Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I welcome to the Committee Mark Baillie, head of policy and programmes, Homeless Connect, and Cathy Brolly, public affairs and policy manager, Simon Community. I warn members that Mark and Cathy have been in the room for the whole meeting, and, like me, they have heard and suffered your opinions. If we can, keep it to questions, please, not speeches or opinions. We will then get through this more succinctly and with better evidence. I am not looking at anybody in particular.

Miss Hargey: Are you looking in the mirror? [Laughter.]

I am only joking.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I invite Mark and Cathy to give an opening presentation.

Mr Mark Baillie (Homeless Connect): I will open, and Cathy will follow me.

Thank you for the opportunity to present to the Committee this afternoon. I hope that you will not want to break my other arm after I make my remarks. [Laughter.]

Hopefully, you have had the opportunity to read our submission. I will give a brief overview of our position before handing over to Cathy.

As the representative body for the homelessness sector in Northern Ireland, Homeless Connect regularly engages with its member organisations on policy matters that impact on them and the people whom they work so hard to support. Our submission to the consultation, both to the Committee and to the Department, was informed by engagement with our policy forum, which is made up of representatives of our member organisations, who, day in, day out, work so hard to support people who are at risk of or are experiencing homelessness here. As a principle, we believe that it is critical to engage directly on matters of policy that affect them with people who have lived experience of homelessness. For this consultation, we held a focus group with eight individuals who were either currently experiencing homelessness or had experienced it in the past, and that included rough sleeping and hostel accommodation. We are incredibly grateful to them for their insights on the issue.

To briefly summarise our position, Homeless Connect supports the Department's proposal to repeal the provisions of the Vagrancy Acts on rough sleeping and begging. We have publicly commended the Minister of Justice for bringing forward the proposals. There is nothing wrong with old legislation per se if it is effective and fit for purpose. In this case, the current legislation is not, in our estimation, fit for purpose and contributes to the stigmatisation of people experiencing chronic homelessness.

Given some of the debate that we have had and from earlier parts of the discussion on the issue, a point that I really want to emphasise is the importance of differentiating between rough sleeping and begging. Our policy forum and our lived experience group strongly stressed that to us. Those two activities are often elided as if they always come as a package, but they simply do not. That is the reality. Many people who sleep rough do not engage in begging and vice versa. Chair, your predecessor as Chair made the point clearly early in the discussion on the issue that they are separate issues. It is really important that they are kept separate, so I will now consider them in turn.

I will first consider rough sleeping. We commend the PSNI for the decision that it made several years ago not to look to arrest or prosecute under the Vagrancy Acts individuals who were sleeping rough. We have met and heard testimony from people who had been sleeping rough and had been signposted by the PSNI to relevant services. That was a very different response from the one that they might have met in decades past, and it was excellent to see. The PSNI's current approach is a compassionate one that recognises that rough sleeping is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon that cannot be resolved through a criminal justice response.

If the PSNI is not enforcing that element of the law — that has been definitively illustrated; the PSNI made it clear in evidence to you — this question might be asked: why should you use legislative time to remove those provisions from the statute book? In our view, it remains important that the provisions are removed, owing to the stigma attached to rough sleeping that arises from the fact that it is criminalised. The law is a teacher, and it signals what society deems to be right or wrong; therefore, the maintenance of that statute sends a signal that rough sleeping is worthy of punishment. In our view, that needs to change.

The theme of Homelessness Awareness Week 2025 is "See the Person". Today, I urge you to see the person whom we are talking about and who is impacted by the statutes and to keep them at the forefront of your mind. People who sleep rough are among the most marginalised people who live here. The vast majority of people in that situation have experienced massive levels of trauma in their life. A properly funded, trauma-informed approach that is provided collaboratively by a range of organisations is much more likely to generate positive outcomes than a solely punitive response. I will leave it to Cathy to talk more about that in a moment. Moreover, some of the language that is utilised in the two statutes against individuals who sleep rough is simply inappropriate and needs to be removed from the Northern Ireland statute book. Terms such as "rogues" and "vagabonds", which are in Northern Ireland statutes today, simply need to go. It is time and it is right that they be removed from the statute book.

We agree with the Minister that it is not appropriate to criminalise people who are simply begging and not otherwise behaving in such a way as to attract criminal sanction. That is our principled position. We listened with interest to the evidence session with Professor Brown, and we recognise the important issues that he raised. Neither Cathy nor I is a lawyer, and we would value the response of the Department of Justice to the points that he raised, which, no doubt, you have sought.

