I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall. Members are expected to remain for the entire debate.
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That this House has considered repealing and replacing the Vagrancy Act 1824.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am delighted to have secured this extremely important debate on repealing and replacing the Vagrancy Act 1824, and I thank hon. Members present for putting in to speak. I know from my mailbag that constituents, businesses and visitors to the Cities of London and Westminster are concerned about rough sleepers and share my desire—and that of the Government—to end rough sleeping for good.
As the title suggests, this debate is not just about repealing the Vagrancy Act, but to consider what should replace it to respond to the 21st-century reasons people find themselves on the street. I believe that the Government share my wish to see the Act repealed following the response from my right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary to my recent question in the House, where he confirmed his belief that the Act,
“should be consigned to history.” [Official Report, 25 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 1138.]
The Vagrancy Act 1824 is an antiquated piece of legislation originally introduced to deal with soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars. With no public services available, many ended up on the streets begging and sleeping rough. It is now used by police and councils to tackle the small minority of rough sleepers involved in persistent antisocial behaviour.
Similarly, powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, including public space protection orders and criminal behaviour orders, are increasingly used. Yes, we must challenge anyone involved in antisocial behaviour, but rather than criminalising a rough sleeper, I truly believe that the better outcome for both the individual and society is to address the reasons they are on the street in the first place, and provide the help and support they obviously need.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. Does the hon. Lady agree that, with over 50 housing and homelessness organisations supporting scrapping the Vagrancy Act 1824, the Minister and the Government must consider alternatives? They must acknowledge that many of these charities work with people experiencing homelessness directly, and that they see how it presently fails to end rough sleeping, instead pushing people into worse positions, and their circumstances must be respected and considered. The Government cannot ignore 50 housing and charitable organisations.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I do not know a charity involved in rough sleeping and homelessness that does not agree that the Vagrancy Act should be repealed.
If we get this right, it will end the revolving door that too many rough sleepers currently experience, whereby they accept outreach help and are placed in accommodation, but too often find themselves back on the street because their underlying mental health issues or addictions have not been tackled. Even on the coldest day of the year and during adverse weather conditions brought on by the likes of the “beast from the east”, a considerable number of people chose to ignore the no-questions-asked help of a hot meal and a roof over their head, whether from a local authority, a church, a community centre or a mosque. They are so fearful, mistrusting or mentally unwell that they prefer to remain outside in below-zero temperatures, where they feel safest.
There are more than 400 beds available on any given night in Westminster alone for rough sleepers. However, we must not just offer a bed. The accommodation available rarely comes with the vital health services required to help turn a person’s life around and address often years—sometimes decades—of abuse, poor mental health and addiction. But there is a clear solution: replace the Vagrancy Act with a new approach that places the preservation of life at its core through assertive outreach, alongside social care and specialist medical support, all attached to the safety of a bed. We need addiction counsellors, psychiatric help and medical support for those who have suffered years of sleeping rough.
The Government’s Everyone In strategy, in response to the covid-19 pandemic, saw an incredible 90% of rough sleepers accept accommodation, demonstrating that when central and local government work together, we can achieve impressive results, but what about the other 10%? Throughout the first lockdown, about 100 people in Westminster refused all help and remained on the street. I saw many of them myself. They were clearly very ill, with serious addiction and mental health problems.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Back-Bench colleagues have around nine minutes each.
Sir Charles, it is a privilege and honour to serve under your chairmanship. Members will be aware that this is an issue of great interest to me, and I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for securing this important debate. Before the pandemic began, I volunteered each Sunday at Charles Thompson’s Mission in my constituency to help serve hot breakfasts to over 350 people who were then homeless across Merseyside. For me this was not a chore, it was a privilege.
The causes of homelessness are many and complex. Everyone I met at the mission had a different story to tell. Some were casualties of the housing crisis and a cruel and often incomprehensible welfare system, and some had fled domestic violence. Many struggled with substance abuse and mental ill health, and all were victims of a decade of brutal spending cuts that has left frontline services struggling to survive. The decade of austerity led to a staggering 165% increase in the number of rough sleepers in England. That is a shameful legacy and its victims deserve support, not punishment. No one deserves to be criminalised simply because they have nowhere to call home. Seven out of 10 local authorities continue to use some form of enforcement against homeless communities. In Merseyside alone, nearly 300 proceedings were brought under the Vagrancy Act 1824 in 2019.
