HC Deb 21 March 1990 vol 169 cc1118-20
14. Miss Hoey

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has developed any new proposals to alleviate homelessness.

17. Mr. Fearn

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has any plans to bring forward proposals to reduce the number of homeless people in England and Wales.

Mr. Michael Spicer

I shall very shortly be announcing allocations for 1990–91 of the two-year programme of additional resources to meet the problem of homelessness in London and the south-east. These will total £112 million for local authorities and should result in more than 5,000 additional lettings next year.

Miss Hoey

I thank the Minister for his reply and urge him to make his announcement very quickly. Is he aware of the special needs resulting from homelessness in the Waterloo area, particularly in the bull ring? Does he know that the money to be made available for the borough of Lambeth will not make it possible to deal with that special problem? Will he recognise that fact by coming up with a new project for the area with which the London borough could help? As he is a new Minister, will he share a walkabout with me some evening in the next fortnight so that he may see the area for himself?

Mr. Spicer

Much as I would enjoy accompanying the hon. Lady round the bull ring, it would be a little superfluous as I have already been there to look at the problems. I agree with the hon. Lady that people living rough in the area present a special problem. The question, which we are addressing very urgently, is what can be done about it without encouraging people to leave home. People leaving home early and split marriages are major causes of rooflessness. The allocations that I have announced today will, of course, help.

Mr. Fearn

Does the Minister agree that the extra amounts allocated for hostels and for counselling are far too small?

Mr. Spicer

There are 50,000 hostel places in this country—21,000 of them in London alone. The question is whether the throughput is fast enough. One reason behind what I said today is that we want to provide more fixed abodes. We want to provide housing to which people currently in hostels may go. That is precisely why we have targeted this extremely generous amount of money as we have.