Recommendation 10

Everyone In by definition has finished. The Government believes Everyone In continues to exist, but by its own admission it is no longer helping everyone. The principle of Everyone In was that everyone, no matter what their normal eligibility for homelessness assistance, would be provided with accommodation to self-isolate by their local authority. The Government made a clear decision to change this from May 2020 onwards. The Permanent Secretary admitted that what at the beginning was a very broad intervention is now focused on individual assessments. This backtracking by the Government led to councils deeming individuals ineligible for support when they in fact have legal powers to support such individuals under the Local Government Act 1972 and NHS Act 2006, as shown by the Ncube v Brighton and Hove City Council case. The Government is trapped between its exemplary humanitarian efforts to accommodate these individuals, and its insistence that its immigration policies have no flexibility, even during a pandemic. We do not think it is sufficient, as the Minister told us, to pass this responsibility on to charities and turn a blind eye to their predicament.

Paragraph Reference: 37