Homelessness — House of Commons, 2016-12-14
Topic: Housing
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): We have had a well-informed debate. I appreciate the contributions from Members on both sides of the House and respect their passion and sincerity, but nothing that has been said has distracted from, let alone contradicted, the three stark statistics in the motion, which indict this Government’s record on homelessness. Those are a 44% increase in statutory homelessness since 2010—there is an absolute duty to the most vulnerable and those in the most need—a doubling in street homelessness, which is the most obvious and insistent evidence of our failure as a society to provide all our citizens with basic necessities of life, and 120,000 children being homeless this Christmas We have heard 17 Back-Bench speeches in this short debate, which shows the degree of interest in this subject. We have heard from the hon. Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh), my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). We have heard from every part of the British Isles. I apologise if I do not have the time to comment on each of those speeches, as they all had much to recommend them. I will not do the speeches justice by summarising themes, but I have to say that what I heard in a number of speeches by Conservative Members—I exempt the hon. Member for Harrow East from this—was real distress at individual cases in surgeries and in the streets, but no real appreciation of the link between those cases and their own Government’s policy. I credit the hon. Gentleman, as he acknowledged the scale of the problem and how it has risen A number of my colleagues made the point about where the blame lies, and although I am being invidious by singling anyone out, I do single out my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East, for Westminster North and for Birmingham, Erdington, whose experience over many years and indeed decades in areas of very high housing stress enabled them to put the blame where it lies: with Government policy, with local government cuts and with the persistent failure to build social housing and relieve the pressure The Government’s amendment does them no credit. It is a nit-picker’s attempt to sidestep the central causes of the homelessness crisis, which this Government and their coalition predecessor have caused. What is beyond dispute is that the measures the Government rely on in their defence are not working. If they were, we would not have seen a year-on-year worsening in the plight of homeless persons. No one says it will be easy to resolve issues that are now chronic and endemic across the UK, particularly in London and other areas with high demand and a poor supply of affordable homes. The Minister could at least begin to tackle the worst aspects of homelessness by signing up today to the proposals to tackle rough sleeping set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and tackling street homelessness through an extension of the clearing house scheme, which both Labour and Tory Governments have supported in the past. There is nothing inevitable about homelessness. The record of the last Labour Government showed that with a two-thirds drop in statutory homelessness in the 10 years to 2010 and a three-quarters drop in rough sleeping in the same period I noticed how, in opening the debate, the Minister for Housing and Planning tried to minimise Labour’s achievements and talk up his own party’s achievements. I suppose that that is his job, but independent audit has a different view. I hope that he and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who will be replying to the debate, have read the "Green Book", which was published this month by Shelter to mark its 50th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of "Cathy Come Home". It says: "The numbers of households living in temporary accommodation and the numbers of people found sleeping rough on a given night have risen for the last five years. The number of households coming to their council and being found to be homeless and in priority need is over a quarter higher than five years ago. The number of households accepted as homeless started to rise in 2010. Even more striking is that this followed a period of six years when the level of homelessness appeared to drop sharply. The sharp turn that the homelessness statistics made after 2009 is a striking trend".