Yes, baby milk too. If anyone watching this debate wants to donate, do not just take food—it is not just about pasta and beans—but take all the other daily essentials.
A young woman who came to me was sleeping with someone different every night rather than go back to an abusive domestic environment or sleep on the streets. That is an appalling situation for people to be in. The two truisms from all the individuals I see is that no personal circumstances have been anything other than tragic, but all of them are avoidable—without exception—if we get the policies right.
The latest statistics are shameful: in the sixth wealthiest nation on the planet in the 21st century, an estimated 4,700 people are forced to sleep rough. That is completely unacceptable, whatever the politics. Genuine efforts to tackle rough sleeping are welcome. It is the most extreme form of homelessness, but in November last year, Shelter estimated that there were 320,000 homeless people in Britain. That fuller extent of homelessness needs adequate attention. It is not just about rough sleeping, because moving people from the streets into temporary accommodation still leaves them homeless.
Those statistics show that for every homeless person we see sleeping rough, there are about 63 other homeless people who are less visible: they are in temporary accommodation, sofa surfing or on night buses like my constituent. Some say that rough sleeping is the tip of the homeless iceberg, but if an iceberg is one-eighth out of the water, the analogy is not strong enough. Rough sleeping would not even be a quarter of what is visible above the water, if my maths is right—I make no claim to be a mathematician.
The latest statistics on rough sleeping show that the total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night was 4,677, which is down 2% from the 2017 total of 4,751. That is a reduction of 74 people. It is important to flag that that data set is not strong enough. No one thinks that it is the most reliable way to assess the genuine number of people sleeping rough.