Rough Sleeping

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab) [V]]

The Government promised to bring everyone in, but these figures show that at least 2,688 people spent the pandemic on the streets, and every person on the streets is a policy failure. That figure is likely to be a major underestimation. Figures for London put the true number at more than four times today’s estimate. First, will the Housing Secretary commit to providing a richer and more frequent picture of homelessness and rough sleeping across the country?

Even before the crisis, rough sleeping was a shameful sign of Government failure, and we went into last year with more than twice as many rough sleepers as in 2010. The picture on wider homelessness is even worse. There are a quarter of a million homeless people in England, of whom almost 130,000 are children, and the situation is even worse in SNP-run Scotland, where the number of people in temporary accommodation has reached an all-time high.

Nobody should be sleeping rough, especially during a pandemic, so can the Secretary of State tell the House why he thinks that 2,500 people fell through the gaps and had their health and wellbeing exposed at the height of the pandemic? Is it because the Government refused to suspend “no recourse to public funds”, as Labour has called for? The UK Government have continued to leave local authorities in the impossible situation of having unclear guidance and no funding to help those most at risk. Could it be because the initial commitment to provide councils with “whatever it takes” was abandoned, and they are now being asked to raise council tax to pay for essential services? Could it be because the Government have failed to prevent people from becoming homeless and arriving on the streets during a pandemic?

Councils and local authorities should be rightly congratulated on their hard work—and I do congratulate them—in these extremely challenging circumstances, often despite unclear Government guidance, but there is a real risk that gains made last year will be lost. None of the funding mentioned by the Secretary of State today appears to be new. Meanwhile, the Government have quietly scaled back support for Everyone In, which brought down rough sleeping numbers. There are currently 11,000 people in emergency accommodation. However, the Government have promised only 6,000 new housing units for rough sleepers. What will happen to the other 5,000 people in emergency accommodation right now, or the 26,000 people in move-on accommodation or precarious private rented sector homes where they have no security and face homelessness again when their contracts run out in as little as six or 12 months? The Housing Secretary mentioned his commitment to Housing First, so why did the Government extend the pilots to 2023, rather than just rolling out the approach now?

We cannot return to business as usual. The Government pledged to end rough sleeping for good, but their consistent refusal to address the root causes means that more people will continue to arrive on the streets every day. The Government said this morning that the increase in rough sleepers is likely to be down to people losing their jobs and being unable to pay rent. Unemployment is predicted to soar, with 190,000 private renters set to lose their jobs by the summer, so why have the Government once again frozen local housing allowance, given that 700,000 universal credit claimants already cannot cover their rent?

Will the Minister close the loopholes in the so-called eviction ban, which have resulted in at least 500 people being evicted from their homes over winter? Will he commit to ending section 21, to give people security in their homes and prevent the leading cause of homelessness, as he said he would? Will he commit to providing the additional truly affordable housing that will be essential to finding permanent homes for people in temporary accommodation? Finally, the Government’s former rough sleeping tsar, Louise Casey, has criticised the Government for failing to grasp the scale of the crisis, the consequences for lives and life chances, the urgency of the need and the scope for solving it. The public want this. Will he heed her words?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will try to answer as many of the hon. Lady’s questions as I can. I was sad that she could not be more fulsome in welcoming the achievements that have been made over the past year, because they are not just the achievements of this Government; they are the shared achievements of charities, local councils, volunteers and faith groups across the country. We have worked very productively across party lines with local government. In the remarks I have made and those I will no doubt make in answer to other questions today, I praise the councils that have made tremendous efforts—councils such as Birmingham City Council, which has gone to huge lengths to reduce the number of people sleeping rough. This is and should be an issue that cuts across party lines.

The hon. Lady says that the statistics published today are not her chosen method of measuring rough sleeping. She and others have made that point in the past, but this methodology has existed for well over 10 years. It is the most trusted measure of rough sleeping. It is independently verified by Homeless Link, and it uses a very similar methodology to that used by other developed countries such as Canada and France. I think she refers to the CHAIN—Combined Homelessness and Information Network—which is a different methodology and is not easily comparable. That takes an estimate of the number of individuals sleeping rough over a quarter, rather than on an individual night. I am confident that ours is the best way forward, although I am always open to suggestions on different ways one might choose to measure it. By any account, an enormous step forward has been made over the past year; I have not heard anyone who truly understands this issue dispute that.

The hon. Lady says that Everyone In came to an end and that we have not brought forward further support, but that is not correct. Everyone In is ongoing. As I have said, we now have 37,000 people who would otherwise have been sleeping rough on the streets of this country either already moved into good quality sustainable accommodation, be it in the private rented sector, in move-on accommodation or in social housing, or awaiting that move, with councils working closely on it. All those people also have wraparound care, looking after their mental health and other health issues they might face, to ensure that they can begin to rebuild their lives and become more productive members of society.

The hon. Lady also says that councils have not got the funding they need for the future, but again that is not correct. We have provided at the spending review a 60% increase in the amount of Government spending on rough sleeping and homelessness services, bringing it to more than £750 million in the next financial year. This is not primarily now an issue about funding; it is an issue about delivery and commitment, and there are wide variances across the country between councils that are grasping that and those that still have more work to do.

The hon. Lady has also in the past argued that we should not take the targeted approach that we did this winter and that we should have more of a scattergun approach across the country. We rejected that advice and decided to focus resources and effort on the places where it was really required. The statistics I am publishing today—both the snapshot and the statistics for December and January—validate that approach, because they show that in some parts of the country, such as Westminster, that extra effort has made all the difference. I praise the individual council leaders we have worked with, again on a cross-party basis, be it Rachael Robathan in Westminster or Georgia Gould in Camden, whose support has been much appreciated. I hope that we can work across party lines over the course of this year. I hope I can work with the hon. Lady, and I see opposite me her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who made a great contribution on this issue when he was the shadow Housing Minister. We want now to move forward to capitalise on the immense efforts and achievements of the past year, and to end rough sleeping once and for all.