Homeless Connect points out that the consultation document indicates that the PSNI stated that the only gap created by repeal would be:

That was reaffirmed at an evidence session of the Committee in January this year. If it transpired that that was not the case, we would, of course, consider further proposals that were brought forward. We recognise that it is important for the PSNI to have the tools necessary to address disruptive behaviours that go beyond simple begging, but, as our full submission indicates, we point out that that is not necessarily a straightforward thing. I think that you are already wrestling with that.

Thank you. I will hand over to Cathy.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you, Mark.

Ms Cathy Brolly (Simon Community NI): Thanks, Mark, and thank you, Committee, for the opportunity to speak today.

As Northern Ireland's largest homelessness charity, Simon Community has a deep understanding of the traumas and experiences that can set people on a path to homelessness. Every day, our staff are on the front line of the mounting homelessness crisis and see first-hand the immense challenges that people face when they lose their home, often through no fault of their own. As Mark mentioned, people who experience homelessness, particularly those who sleep rough and engage in street-based survival activities such as begging, are among the most marginalised people in Northern Ireland. That has been clearly evidenced by our new research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which was launched last month at an event at Stormont that Committee member Ciara Ferguson kindly sponsored. I have brought a few copies of the report and will leave them here for members.

Our research paints a clear and sombre picture of the realities of people experiencing homelessness. People who live in homeless hostels and who sleep rough face significantly higher levels of trauma and disadvantage throughout their life compared with the wider population. Almost all have had one adverse childhood experience, such as neglect or abuse, and two thirds have had four or more. In comparison, less than 18% of the Northern Ireland general population report four or more ACEs.

The proportion of people experiencing homelessness who have a diagnosed mental health condition is 74%, which is almost four times higher than that of the general adult population in Northern Ireland, and over half of those people have been admitted to hospital for a mental health issue at some point. One in five has been in care as a child, and 62% first became homeless before the age of 26. Shockingly, around one in five first became homeless as a child or a teenager.

When it comes to rough sleeping and survival strategies such as begging, 64% have slept rough at some point, and that proportion rises to nearly nine in 10 in young men aged 18 to 26. Experts with lived experience told us that rough sleeping is rarely a choice and is often linked to feelings of shame and of not being able to ask for help. Around one in five reported taking part in begging, but they described that as part of an economy of survival driven by a lack of safe options rather than individual failings.

That research clearly highlights the fact that, for many, homelessness is not rare, short-lived or the result of a personal failure. It begins with childhood adversity and trauma and is exacerbated by underinvestment in mental health services, long waiting lists for addiction support and housing shortages. It returns again and again in adulthood and is marked by rough sleeping, repeated exclusion and long periods without stability. In a society as compassionate as ours, is it really appropriate to criminalise people who have often experienced such significant adversity and trauma for simply trying to survive? We in Simon Community think that it is not. We strongly support the proposals to repeal what, we believe, are outdated provisions that criminalise rough sleeping and begging. Punitive laws not only fail to solve the problem but can make it worse, as they reinforce stigma, push people further from help and draw vulnerable people into a criminal justice system that is simply not designed to meet their complex needs.

Rather than face the threat of punishment, people who experience homelessness need support, housing and compassion. As illustrated by the consultation document and as mentioned, there are strong examples of what works. The Belfast Complex Lives initiative, which Simon Community is involved in, shows that collaboration between statutory bodies and the charity sector can help people with the most entrenched needs to access housing, healthcare and addiction support, thereby breaking the cycle of homelessness. My colleague who is involved in the initiative told me about a young man who was rough sleeping in Belfast. Through Complex Lives, we were able to find him a bed in one of our temporary accommodation services close to his family and support network. He started to engage with mental health support, and he now has his own tenancy and continues to rebuild his life. That example shows that collaborative, trauma-informed approaches recognise the underlying factors that lead people to homelessness and rough sleeping work.

The Simon Community believes that no one should be criminalised for not having a safe place to call "home" and for being failed by systems that should have protected them. We believe that repealing the provisions will help to remove stigma, encourage people to access support and engage with services. It will also reduce distrust and remove the fear of prosecution for simply trying to survive.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to discussing the matter with you further.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you for your presentations, Mark and Cathy. Have you seen Professor Kevin Brown's proposed new provision about begging causing harassment, obstruction or public order concern? You said that simple begging should not be a criminal offence, but should begging that causes harassment, obstruction and public order concerns be a criminal offence?

