Rough Sleeping

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) on securing today’s debate.

Members of the public are rightly horrified by the idea that anyone should be sleeping rough. Only yesterday, people throughout the country watched a 19-year-old lad on Sky News struggling to maintain his sanity in a situation in which he had no money, no address, no home, no ability to wash or change his clothes, no way to apply for jobs, no prospect of achieving an interview—let alone being employed—and no access to any benefits or support because he was unable to provide written evidence that he was looking for work. If we are to eradicate rough sleeping, the first thing we have to do is to remove such ridiculous Catch-22 situations, which are imposed by the Department for Work and Pensions and by the way in which housing need is assessed. Whether people are addicted to drugs or alcohol, are long-term rough sleepers or young people who have recently fallen through the cracks, are ex-offenders or armed forces veterans, suffer from mental health problems, have learning difficulties or exhibit challenging behaviours, they will be unable to put their lives back together if they are rough sleeping. They will continue to cost our society more, unless and until they are housed.

Secondly, we have to provide a range of housing for people with a range of needs. I slightly take issue with some of the people who have spoken in this debate: the rough sleeping problem is not simply down to a lack of affordable homes. Not everyone is capable of successfully holding down a standard tenancy. Charities and voluntary sector organisations such as the Salvation Army and the YMCA provide housing with a significant level of support, but that costs money. Far from increasing the funding for supported housing, this Government are making it more difficult for the voluntary sector to provide it, with the exception of certain schemes such as the one mentioned by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Some people are far more difficult to house than others, but funding and regulations do not adequately allow for that. However difficult someone might be, it is less expensive to provide them with the most suitable housing than it is to house them in prison or hospital, yet that is precisely where a disproportionate number of those people end up.

Thirdly, we must do far more to deal with the causes of rough sleeping, particularly addiction, through prevention and rehabilitation. Any money invested in that repays society many times over in financial terms and, more importantly, in terms of lives transformed. The current level of investment in addiction, rehabilitation and prevention is pathetic. Ipswich Borough Council is combating homelessness by building council houses. Another 17 are ready to be completed in the next few weeks and 60 are about to start, but that will not, in itself, help rough sleepers. To help rough sleepers, we have to put in place operations such as the second homeless families unit that Ipswich is building. It will open in spring to provide homeless households with safe and supported temporary housing until they are able to move on to a permanent home.

Ipswich has a strong public campaign, which is supported by public bodies, charities and the business sector, to encourage people to make donations to the groups that are helping to get people off the streets, and to encourage people not to give their money to those who are begging. Not all rough sleepers beg, and certainly not all beggars are actually rough sleeping, although many present as rough sleepers to obtain the sympathy of the donor. Even when the beggar is a rough sleeper and they are not spending the money they receive on drugs or alcohol, they need somewhere warm and dry to stay, something to eat and, above all, help and advice to enable them once more to build liveable lives for themselves. Cash made from begging will not provide any of that.

We need society to be committed and to commit the resources it takes to eradicate rough sleeping. If we can do that, I believe we will also go a long way to reducing chronic addiction and begging.