Rough Sleeping — House of Lords, 2020-02-27
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, even if the Government’s figures truly reflected the scale of street homelessness, the situation would be horrifying. But the situation is even worse. Yesterday, an FoI obtained by the BBC showed that 28,000 people slept rough in the UK over the last 12 months, of whom nearly 25,000 were in England. This is five times the number recorded by the Government’s statistics, which blatantly hide the scale of the problem The Government have no basis to parade their own figures as anything resembling an accurate picture. In 2019, the Office for Statistics Regulation said that it expected the Government to plan for better statistics on rough sleeping. The recent defence that these statistics are only a good estimate brings into question why they were ever published. Can the Minister confirm that these government statistics have official statistics status approved by the UK Statistics Authority? If they do not, that is because they fail to meet official standards on trustworthiness, quality and public value. If they fail this test, they should never see the light of day. These figures are misleading and I would welcome an investigation into their accuracy. If the Minister is unable to confirm the status of these statistics today, could he write to me and place a copy of the letter in the Library In 2018, 726 people died homeless across England and Wales—the highest year-to-year increase since the ONS time series began. This is an emergency and requires emergency measures. The announcement of the £236 million and an urgent review to tackle rough sleeping is insufficient and shows that the Government are in denial of the problem. They have failed to properly address the issue over the past 10 years and must finally make it a priority, beginning with properly funding homelessness services. Such funding, in combination with supportive housing, has been cut by £1 billion a year, leading to 9,000 fewer hostel beds. Will the Minister tell the House what the Government will do to replace the beds that have been lost and provide new ones In recognition of the role local authorities can play, the Government must introduce a duty for councils, and proper funding with that, to deliver shelter and support, building on the emergency cold weather support that many already provide. The Government must, however, also look at why individuals and families become homeless in the first place. Many have found themselves on the streets after losing their privately rented accommodation—perhaps through extortionate rent increases or unliveable conditions, or through substance abuse. The Government must make renting affordable and give tenants the right to hold their landlords to account. There must also be recognition of the root factors that can trigger homelessness, be they substance abuse, domestic abuse, violence or mental health problems, so that support can again be offered to tackle these wider causes We can look back to the record of the Labour Government on homelessness and find that, by 2010, this had been virtually eliminated. Here we are back again, 10 years later, and it is back with a vengeance. Homelessness is not inevitable in a country as well-off and decent as ours, but the levels of rough sleeping under this Government have shamed us all. It is action, not words, that will put an end to this crisis; simply saying that rough sleeping is a priority for the Government is not good enough Just outside this noble House, in Westminster Station, there are people sleeping rough there now. In London Bridge—I walk through it most evenings—there are people sleeping rough in the station. I walked down Victoria Street to Victoria station: there are people sleeping in the doorways. Opposite Charing Cross station, people wait every night to get soup and bread from those who come to support them. We are one of the richest countries in the world; the homelessness we see on the street is an utter disgrace. As I said earlier, this was virtually eliminated by 2010 and the situation in which we find ourselves today is shameful and entirely of the Government’s own making. They get no credit for claiming to be solving the problem that had already been solved many years ago.