Sleeping rough and illegal migration

Mr Burnham tells us he feels passionate about everyone having  a bed and a room for the night. That is a good ambition. He then acknowledges that some people sleeping out refuse Council accommodation. When he was Mayor of Manchester he had some success in getting numbers sleeping out down at first by offering beds to those who did want one and accepting a minority did not. Then numbers started to rise again. He ascribed this turn round to the idea that people sleeping rough elsewhere heard of the Manchester scheme to find people beds, so they came to Manchester to add to the demand.

This perception has caused Mr Burnham a problem. He now has to say he needs to take national action to end involuntary rough sleeping because any well intentioned Mayor may follow a policy which is undermined by the lack of a policy elsewhere in No Mayor lands or in Uncaring Mayor lands. His idea that we will all be better off with more powers for Mayors takes a tumble as he seeks to find a national override on the one thing above all else he cares passionately about. Homelessness was always before a local government responsibility. Councils have a better knowledge of the local housing market and what is possible.

He should also do a little more thinking and see the same applies to the problem of illegal migration. Under a new national policy to offer any rough sleeper a bed and room presumably illegals who get into the UK who do not have accommodation can sleep rough and qualify for the rough sleeping accelerated provision of housing. Mr Burnham needs to be aware he could be creating more demand for his homeless policy, just as he says he did in Manchester when people came from outside to take advantage. Could he face more illegal migrants seeing the way they could use the rough sleeper accelerated access to housing as an additional benefit of breaking the law to get here?

Mr Burnham says he wants to stop the boats and smash the gangs, but still has not set out how he will do this. He now needs to be careful lest the policies he is following encourages more migrants. The policy of dispersal for migrants housing to dearer parts of the country will add to the costs and do nothing to act as a deterrent to migrants who see the UK as a soft touch. Labour’s abolition of the Conservative law that an illegal could not claim asylum here coupled with abandoning the Rwanda scheme before the legal situation was sorted out have already made the task much more difficult