Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that the BBC got a good deal in 2015. Indeed:

“The Government’s decision here to put the cost of the over-75s on us has been more than matched by the deal coming back for the BBC.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the director general of the BBC after the deal in 2015. I think that taxpayers now expect the BBC to do the right thing.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Q10. In February 2018, a homeless man tragically died outside Parliament. Ten months later, another homeless man died in exactly the same place. Will the Prime Minister deal with that terrible Dickensian situation and, in the dying days of her premiership, address the “burning injustice” of homelessness, whereby we have to step over bodies to enter Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we are all concerned about homelessness and rough sleeping, and when we hear and see the stories that the hon. Lady cited. The latest figures on rough sleeping show that the number of people sleeping on our streets is down for the first time in eight years. That is because action has been taken. It is a step in the right direction, but of course we need to do much more. That is why we have set up the new strategy to end rough sleeping altogether, which is backed by an initial £100 million. We are determined to make sleeping on the streets a thing of the past.