Deaths of Homeless People

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

The hon. Lady started by stating that every death of a homeless person is preventable, and I absolutely agree. There is so much more that we can do. She talked specifically about the importance of cross-departmental working, both with the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care, and I completely agree. We are continuing to work with colleagues in those Departments on the forthcoming independent review of drugs policy, led by the hugely respected Dame Carol Black. We will study her findings extremely carefully. The hon. Lady also talked about universal credit. It is important to put on the record that housing benefit will remain outside universal credit for all supported housing, including homeless shelters, until 2023. She raised a number of extremely important issues, and of course I am happy to work with her colleagues in the Scottish Government and to meet her to discuss how we can take these issues forward.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Fundamentally, we will deal with this only by providing many more truly affordable homes of secure tenure. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should consider changing the rules that currently require us to get the best price for public land, and that really we should make that land available to provide many more ultra low-cost homes?

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is an expert in the field and I take what he says extremely seriously, along with all the recommendations of the Communities and Local Government Committee, of which he is a member. I look forward to meeting him to discuss his proposal in more detail.