Mr Baillie: I have not had the opportunity to see the paper yet, but, of course, we will be happy to look at it. As I said, our principled position is that simple begging should not be criminalised, which the law currently does. We will, obviously, consider provisions on harassment and other elements. Professor Brown was very eloquent when giving his evidence, and we will take what he said seriously. I hope to hear the Department's response, because we are interested to know its thinking on the matter.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): The detail states:

It goes on to mention "obstruct and impede", but it also states:

I know that, in principle, you want to see the repeal of the old provision, so are you open to modernisation?

Mr Baillie: We are certainly open to considering that. As someone from a representative body, I cannot give you an answer to that question on the fly, but I am not rejecting it out of hand either. I want to hear the views of our members and the senior team. It is a valid suggestion, and we are not saying that some of the activities associated with begging should not be subject to the law if they are disruptive or causing antisocial behaviour. I understand that there may need to be penalties in that situation, but I need to consult before I can give you an answer.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): There is another option of looking at an offence for:

Again, you will not know the detail, but does that sound like something that may be required, or would you be totally opposed to it at this stage?

Mr Baillie: Again, I am open to considering it, but I would need to look at the detail.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Do either of you have any evidence of any organisational begging with coercion, where the beggar is the victim of organised crime?

Mr Baillie: I am not aware of any such cases. Again, there have been allegations about trafficking, and I know you are au fait with those. I do not have any hard evidence about organisational begging other than rumour, and that is not particularly helpful to the Committee.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Cathy, do you have any evidence of that?

Ms Brolly: No. I have not heard that either.

Miss Hargey: My question is on the back of Paul's point about harassment or other activities that are a danger to the people involved or other members of the public. Should that be attached to the begging element of legislation, or should it be picked up under a different piece that deals with harassment?

Mr Baillie: It is clear that the Vagrancy Acts' time has gone. I do not hear anyone defending the language of "rogues" and "vagabonds" and the other terminology that is used. There is a question about the exact vehicle that should be used, but it is not under the ambit of the Vagrancy Acts, and I did not see any other jurisdictions on these islands taking that approach when they considered the issue.

Miss Hargey: I am keen to know about the engagement that you have had with people who have lived experience of it, because it is important for the outcome of the legislation. What issues are they raising about support or gaps in addressing some of the vulnerabilities, such as substance abuse and related trauma? Do you have more information about the Housing First approach and whether it has progressed in any way between the three Departments?

Mr Baillie: We have a group called "Echoes of Home". Eight folks took part in the consultation, although more than eight are involved in the group. I cannot convey to you the strength of feeling that was expressed about the language in the Acts. When people hear that our law says that they are "rogues" and "vagabonds" for the experience that they have had, they internalise it. The strength of feeling that I have about that comes partly from listening to what those people had to say and hearing their points of view.

You can read tons of research, as Cathy and I do, but lived experience is so important because there is something about listening to the voices of people who have been through an experience. They can reach, see and understand things that we cannot, and it is important that we have the humility to listen to them. We have consulted our group on a range of issues, which has been hugely valuable to us. The number-one issue that we constantly hear about is that you cannot resolve homelessness without an adequate supply of affordable and social housing. The fact that that is a necessary condition is a theme that is raised regularly. I will stop there on lived experience.

The Housing Executive is due to publish a significant report on Housing First in the coming weeks. I will say no more on that other than that it is scheduled to happen; it has been in development for some time. We, as an organisation, believe strongly in the extension of Housing First: it is the gold-standard, evidenced approach to responding to chronic homelessness. I know, Cathy, that the Simon Community has a Housing First service. You may want to say a little about that.

Ms Brolly: Yes, we have a Housing First for Youth service. It operates in two trust areas, one of which is the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. Apologies, I cannot remember the other trust area, but I can find out for you. We know that it absolutely works. It is for children coming out of care, who, as our research shows, are often very much failed and end up in the homelessness system, which, we believe, is unacceptable.

The service just works. It helps those young people to sustain their tenancies, and the home is there for as long as they need it. There is wrap-around support, because we recognise that, as has been raised a few times, homelessness is not just a housing issue. We provide that wrap-around support, which helps those young people to sustain their tenancies. We have seen that it helps them to feel more connected to their local communities and reduces the risky behaviours that they might exhibit. As Mark said, it absolutely works, and we very much want to see it rolled out across Northern Ireland, because that approach will really work for people who, unfortunately, are rough sleeping.

