I thank my hon. Friend for breathing life into the examples that I was giving, explaining the stress suffered by many people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, particularly children, and the damage that occurs to the relationship between parents and children. My hon. Friend's illustration bears out the fact that prolonged stays in such accommodation are simply unsuitable.

The figures for the average length of time spent by families with children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation are not readily available. However, anecdotal evidence from hon. Members' advice surgeries, such as that outlined by my hon. Friend, as well as the eagerness with which many families accept temporary accommodation in cold, damp, expensive and poorly furnished flats of their own, reveal the extent of the problem.

There are problems with the approach that I advocate. I know that the introduction of tougher guidance demanding quicker assessment will not work without extra investment in services for homeless people. I know that those services are already over-stretched and would risk judicial review if they did not promptly move successfully assessed applicants out of bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I know that the targets do not distinguish between families with children and vulnerable single adults, whom we also want to move into more suitable accommodation more quickly. I know that the targets fail to take account of the desperate shortage of affordable housing and temporary accommodation in London. I also know that the Government are committed, as no other in the past 20 or 30 years, to increasing investment in social housing. I know that if children are not moved out of bed-and-breakfast accommodation, we fail them miserably and perhaps damage them for life. We must overcome those problems.

If the Government have succeeded in reversing the decline in the investment in social housing, the next step is to improve the service for homeless people. If, when setting targets, Ministers take the opportunity to allow local authorities more freedom to lease private sector accommodation and to improve the temporary social housing grant regime for registered social landlords, we can end the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for anything other than a reduced four-week assessment period.

I have learned during the past four years not to expect Ministers to cave in to impassioned pleas from a couple of Back Benchers in an Adjournment Debate. That is astonishing, but I have learned that lesson. However, I am an optimist and I hope that my exceptionally right hon. Friend the Minister will at least assure us today that he will give sympathetic consideration to developing a series of targets--stepping stones to the abolition of prolonged use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I hope also that he will examine Shelter's proposals to increase the amount of temporary accommodation, particularly in London.

Britain is rich enough and the Government are bold enough and compassionate enough to consign bed-and-breakfast accommodation to the past. I trust that the Minister will do everything in his power to do that within the next three years.