Speeches by Ali.

“My hon. Friend makes important points about the impact of the lack of these essential items through poverty, and I am happy to meet him and the End Furniture Poverty campaign.”

“As the hon. Member will be aware, we have a plan to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, and the Deputy Prime Minister is leading the ministerial taskforce on ending homelessness. My colleagues have highlighted the work that we are doing to build 1.5 million homes. This is an absolute priority for us and I look forw…”

“The national planning policy guidance will recognise the importance of high-quality open spaces and opportunities for sports, physical activity, health and wellbeing in our communities. Our proposals to release grey-belt land for development will depend on developers’ meeting one of the “golden rules” and ensuring that…”

“The hon. Member has highlighted some really important issues affecting the private housing sector—costs and supply—and the impacts that they have in different areas. I will come on to the action we have already started taking to make headway on those issues. As we have heard, homelessness and rough sleeping have dramat…”

“I welcome the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) to the House, and congratulate him on securing this important debate on funding for temporary accommodation. As we have heard from him and other hon. Members, this is such a serious issue. I know from my experience as an MP for an east London constituency that t…”

“I will come on to what we hope we can do in the coming weeks and months. All temporary accommodation must be safe and suitable for the households affected. Interventions in place at the moment include our homelessness advice and support teams, who are drawn from local authorities and the homelessness sector to help loc…”

“I am incredibly grateful, and my correspondence box is piling up with the mix of issues that my hon. Friend points to. We need to work collectively to tackle these issues, because unless we deal with them in the round, one area’s issues will be transferred to another, which I know is not the answer. We need to address …”

“Absolutely. I was giving examples, not an exhaustive list. I have already met with colleagues, as has the Deputy Prime Minister; we work very closely with the Department for Education. There is a great deal of interest and enthusiasm at ministerial level, at official level and, we know, at local authority level and amo…”

“The hon. Member raises the important barriers to employment that I know are exercising my ministerial colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions, not least as they look at tackling the child poverty challenge—another dimension to the housing crisis. He makes an important point, and I hope we can continue to get…”

“I hope the hon. Member is reassured by the points I have made already, but going forward we need to look at how we can enable much more collaboration between councils and among regional government. The interconnectedness of these challenges means they have to be addressed collectively. That is why from the national Gov…”

“Absolutely. I hope very much that, as part of the strategy that we develop, we can bring in the different perspectives. And, of course, I mentioned from the outset the consequences on children and young people, children in care and accommodation for care leavers. This is a big agenda and we need to make sure that these…”

“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I absolutely agree with him. That is the spirit in which we want to work and learn from the models that have been effective. Let us not forget that when we look at the journeys of people who have ended up as rough sleepers or facing homelessness, they have been part of our co…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this important debate on tackling rough sleeping and all colleagues for their excellent contributions, their insight, their expertise and the examples they gave of th…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the involvement of the Department of Health and Social Care and other relevant Departments is key. Not least, because there are also issues around step-down care, when people leave the healthcare system, whether a hospital or other services. To respond to the point o…”

“I am running out of time, so please make it brief.”

“As I was saying earlier, I am keen to work with colleagues. I have already indicated to officials that as part of our work across Government, we should make sure that Members of Parliament have the opportunities to meet me and feed in their perspectives, insights and powerful examples of what works. Unless we draw on t…”

“We will look at these issues in the round. The hon. Member has made important points about the growth in the sector, and I shall come on to that. As I have said, we will look at the findings of the Electoral Commission report when they arrive. Once we have completed our review, we will bring forward firm proposals for …”

“I thank the former Minister, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), for securing the debate and bringing the very important topic of elections to the attention of the House. I particularly welcome the expertise and experience he brings to the discussion, which is helpfully taking place at the beginning of the …”

“I am going to make some progress, but perhaps I can write to the hon. Gentleman on his specific point. I return to the point about short-term lets and the wider housing challenge. Through decisive action, this Government will reform the planning system, because we need to increase the building supply. We have our commi…”

“Again, those are really important points that will need to be factored in as we develop these policies. The hon. Member will appreciate that I cannot make commitments today, but we are at the beginning of this Government. We are very keen to make sure we get the policies right. I thank him for the intervention.”