Homelessness is one of the crucial housing and social issues of our time, and it is right that the House should have an opportunity for an albeit brief debate on those crucial elements in the Bill. Sadly, homelessness is and has been for the past few years all too evident a feature of life in Britain. It is a scar on our society, and blights the lives of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. It is an affront to any civilised society to see the extent of homelessness in Britain today.

The fact that homelessness exists on such a scale is testimony to the failure of the Government's housing policy to ensure the provision of adequate homes for people in need. It is no coincidence that the past five years have seen the lowest output of new homes for renting of any period since the end of the second world war—an average of 28,000 new homes a year, compared with more than 120,000 new rented homes a year during the five years of the Labour Government.

The failure to provide adequately for housing needs has inevitably led to the appalling problems of homelessness that we face today. But rather than addressing those problems directly, with measures to increase the output of rented housing, and responding to people's needs, the Government are behaving in a shabby and disreputable way, by seeking to reduce local authorities' statutory responsibilities towards the homeless.

In summary, the Government are making the victims of the homelessness crisis pay for the Government's own failure to provide adequately for people's housing needs. They are making an entirely unjustified attack on the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, which has provided the statutory framework for the relief of homelessness throughout the past 18 years.

As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock) said, that Act was passed with support from hon. Members from all parties. Although essentially it was passed by the Labour Government with the active involvement of Stephen Ross, the Liberal Member who promoted it as a private Member, it also attracted support from some Conservative Members.

That legislation has been reviewed twice during the lifetime of the Government—in the early stages of the Government, in the early 1980s, when the current Deputy prime minister was Secretary of State for the Environment, and again in the late 1980s, when the late Lord Ridley and Mr. Chris Patten, who is now Governor of Hong Kong, were Secretary of State for the Environment.

Both those reviews concluded that the legislation was working well, and that there was no need for change. It is a comment on today's Tory party that it now sees the need to interfere, and to damage legislation that the Government's predecessors regarded as working well. There is no justification for what the Government are doing; there has been no objective change in circumstances to merit it.

The Bill is a mean, shabby piece of legislation that will withdraw assistance from many people in need by reducing local authorities' existing obligations, thus facilitating matters for local authorities that do not wish to accept their responsibilities towards the homeless. It will also break the link established by the 1977 Act, between the provision of housing for the homeless and that for all other categories of need.

Bringing the homeless into the mainstream, rather than condemning them to a period in temporary accommodation, was one of the most important gains made under the 1977 Act. That Act put an end to some of the most disgraceful features of the treatment of the homeless, so well portrayed in the television programme that shocked the nation in the 1960s, "Cathy Come Home"—practices such as the splitting of families and the degradation of families, and the use of squalid and disgusting former workhouses and other forms of temporary accommodation for the homeless.

The fact that the 1977 Act got away from that and concentrated on the permanent housing of homeless people was one of the great gains that it made. Yet the Government are now acting directly to reverse that, and seeking to put homeless people into temporary accommodation again.

Believe it or not, if the Bill gets through Parliament, it will make it impossible for local authorities to provide direct rehousing for homeless people, other than in the exceptional circumstance of their already being registered on the housing waiting list and having sufficient points to qualify—or rather, to use the slightly curious term that the Minister used in Committee, of their having "almost enough" points to qualify. The Minister has never clarified how that definition would work; we know that it is a mess, and will prove unworkable.

The Government's action is a dereliction of their responsibility to one of the most vulnerable sections of our community. It shows that today's Tory party has turned its back on the poor, the homeless and the vulnerable and demonstrates the Government's failure to ensure that the needs of all members of our society are properly met. I pledge that the Labour party, on its return to government, will ensure that there is a proper and effective statutory framework to guarantee the rights of homeless people and make sure that they get proper treatment and help in the form of permanent accommodation.

9.45 pm

We shall restore the framework created in 1977 if the Government succeed in their intention of dismantling it. Whatever happens tonight, I hope that this legislation will not pass unscathed in Another place. It runs against all our country's instincts for fairness that underpinned the 1977 Act, which gained enormous support throughout the country—as has its retention. When the Government consulted on the proposal to change the law, more than 10,000 people responded. Almost all said that the legislation should stay, that the Government should abandon their proposals and that the 1977 Act was working well. It is only the Government who want to pursue their proposals. They are flying in the face of all informed opinion, the voluntary organisations that work with the homeless, the local authorities and the people who know and care most. Their proposals are wrong-headed and will not work or last. We will vote firmly tonight against those measures because they are wrong and we want in their place a proper framework to ensure the maintenance of responsibilities towards the homeless.