Tory Council Leader At The Centre The Royal Wedding Row Gets Paid To Help The Homeless

The Tory politician demanding police take homeless people off the streets ahead of the Royal Wedding is a paid director of a government agency that’s supposed to be tackling rough sleeping.

Windsor and Maidenhead council chief Simon Dudley hit the headlines after asking Thames Valley police to use the 1824 Vagrancy Act to remove homeless people from the streets before the ceremony at Windsor Castle on May 19. He wrote: “A large number of adults that are begging in Windsor are not in fact homeless, and if they are homeless they are choosing to reject all support services to beg on the streets of Windsor. In the case of homelessness amongst this group, it is therefore a voluntary choice.”

So it’s a surprise to find that Dudley sits on the board of a public body – the Homes and Communities Agency – with responsibility for helping homeless people! The leader of Theresa May’s local authority said he expected to be paid between £10,000 and £20,000 upon taking-up the taxpayer-funded role in February. One of the Agency’s major programmes is the Homelessness Change fund, which is designed to: “Provide tailored hostel accommodation and improved facilities for the provision of healthcare, training or education for rough sleepers with the aim of helping them off the streets and transforming their lives.” 

However, Prime Minster Theresa May has publicly challenged the call by saying: “I don’t agree with the comments that the leader of the council has made. I think it is important that councils work hard to ensure that they are providing accommodation for those people who are homeless, and where there are issues of people who are aggressively begging on the streets then it’s important that councils work with the police to deal with that aggressive begging.”

Charities that work with the homeless said recourse to the law is not the answer. “Stigmatising or punishing [rough sleepers] is totally counterproductive,” said Greg Beales of Shelter. People sleeping on the street were “often at their lowest point, struggling with a range of complex problems and needs and they are extremely vulnerable, at risk from cold weather, illness and even violence”.

He added: “They desperately need our help, support and advice to move off the streets into safety and, eventually, into a home.”