Rishi Sunak on Monday distanced himself from the Home Secretary's claim that rough sleeping is sometimes a "lifestyle choice", but refused to directly criticise the remarks.
The Prime Minister was pressed on whether Suella Braverman’s language was "offensive" after she suggested she wants to place restrictions on the use of tents in public streets to help solve homelessness.
Labour MPs and charities condemned the remarks and cabinet minister Claire Coutinho also moved to distance herself from the comments saying she "wouldn't necessarily use" the same language as the Home Secretary.
"I don't want anyone to sleep rough on our streets," Mr Sunak said during a visit to Bacton Gas Terminal in Norfolk on Monday,
"That's why the Government is investing £2 billion over the next few years to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. I'm pleased that the number of people sleeping rough is down by a third since the peak, but of course there is more to do.
"Our Homelessness Reduction Act, which is a landmark law that we passed, has already ensured that over 600,000 people have had their homelessness prevented or relieved. So I'm proud of that record.
"But of course there is more to do and we'll keep going so that nobody has to sleep rough on our streets."
Earlier Ms Coutinho had told Times Radio: “I would not have used necessarily those words.”
She added: “Before I came into Parliament I spent a lot of time in social justice working with people who had very complicated issues in their lives.
“The really important issue is we want people to have a roof over their head.
“We want people to be able to get the help and support that they need, often when people are homeless, particularly for a long time, they become entrenched in that position.
“There are other things going on, it might be addiction issues for example, it might be relationships breakdown in their lives.”
She insisted that Ms Braverman was not talking about these people who often had “very complex needs,” including possibly mental health issues, and might refuse accommodation.
According to the Financial Times, as part of measures in the King’s Speech, a civil offence could be established to fine charities found to have given tents to rough sleepers.
In Twitter post on X, Ms Braverman said the state would always support those who are genuinely homeless.
“But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice,” she said.
The Home Secretary argued that unless the Government acted, British cities would “go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug taking, and squalor.”
But the founder of The Big Issue magazine called for “grown-up thinking” about homelessness.
Lord John Bird said if the problem is not dealt with when it is a social issue, it becomes a law and order problem.
He said: “If the root causes of poverty and homelessness had been addressed decades ago, you wouldn’t have this need transferred to the streets of the UK.
“We need grown-up thinking rather than responding to the issue with a policy that infers homelessness is a law and order offence, which Suella Braverman is doing here.
“Street homelessness is rarely a lifestyle choice, it’s a sign of a lack of governmental policy that seeks to address the fundamental flaws in our system and means people inevitably fall into the sticky stuff and can’t claw their way out again.
“I have a Bill going through for the creation of a Ministry of Poverty Prevention, which will draw political minds together to produce a finer level of thinking, focusing on the area of prevention and ways in which we can tackle these problems head on.”
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Rough sleeping is not ‘a lifestyle choice’.”
She blamed increased homelessness on 13 years of Conservative government.
Homelessness charity Shelter was also critical of Ms Braverman.
“Let’s make it clear: living on the streets is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ - it is a sign of failed government policy,” it said.
