Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria she uses to distinguish which rough sleepers do so as a lifestyle choice.

The Government is taking action to prevent people from becoming homeless and rough sleeping in the first place. There are varying causes of homelessness and rough sleeping that are unique to each individual case.

The Government’s rough sleeping strategy sets out a ‘prevention first to approach’, including bringing forward investment to help ensure that nobody leaves a public institution for the streets, such as prison, hospital or care.