Homelessness

Lord Bird Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the question of homelessness and rough sleeping is a complex one. The noble Lord is right that the number of rough sleepers has gone up in the past six years—that is absolutely true—but the number of homeless people has halved since 2003, and more than halved since its peak. As I said, during this Parliament we have committed £550 million to tackling rough sleeping and homelessness over the next four years.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Could the Government look at the enormous problems around empty homes? There are probably about 250,000 empty homes in Britain today, and if we put effort into doing something about that we might find that the housing problem shrank a bit. There used to be a wonderful organisation called the Empty Homes Agency that kept the Government on their toes. I suggest that we return to looking at these ways—as well as all others—of solving that problem.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I pay tribute to what the noble Lord does in the area of homelessness. He really knows what he is talking about. I will take that idea away for consideration. In the housing White Paper, to be published shortly, there will be discussion of these issues. However, I applaud what he has done and welcome that particular initiative, which we will look at.