be aware, the issues surrounding rough sleeping and homelessness are acute in central London, and particularly in my constituency. We need only step outside this building to witness the problems, and the scale of the challenge that we face. I receive regular correspondence from businesses and residents who are concerned for the welfare of rough sleepers, so today I want to focus my concern on the first stages of supporting those who sleep rough on the streets into a bed and the right support environment. Other colleagues may want to discuss later stages of the journey, such as moving individuals into settled accommodation, but for me and my constituents the major concern is to support people off the streets in the first place.

It is important that we understand the different cohorts of rough sleepers on the streets. Today I am speaking specifically about Westminster, which has more rough sleepers than any borough in the country. The latest overnight count in Westminster took place in November. It provided a snapshot of the night-time street population. On count night, Westminster found 242 people sleeping rough. Of those, just under half were UK or Irish nationals. The rest represented a wide range of nationalities, but substantially the remainder were eastern European. Beyond nationality there are many underlying causes for people finding themselves on the street.

From my previous experience of being responsible for rough sleeping policy in Westminster, and my long association with charities such as St Mungo’s and The Passage, there are generally three main cohorts of rough sleepers in Westminster. First, there are those suffering with acute mental health or addiction issues. They are often mistrustful of the support that is offered, having been let down by society throughout their life, and refuse to engage with outreach teams. The second cohort is economic migrants, who may choose to sleep outside or in a tent in order to save their earnings, which they send back to their families. They often have no recourse to public funds, owing to their nationality, so help from local authorities eludes them anyway. The third cohort is those who are suffering at the hands of gangmasters as modern-day slaves. Some will have been brought here against their will to beg, to be forced into prostitution or to commit crime. Many are brought here under false pretences with promises of accommodation, only for that not to materialise.

Allow me to outline what support I believe should be considered if we are to end rough sleeping for good. First, for those suffering from mental health and addiction issues the answer is clear. We need to offer greater social care and specialist medical support alongside the safety of a bed. I am proud that Westminster City Council has more than 400 beds for rough sleepers on any given night. However, I have spoken in depth with the council and the charities involved, and it is now clear to me that what is needed is sustained and long-term support, attached to that bed—an addiction counsellor, psychiatric help and medical support for those who have suffered after years of sleeping rough.

The current pandemic has shown that when central and local government works together, much can be achieved. During the first lockdown, the Everyone In strategy saw 90% of those on the street brought in. With integrated services available, many accepted the mental health and addiction help provided as part of the covid-19 support. A bed is one thing, but without the support services attached, it will not change much for those in desperate need.

I am therefore delighted that the Government clearly understand the importance of tackling mental health and addiction. The extra help for rough sleepers with dependency issues announced this week, including £1.1 million to Westminster for addiction support, clearly shows that Ministers now understand the importance of tackling the causes—why so many find themselves on the street. If we are to end rough sleeping, however, that funding must continue. Tackling the causes of rough sleeping takes long-term, sustainable funding.

Secondly, if the Government are to achieve their goal of ending rough sleeping, they must also repeal the Vagrancy Act. Much has been spoken about repealing that out-of-date legislation, but it is now time for action. The Vagrancy Act, passed in 1824, is simply not fit for purpose. It fails to address the acute 21st-century problems that public sector agencies and charities work tirelessly to deal with among the street population.

Rather than seek to help those on the street, the Vagrancy Act criminalises them. Sadly, in some desperate cases, the Vagrancy Act is the last resort to take people off the street and into the support that they need, albeit that requires police intervention. In place of the Act, I would like to see legislation that allows for assertive outreach that puts protection, not criminality, at its heart. So many on the street present with complex needs and do not have the mental health capacity to make the decision, for their own wellbeing, to accept the help on offer.

Does the woman sleeping in an underpass not far from here, with maggots growing out of her leg but consistently refusing help to come inside, really have the mental capacity? Has the time come to overhaul the mental health threshold for those on the street, to allow outreach workers to make the decision on their behalf? The alternative is the status quo, which allows people to remain on the street, failing to address their serious mental health problems. I am not a great believer in state intervention, but were my son or daughter on the street with serious addiction or mental health problems, I would want to know that society has the levers available to make the decision for them, for their own wellbeing, and possibly to save their life.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I recall sitting outside Charing Cross station watching a guy drink water from a puddle like a dog, and up to several thousand people passed him before anyone did anything about it. Likewise, kids in the summer have a bit of a party and take loads of drugs, but the weather changes and they are addicted. They need to be got off the streets before what started as a party ends as a nightmare. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Nickie Aiken]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

As I want to ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak in this debate, I do not have time to go into the detail that discussion of the other issues faced by economic migrants and modern-day slaves who find themselves on the street would deserve, but I will turn to them briefly. Their issues are as complex as those of people dealing with health and addiction issues, especially as agencies are often hampered in the support that they can offer because foreign nationals may not have access to public funds.

To help those cohorts requires much greater co-ordination across government, between the Home Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local authorities. In the case of modern-day slaves, those people desperately need our support, but the difficulty in law is how to criminalise their gangmasters without criminalising those who have been trafficked on to our streets. What support or help should we offer them? Would they like to return home? Should we help them return home? Such matters can only be truly addressed by a deeper and honest conversation across Government, local authorities and the charity sector.

For too long the elephant in the room has been the issue of the “no recourse to public funds” category and whether to suspend it—a difficult decision, I recognise, but one that does need addressing. As I have highlighted, the issues around rough sleeping are complex and there are no easy answers. If we are to achieve the Government’s laudable aim to end rough sleeping, greater support for health and addiction issues, and a reassessment of both the Vagrancy Act and the no recourse to public funds rules are all required.

I recognise and welcome the increased focus and funding that the Government have provided to local authorities to support rough sleeping this year. The Government are clearly determined to end rough sleeping and I look forward to providing support to Ministers to achieve our shared goal. I look forward to the contributions of Members and the Minister’s response.

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

I remind all right hon. and hon. Members to respect the one-way system, to sanitise microphones using the cleaning materials, and to dispose of the materials in the bin. I think we have enough room so that people can sit in the horseshoe. I suggest a four-minute time limit, so that everybody can come in. I will call the wind-ups just before 10 past 5, if that is all right. I call Stephen Timms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank all the hon. Members who took part in this vital debate. We have heard from Members representing places across the country how homelessness can affect our constituencies.

I take the point that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) made about Housing First. We could have spoken for hours about that, but it is the entrenched rough sleepers who concern me more, because I do not believe that they have the mental capacity to respond to the outreach work that we offer.

I thank the Minister for her pledge on the Vagrancy Act 1824 and the fact that we will be looking at welfare rather than criminalisation. The word “vagrancy” should be taken out of the Act, anyway. I thank everyone, and hope we can work together to end rough sleeping.

Question put and agreed to. 

Resolved,  

That this House has considered support for the homeless during the winter months.