Owen Smith's Vow To End Homelessness Branded 'Insulting'

A pledge to end homelessness within five years has been branded "outlandish" and "insulting" by a group of volunteers who serve meals on the streets.

Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith has made the promise as part of his campaign to oust Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Opposition.

Mr Smith told Sky News: "It is a moral outrage in Britain, we have seen rough sleeping and homelessness in Britain double in the last six years.

"I am determined to change that so I would strengthen the law dramatically to place a greater burden on councils to deal with rough sleeping on their streets.

"I would implement a new fund a £50m fund each year to guarantee that we don't have the scandal of people sleeping rough on the streets of Great Britain."

While Mr Smith does have the support of some homeless charities, Emdad Rahman who runs the One Third pop up soup kitchen in Stratford, east London, told Sky News: "To think that we can eradicate something like this is just insulting.

"It's an outlandish claim... the homeless situation is getting worse and worse.

"We are making pledges on something where there is absolutely no hope on delivering. In fact I don't think it would be possible to achieve 50%."

National charity Crisis welcomed Mr Smith's ambition but also urged MPs to back the Homelessness Reduction Bill that is currently going through Parliament.

Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said: "We know what's causing it, we know the cost of housing is going up, we know that the biggest reason for people becoming homeless is the ending of a private sector tenancy.

"The Homelessness Reduction Bill will change the lives of thousands of homeless people in that it puts new duties on local authorities to help to prevent homelessness and we all know prevention is better than cure."