For those who fall victim to this pernicious piece of legislation, the consequences can be devastating. Fines can sometimes be as high as £1,000—a whopping amount that will only plunge people further into dire poverty. It makes any chance of escaping the streets impossible. Just the threat of being fined or moved on by the police can drive many homeless people away from places of visibility. That puts them out of reach of frontline services and third sector organisations that could help them. It increases the likelihood that homeless people, who are already 17 times more likely to be victims of crime, will be subject to violence, abuse and criminal exploitation.
2:43 pm
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for calling for this important debate. As the Secretary of State and the Minister often point out, street homelessness is primarily a health issue. The hon. Lady bangs that drum all the time, and it is extremely important that we are to understand this. We constantly hear that homelessness is all the fault of the evil Government and the bedroom tax or whatever else. I know there are big issues around housing and lots of people who are homeless but not on the streets. That must be addressed, but to conflate those groups does nothing to help the street homeless. If we are serious, it is time for all those organisations that use the street homeless almost like a showcase group to highlight those other areas, to bang the drum and to hit at the Government, to stop doing that or we will not get anywhere. Repealing the Act may be an opportunity for a wider effort by both the Government and the Opposition.
The Act makes it an offence to beg. While I would welcome any changes and getting rid of the Act, we must preserve that in one way or another. I have met a lot of rough sleepers who freely admit that they are begging in order to find the cash to buy drugs or alcohol. The fact that they have received this generosity from the public keeps people on the streets much longer than they would be otherwise. I have often cited the example of a guy at St Mungo’s—I did not meet him; St Mungo’s told me about him—who had been around Covent Garden for many years and who had ended up having his leg cut off because of the long-term impact of sticking needles in his arm. This guy apparently says that if the public had not been so generous, he would have been off the streets an awful lot earlier.
A few years ago, when I did my last programme, I remember sleeping around the back of the “goods in” entrance of the McDonald’s by Westminster Cathedral with all the people who had taken spice. It was awful. There was one guy who clearly was not on spice—he was a drinker—and I slept next to him. He was called Andy; we made friends. The reason Andy is on the street is because that is the only way he can get money to get beer. Many of the people that my hon. Friend spoke about are on the street, despite the extraordinary success of Everyone In, because they need money to buy drugs.
If someone needs £150 or £200 a day to buy heroin, and is ill because they have been heroin addict for a long time, it is going to be hard for them to find any other means of paying for the drugs than by begging. People can make a lot of money begging. Some 25 years ago there were groups begging in Regent Street—what we call walking begging—that were getting £200 in a day. It is the same for some people in towns such as Winchester, particularly at the height of the tourist season. My appeal is that if we do something about the Act, we should keep the provisions on begging.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, I believe for the first time in Westminster Hall, Sir Charles. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing the debate. I congratulate her on her question to the Secretary of State that elicited the excellent response that he was minded to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, especially given that there has been considerable opposition from the Government, over an extended period of time, to repealing that legislation.
I have lobbied many Ministers responsible for upholding this Act to sponsor its repeal and to encourage the Government to repeal it. The Minister is new and when he replies to the debate I am sure that we can look forward to the announcement of the timetable for introducing the legislation necessary to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824. I declare my interest as co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. It is in that capacity, and in my role as a member of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, that I have been investigating the causes of homelessness and trying to put this right over many years in this place.
We know that every person who is homeless is a unique case. We cannot put people in pigeonholes or say, “It is because of this or because of that.” There are some frequent reasons why people become homeless in the first place. The ending of a private sector tenancy is still the most common reason, but another is relationship breakdown, which very sadly leads to many people being forced to sleep rough in the first place. Before the passing of my Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, single people would not receive any help whatsoever from local authorities. I am glad we have put that right.
Another reason is people becoming unemployed through no fault of their own. They may be made redundant or lose their job because a company goes out of business. It could be that they have suffered an accident and are no longer able to work. Additional reasons, as others have mentioned, include addiction to drugs, alcohol and gambling, and substance abuse also must be taken into consideration. It is fair to say, therefore, that there is no one single cause for someone becoming homeless in the first place.
2:58 pm
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this important debate.
