Budget Resolutions

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Instead, we heard that councils could borrow an extra £1 billion for home building, even though £20 billion would be available if the cap was scrapped; that we would remove stamp duty for people who can afford houses—nice if someone has the money to start with, but no help if people are just about managing to get food on the table—that the Government would build new garden towns, a policy that has been announced three times already, and people are still waiting for their homes to be built; that we would see estate regeneration, but no requirement to give tenants a say on how their estates are redeveloped; and that we would halve rough sleeping by 2020, but with no idea of how, apart from setting up three measly pilot schemes.

I always think that pilot schemes are the path of a Government who have no conviction. In 1945, did Attlee say, “Oh, I have a good idea about health care. I’ll do a pilot scheme over the next 10 years, and if it works we’ll roll it out across the country.” Did he heck? He had the courage of his convictions. Rather than waiting 10 years to do something, why cannot we have a national homes first programme? The reason why we will not get it is that this Government have no convictions.

Although I do not begrudge Liverpool, Manchester or Birmingham projects of homes first, why can we not also put such a project in place in Westminster—the authority with the highest homeless population in the country? People only a few hundred yards from this Chamber will be freezing on the streets tonight. They will also be freezing on the streets of my constituency in Brighton and Hove, the area with the second highest homeless population. What are we to say to them, “Don’t worry, if you’re still alive in 2027 and the pilot scheme is successful you might get help—if you’re not already dead that is.”

Let me give some facts about what inequality looks like in this country. The average life expectancy of a man living on the streets is 47, and for a woman it is just 43. Homeless people are four times more likely to die of unnatural causes and 35 times more likely to commit suicide. In the autumn of 2016, there were 4,134 people sleeping rough in England, which is 50% up on 2014 and more than double the number in 2010. These are the people whom this Government have forgotten. There is barely a week that goes by when I do not read in the paper about another needless death on our beach, on our promenade or in our parks.

What about the thousands of damp, unsafe homes that are making children ill, or the bed and breakfasts, where families are squeezed into one room with only a shared toilet down the corridor? What about setting up a national scheme for decent council-run emergency accommodation? Of course that will not happen, because this is a Government with no ideas and no ambition. ​Well, excuse me if I do not give this Budget the fanfare that the Chancellor would like—quite frankly, it is a pathetic response from a heartless Government.

Brighton Housing Trust published an impact report this month on women and homelessness. It says:

“Many homeless women seek protection from men but…some of these relationships lead to further violence.”

The trust gives the example of Lauren, who spent three months with a male friend, but in the end she was violently assaulted and raped. She said that before she could get help she

“had to get to the point where I was black and blue and in hospital with broken ribs”.

Local authorities need funding to solve this problem. They do not need another taskforce that this Government have set up, or a renamed and rebranded Homes and Communities Agency that will do little to solve the problem.

I regard every homeless person that finds a bench, a vacant building, a sofa or a park in my constituency as one of my constituents. I say to them, “Don’t give up!” I cannot defend this Budget, but let it be known that there are people working in this place—on these Benches—who will turn back the clock of austerity and who will provide for them and for our communities.