UK Parliament / Open data

Rough Sleeping

Proceeding contribution from Neil Coyle (Labour) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 7 February 2019. It occurred during Backbench debate on Rough Sleeping.

I completely agree, and I will come back to domestic violence later.

The data are based on numbers on the street, but areas such as Brent Council did an estimate rather than go out and count, so that is not a reliable figure. Keith, the Big Issue seller at London Bridge, sleeps in a bin

cupboard on the Purbrook Estate near Tower Bridge Road. Nobody went into that bin cupboard to count him. That estimate is not an adequate assessment of the problem. I hope that the Minister will tell us how she intends to ensure that data collection is more robust. That decrease of 74, based on a faulty test, is on the back of an increase of 2,909 since 2010, using the Government’s own measure. Under the last Labour Government, the number of rough sleepers was at an all-time low. The latest figures suggest that rough sleeping may have reached a two-year low.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

654 cc199-200WH 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

Westminster Hall

Legislation

Vagrancy Act 1824
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