The Vagrancy Act, which was introduced in 1824 after the Napoleonic wars, continues to this day to punish vulnerable people who are begging or sleeping on the street. Since 2009, Leicestershire police have brought proceedings under the Vagrancy Act against 126 of our residents. While that relatively low figure further underlines the pointlessness of this legislation, it means that 126 too many Leicester residents who have been punished for the crime of being poor. Rough sleeping is a searing indictment of societal failure. Every person we see forced to survive on our streets while avoiding dystopian anti-homeless spite demonstrates how basic human needs have been sacrificed on the altar of neoliberalism. Rough sleeping in England increased by 141% between 2010 and 2019, while deaths more than doubled in the recent five-year period. Sadly, that is not surprising but rather the inevitable consequence of cruel Government decisions.
Over the past decade, Conservative Governments have implemented an ideologically driven programme of austerity that has left our public services weakened, vulnerable and underfunded, which has escalated insecurity at work and brought about a long and continuing squeeze on living standards. Rising rough sleeping figures are an inevitable consequence of such rampant inequality. On top of this, the Government have introduced a new set of immigration rules that make rough sleeping grounds for refusal or cancellation of permission to stay in the UK. Seventy specialist organisations working in homelessness have expressed concern that that is as counterproductive as it is morally abhorrent, as the rules will push people further away from seeking support and leave them far more vulnerable to exploitation.
The new rules do not include protection for asylum seekers and refugees or for people who are illegally evicted from private properties. That is of particular concern, as a disproportionate number—26%—of people sleeping rough are non-UK nationals. It is especially callous for the Government to introduce these changes during a global pandemic. Following pressure, at the start of the covid-19 outbreak the Government introduced the Everyone In scheme, which helped temporarily house thousands of vulnerable people. While the scheme was commendable, it should not have taken a global pandemic for us to decide to take the issue of rough sleeping seriously. It is a matter of great concern that the support has already been scaled back.
The Government must recognise that rough sleeping is not a static problem, but rather a constant conveyor belt of misery. Throughout this pandemic, the injustice of the “no recourse to public funds” policy, the inadequacies of covid-19 support packages and universal credit, spikes in domestic abuse and the failure to cut rent and cancel arrears continue to leave more and more people vulnerable to homelessness. Between April and June 2020, almost two thirds of the 4,227 people recorded as sleeping rough in London were doing so for the first time, representing a 77% rise from the previous year. Shockingly, that includes an 81% increase in children and young people. This indicates that the economic fallout from the pandemic has pushed vulnerable people on to the same streets that the Everyone In scheme had temporarily vacated.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for securing this important debate. We want to talk openly and transparently about many of the issues relating to rough sleeping because, unfortunately, many of our constituents face these problems. Unless we talk openly and with honesty about these challenges, we risk not facing up to them.
The circumstances under which many find themselves rough sleeping can vary enormously. There are many individual factors, such as mental health problems, bereavement or experience of the criminal justice system. Individuals can face problems through no fault of their own, such as family breakdown, issues with friends or physical abuse from other members of their household. There can be a variety of causes, but none is any less important than another. That is why I welcome this debate.
In my constituency, like in most of the country, rough sleeping is a problem. It is also a problem in neighbouring Bradford and across the wider Bradford district. I therefore welcome the work being done to deal with these problems in my community. For example, Homeless Not Hopeless is a fantastic local organisation, which I have visited in Keighley, that does a lot of work in the Bradford district. It recognises that both mental and physical challenges can exist among those who are homeless. A team of compassionate volunteers provide support to those who most need it. Last Christmas, I was delighted to see groups across Keighley and Ilkley showing support for their work. The 5th Ilkley Brownies group collected items to donate to Homeless Not Hopeless, and staff at Airedale General Hospital donated over 200 gift-packaged shoe boxes to the charity.
There are also local charities that help those suffering from the symptoms of homelessness. For example, the charity Project 6 helps those in Keighley who are suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. People who sleep rough often fall foul of the misuse of those substances. The impacts can be life-crippling. Vicki Beere and her team at Project 6 provide vital support to people suffering from those problems. Preventing homelessness is vital, but help must also come to those who are sleeping rough. That makes the work of local charities like Project 6 so important.
3:09 pm
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Having witnessed what I have, and having spoken to former rough sleepers, outreach workers and other experts, I know that it is clear that if we are to end rough sleeping for good, a fundamental shake-up of mental health services is required. Charities including The Passage, Crisis and St Mungo’s have highlighted that outreach workers today find it near impossible to secure mental health assessments for rough sleepers. Even when one has been secured, often the vital missing piece of the jigsaw is a specialist bed for that person.
