Rough Sleeping
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Kerry McCarthy(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I would be happy to praise those local organisations for the good work they have done, and I join my hon. Friend in praising Bradford Council for its good work. It has seen an almost 60% reduction in the number of people sleeping rough in its area over the course of a year.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
Far too many homeless people end up in poor-quality supported housing where they do not actually get any of the support they need to help them to deal with the underlying issues, and too often they end up back on the streets as a result. Can the Minister give an update on what is happening with the supported housing pilots? When will he be able to bring in regulation or better oversight of the sector, so that we do not see homeless people ending up in that situation?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Lady raises an important point. She has worked on that with the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), who is a parliamentary near neighbour of hers, in the Bristol area. We have taken forward research to see whether tighter regulation of supported housing is required, and we recently decided to extend those pilots and provide further funding for them, so that we can learn more before coming to a judgment as to whether we need to put in place legislative or other measures to protect people from poor-quality outcomes. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that further, if she would benefit from that.
Towns Fund
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Kerry McCarthy(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a fantastic champion for her constituency since she was elected just a short time ago. As she says, it is a reflection on the Labour party—at least in Westminster—that it wants to pour cold water on a fund that is doing so much good work in communities across the country. Fortunately, that is quite a different picture from what we are seeing from local councils of all political persuasions elsewhere, which really want to get on board and make a huge success of these proposals. We will be doing a competitive phase next year, and I look forward to an application from the other parts of my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
From this towns fund being handed out to Tory seats, to the money being squandered on covid contracts and the ferry contract being awarded to a company with no ferries, this is all part of a very murky picture, is it not? How can my constituents have any confidence at all that public money is being well spent when cronyism, mates’ rates and political manoeuvring seem to be at the heart of so much Government decision making, not to mention downright incompetence?
Robert Jenrick
Well, I did not detect a question there, other than a whole series of pointless innuendos. We are going to keep focusing on what the public want us to do, which is investing and levelling up in the communities that need it the most despite all the challenges of covid, and that is exactly what this fund does.