A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic. This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record. I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of tackling rough sleeping. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship today, Sir Christopher. Night after night in Ealing Southall, people bed down in front of the Quality Foods shop, where a canopy offers some shelter from the rain, although it does not offer much protection from the biting cold.
They sleep there all night, wrapped up in cardboard and ragged sleeping bags. Up the road in West Ealing, it is the same story. It is a daily tragedy for homeless people, and of course it is also intimidating for people passing by and it cannot help but make our town centres less attractive for shoppers and businesses.
I recently visited Southall community college, which is trying to offer its students a good learning environment, but it says that it is hard to do so when there are people sleeping under the college awnings every night who are still there in the morning.
The college has decent people who want to help, but they do not know where to start. Hope for Southall Street Homeless is a fantastic local charity that helps homeless people and those sleeping roughβI recently visited and saw the range of services it offers, from a hot meal to eye tests to a Bollywood movie on a big screenβbut voluntary services are straining under the sheer weight of people now sleeping rough.
There was a brief respite during covid when the Everyone In programme moved almost all rough sleepers into accommodation, but when the covid crisis was over, the previous Government squandered that opportunity. They refused to learn the lessons and now the numbers are swiftly moving back to the pre-covid record levels of rough sleeping.