People on the street with the most complex needs often lack the mental health capacity to make decisions for their own wellbeing or accept help from others. At present, a rough sleeper’s mental state has to become so acute that he or she is self-harming or at risk of doing so for the police to take emergency action, and only then might they have a mental health assessment. By that stage, it is far too late, which is why we need an assertive outreach approach. We need outreach workers working in partnership with specialist homelessness mental health teams that can undertake mental health assessments under the Mental Health Act 1983, as well as other types of assessments on the street, with rapid access to specialist bed spaces. We then need the health services required attached to the bed that the rough sleeper is referred to. I would welcome it if the Minister can address that point and consider reintroducing street-based mental health services.
Of course, none of that can happen without the backing of long-term sustainable funding. I again ask the Government to give due consideration to extending the time period of funding allocations for such service to at least three years, preferably five, rather than the current annual basis.
As we slowly and carefully begin our journey out of the pandemic, much is in flux. However, we now have a golden opportunity to build upon Everyone In, to learn from that initiative and to reshape our response, so that we have the services we need to achieve our shared goal of ending rough sleeping. The Government, I believe, are willing and able to end rough sleeping. Repealing and replacing the Vagrancy Act, longer-term funding attached to mental health services and accommodation and re-establishing street-based mental health services will do just that. I look forward to the contributions of other Members and to the Minister’s response.
The Vagrancy Act traps homeless people in a vicious circle of criminalisation and marginalisation. I was therefore heartened to see the Communities Secretary tell the House that he thought the Act should be scrapped, at last adopting the position my party has held for many years. Nearly 200 years after the great abolitionist William Wilberforce first condemned this spiteful Act in the House, we now have the opportunity to right a wrong that has endured for too long.
However, we must go further. In place of the Vagrancy Act, we need a compassionate and holistic approach that tackles the root cause of homelessness, rather than simply giving homeless people a one-way ticket to the criminal justice system. That means restoring funding to frontline public services, which do vital work helping homeless people battling with mental ill health and substance abuse. It means giving local authorities the resources they need to tackle this issue with a public health-focused approach. We must write off all the debts incurred over the pandemic and restore funding after 10 years of austerity. Above all, it means tackling the housing crisis by ending the right to buy and launching a massive council house building scheme that creates homes fit for the 21st century and ends the blight of homelessness once and for all.
At some point we have to think about what we do for these people who are addicted to heroin, for whom I have a huge amount of sympathy. They have got to buy the drug somehow or they have to get some sort of treatment. To go slightly against what I am saying, if people are not begging for the money, they may be stealing for it. We need to have an honest discussion, at some point, as to whether we should medicalise the problem for people who are firmly committed to taking drugs. I end there, but I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster for securing the debate.
We also know that during this pandemic private sector rent arrears have increased dramatically. The National Landlords Association estimates that 7% of those with a private sector lease are in rent arrears. That may not sound like very much, but given that 3.5 million people are renting properties, that means that 245,000 people could be made homeless when the moratorium on evictions comes to an end. Indeed, they could be prevented from getting another lease if a county court judgement is made against them. Many of them may end up being street homeless if we are not too careful.
Clearly, we have come a long way with legislation over many years. Looking back, we can see that 1977 was the first time that local authorities had a duty to house those in priority need. It is easy to think now that of course local authorities should have that duty, but it was not that long ago that there was no such requirement. That reform was welcome.
In 2016, I had the opportunity and privilege to promote a private Member’s Bill, which subsequently became the Homelessness Reduction Act. I am very proud of that. It was done on a cross-party basis, with pre-legislative scrutiny carried out by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and supported by all parties in the House of Commons. That went on the statute book in April 2017, just before the general election, but it did not come into force until April 2018. Its most important duty is the duty to refer people who are threatened with being homeless to a local authority for assistance, but that did not come into force until October 2018. More than 30,000 people have been prevented from becoming homeless as a result.
The vast majority of people who become homeless in the first place say the same thing: “All we need is help and advice to get ourselves into an alternative property.” When being triaged by a local authority, however, they would frequently be greeted by the same response: “Sorry, we can’t help you. Go and sleep on a park bench or sleep in a shop doorway, and hopefully one of the housing charities will come along and help you.” People sleeping rough for the first time are extremely vulnerable, and sadly, those sleeping rough die at a very early age. The average age of men dying on the streets is 46. We have to combat that.
