Mr. Mike Allen:

If I can come in there briefly, it is important to say about the figures Ms Molloy was referring to, and which we published, that the official measurement of homelessness is the number of people in emergency shelter that is paid for under section 10. Some people criticise the figures and say they do not reflect reality and so on. They reflect very clearly a very specific form of reality. We have some reservations about the way we count families who are in own-door accommodation and the changes made there. We have some of the best measurements and regular measurements of that form of homelessness of any country in the world. What we do not have is any sort of measure of the less official forms of homelessness which are covered under the European typology of homelessness and housing exclusion, ETHOS, definition of homelessness, namely, the sofa-surfing the Chair referred to or the people who are doubling up, that is, two families living in one housing unit and so on. They are captured to some extent by the work the Housing Agency does on the waiting lists but there are recognised limitations to that. In understanding homelessness more deeply and how we need to solve it and its relation to the housing crisis, we must broaden our definitions and understanding of homelessness but to do that in a way that does not dismiss the quality of the data we already have and the progress we are making on that narrower form of homelessness. I am aware that is quite a complex sort of thing to say but we must avoid throwing out the measurements we have because they do not fully count everything we might wish to. It is about recognising the achievements we have made while recognising the very considerable distances we must go to solve the problem overall.