Homelessness Reduction Bill

Wendy Morton Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 28th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I shall endeavour to follow the brevity of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). At the risk of repeating others, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on introducing this essential Bill. This is the most significant legislation on homelessness since the Housing Act 1996, and I am pleased that the Government are joining me in supporting it.

I am abandoning all my notes, probably much to the disappointment of the researchers in my office, but I will make a couple of points. Before becoming an MP I visited a couple of organisations for the homeless. One was called the Cyrenians but is now known as Changing Lives—Members from the north-east will know that organisation—and the other is St George’s Crypt, which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) mentioned earlier. Those remarkable organisations are doing terrific work, and visiting them was a wonderful opportunity to learn a little more about the issues around homelessness and the need for the extra support and advice that those organisations provide. This Bill will go a long way towards addressing some of the issues that those two organisations, and others like them across the country, seek to address.

My husband spent 12 years serving in the Royal Navy, and we often hear statistics about the high proportion of ex-forces people who find themselves homeless. A lot of work has gone into reducing that number, and charities such as the Royal British Legion, the Salvation Army and others are doing tremendous work on that issue. I am pleased to hear references to the armed forces covenant, which is another area where we must continue to seek further improvements.

I will wrap up having spoken for just over two minutes—I hope that others will follow my example—by saying that I welcome this Bill. I look forward to following its progress through Committee and the other place as it hopefully becomes law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss). I share her support for the Bill, but I could not help noticing one or two specific points that she made. There was, for example, her talk of local government funding. My memory goes back reasonably well over the last two years, and I am reminded of what the current “Strictly Come Dancing” star and former shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said about the extra funding that Labour would make available to local government. It was a round figure, to say the least, and it was not the figure 10.

It has been interesting to hear some of the comments that have been made today, but I want to return to the welcome and genuine cross-party spirit that produced the Bill. As a constituent pointed out to me on Twitter a few moments ago, we need to be clear about the fact that homelessness is not always visible. It is not just about people sleeping rough on the streets. Indeed, most homelessness is not about someone sleeping in a shop doorway, although that may be the most visible manifestation of it, and obviously the most concerning. Much of it involves people who are not in appropriate accommodation, such as families who are living in houses that are too small for them and their needs, or people who are sofa surfing. Some people do not have a home of their own, and would be out on the street but for a kindly family member or friend who says, “Here is the sofa”—or the floor—“and you can at least be somewhere warm and dry.” That, however, is not much of a step up from being out on the street.

[Wendy Morton]

Could not those sofa surfers, and others who are not actually visible to us when we walk around our constituencies or around London, be described as “the hidden homeless”? Does that phrase not encapsulate their situation?