We should congratulate the Government on the Everyone In programme and celebrate its success. It is extremely welcome that it has taken more than 30,000 people off the streets and put them in safe accommodation. It is now time, however, to review not just the success of that policy but how we go forward. I congratulate the Government on providing money for move-on accommodation and on ensuring as far as possible that those people do not return to the streets, unless it is their absolute choice to do so. In addition to discussing the Vagrancy Act, we should also review all housing legislation and make sure that obstacles are not being placed in the way of assisting people into proper and decent accommodation.
I am a great advocate for Housing First, meaning that we take people off the streets, provide them with secure accommodation, and then build a network of support around them. The main reason for that is that it is no good just giving someone a property to live in when they have suffered from addictions or other problems. They actually need help and support to rebuild their lives, and it is only once they have a secure roof over their heads that we can do that. The trials and pilot schemes have been very successful and we should aim to roll them out so that this becomes a means of prevention, rather than cure, which is always the best approach.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster rightly pointed out, the Vagrancy Act was introduced in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, during which men in particular had been crippled. There were no jobs for them, no national health service and no welfare state. We are now in a much stronger position and should deal with people who are homeless on the basis of their health and enable them to rebuild their lives.
It is right, however, that we have legislation to deal with aggressive begging in particular. My advice to anyone who asks me has always been: “Don’t give money to someone who is homeless and unfortunately living on the streets—give them help and support. Direct them to a charity where they can get the help and support they need to rebuild their lives, rather than potentially fuel their addictions”.
Surely now is the time that, above all else, we should say to the people of this country that people who are homeless should not be arrested but assisted. By assisting them we can help them rebuild their lives and rebuild the dignity of people across the country. We do need to build more social housing and provide a rental basis that people can afford. That is not a debate for today, but let us hear from the Minister the actions that the Government are going to take to repeal this legislation. Although we will need legislation to deal with aggressive begging, we need to make sure that people who are homeless do not feel threatened by the police and those in authority but realise that they can be assisted to rebuild their lives. Thank you, Sir Charles, for allowing me to participate in this excellent debate.
The pandemic has also led to concerns that the number of rough sleepers has been dramatically under-estimated in official figures, which are predominantly collated by a count-based estimate of the number of people seen sleeping rough in a local authority on a typical night. The National Audit Office has expressed alarm that between the end of March and November 2020, 33,139 people were given accommodation through the Everyone In scheme—a number almost eight times greater than the annual snapshot of rough sleepers. The Government must therefore urgently revise how they measure rough sleeping. Even more importantly, they must revoke the discriminatory new immigration rule and set in place a plan to permanently eradicate rough sleeping.
The Government have pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024, yet to achieve that they must invest much more than the £750 million earmarked for the next year. To put the issue in perspective, that is 3.4% of the £22 billion that the Government have spent on the failed, bloated Test and Trace system, which has had a negligible impact on covid-19 cases while lining the pockets of Tory party donors.
With the Vagrancy Act 1824 approaching its 200th birthday, there can be no better way to mark the occasion than to finally repeal this appalling, outdated legislation, along with the Government’s latest discriminatory immigration rules. We must stop punishing our most vulnerable members of society and instead focus on addressing the causes behind their misfortune.
I am pleased that the Government are providing support to help vulnerable people get off the street for good. The £212 million support package provided through the rough sleeping accommodation programme will help local authorities provide the funds to tackle rough sleeping. The Next Steps accommodation programme will support new tenancies for people who need them most.
Of course, more can be done to support those who are rough sleeping. The Vagrancy Act is almost 200 years old. Two centuries later, it stands unfit for purpose. The time has come for it to be replaced. That is why I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has said that it should be repealed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster on her work and on bringing forward this debate.
Of course, this a difficult issue to tackle. Unless we speak about it in places such as this, we are not doing all we can to bring it to the forefront, so I welcome this debate. It is also heartening to see all the work being done by local charities. The repealing and replacing of the Vagrancy Act is a step in the right direction. I support that move but long-term solutions are also required, including longer-term funding, street-based mental health services and a targeted approach that addresses the root causes of homelessness in their entirety. I look forward to supporting the Minister’s hopeful remarks on the Government’s aspiration to repeal and replace this Act.