It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, and to follow my friend the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), alongside whom I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this very important debate.
It is difficult to conduct a debate about rough sleeping without viewing it in the wider context of homelessness. The hon. Gentleman gave a compelling and comprehensive speech; it will not surprise him that I do not agree with all of it, but much of it I do agree with. He referenced a lot of the all-party parliamentary group’s work, and I will try not to repeat too many of the points that he made so eloquently. I also thank the Minister. I know it has not been a very easy 12 months for her, but she has worked very diligently on this issue and I thank her and the Secretary of State for the roles they have played.
Over the past 12 months we have seen a small decrease in rough sleeping, but it is important to point out that that is in the context of increases in London, Birmingham and Manchester in particular, and of figures still showing an increase of 165% since 2010. I welcome the Government’s ambition to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it entirely by 2027, but that is too long. I put it to the Minister that we must be far more ambitious.