Oral Answers to Questions

Will Quince Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I share the concerns of my right hon. and learned Friend. He has written to me and talked to me and my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for local government about this, and I can assure him that we are both taking a special interest in this.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

16. What recent steps his Department has taken to help rough sleepers and homeless people.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

17. What recent steps his Department has taken to help rough sleepers and homeless people.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)]

We are investing nearly £250,000 in Colchester and Tendring to identify those at risk of rough sleeping and support them into accommodation. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for the role he played in the Homelessness Reduction Bill and join in his tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

[Will Quince]

I thank the Minister for that response. May I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), whose Homelessness Reduction Bill will play such a large part in tackling homelessness? As the Minister said, from having sat on that Bill Committee and seen cross-party working in action, does he agree with me that it is by taking party politics out of this issue and working on a cross-party basis that we will tackle homelessness?

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is right, and the Secretary of State said exactly that earlier in our questions. There is a real need not just to invest more money in this crucial area, but also to change the law, to ensure both that we have a full safety net and that we intervene earlier to prevent people from becoming homeless, rather than just at the point of crisis.