Miss Hargey: The critical bit is sustaining the tenancy. Thank you.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your attendance and your paper. Apologies that I did not make it to the all-party group (APG) meeting at lunchtime. For some reason, I did not get it in my diary.

Mr Baillie: Apologies for that.

Mr Kingston: No, my apologies.

From reading your paper, your position seems to be that the vagrancy and begging elements should be repealed and nothing added at this stage but a review should be carried out further down the line. You heard the earlier evidence, so, as the Chair pointed out, I will not repeat it. I have strong concerns, and the police have articulated their concern to me that they need more tools available to them to control problematic behaviour. I entirely accept that not everybody who is homeless is sleeping rough or causing undue nuisance, if I can put it that way, or harassment to others. Am I correct to summarise your position as being that no other legislation is required at this time, or, if I can push you on this, is there other legislation that, if a review were to happen, you would consider or suggest be looked at?

Mr Baillie: I would like to take the two issues of rough sleeping and begging separately. The criminal law is not being utilised for rough sleeping and has not been for several years.

Mr Kingston: I accept that. We cannot arrest our way out of the problem.

Mr Baillie: That is precisely right.

Turning to begging, we looked at the original consultation document, and I read out the part where the PSNI indicated to the Department that the only element that it would not be able to prosecute is simple begging and that it could not deal with it out of court or in a disposal. You will get a chance to ask the Department about this, which is completely fair. Sorry, I have got the language on that wrong, but that is the gist. If that is accurate, we do not believe that any additional legislation is necessary. If it transpired that it was not accurate, we would consider further proposals such as those that Professor Brown put forward. Obviously, I would need to speak to our members about that so that they could consider the detail of it; I am not just rolling it out straight off the bat.

The question really is this: is the legislation that exists in other areas sufficient to address the issues that are being raised? You will have to tease that out with the PSNI and the Department. I know the Department's position. It seems to be clear that the current statutes cover that, but Professor Brown's evidence suggests otherwise. We would need to see the two sides of the evidence on that before we could assess it. We accept that there is a need for the PSNI to have the tools in its arsenal for some of the cases that go beyond simple begging. We understand that.

We are talking about a narrow activity. If you read our submission, you will see a summary of the discussion that our lived experience group had that gives a good sense of the challenge that comes with that. Part of its discussion was about what constitutes aggressive begging. When you get into the detail, you find that it is quite challenging. Some members of the group said, "If the person spoke to me in any way, that is aggressive begging". Others said, "No, that is not aggressive begging; it requires touch". That is a kind of summary of the challenge. That is what I mean; it is not straightforward. Does that mean that it is impossible? No, not necessarily. I am just saying that there are complexities in those issues. Hopefully, that answers your question to some degree.

Mr Kingston: I appreciate that, because our role here is not just to talk about ways to deal with issues but to talk about what should be in legislation, which is what we are preparing. I accept what you say. I appreciate what you say about seeing the potential for some strengthening of the legislation on aggressive begging that causes nuisance, harassment or intimidation, if that is not putting words in your mouth.

My attitude towards rough sleeping has always been that it should be discouraged. There should be sufficient support for people. In many cases, beds are available. I am aware that, for a variety of reasons, people sleep rough by choice. I do not mean that flippantly, but often hostel spaces are available.

We were talking about protecting city centres and retail hubs earlier, so do you have any thoughts on that when it comes to legislation? Public spaces protection orders have been suggested, particularly for important spaces such as city centre retail and arterial route retail hubs.

Mr Baillie: Our submission has some commentary about the issue of choice. It is complicated. If a person is allocated —.

Mr Kingston: I am not being dismissive of all the complexities of it.

Mr Baillie: Yes. A person may have been in hostel accommodation and had a terrible experience. They may be offered a space in that hostel accommodation. They make a judgement. They assess it by asking, "What will do me less harm?". They might be wrong in their judgement, by the way, but they make that assessment. Is that choice? Is that somebody who is really choosing that option?

The question on public spaces protection orders is this: is imposing criminal penalties the best way to handle the matter? It was well put by the Member for Foyle, who spoke about the need for balance. Again, we are open to considering proposals. I am aware of concerns being raised about the use of public spaces protection orders due to the massive inconsistency in their use across England. In some council areas, they very much take a compassionate, complex lifestyle-type approach, and, in other areas, they are very much going down the line of using public spaces protection orders against people who sleep rough.

There are nuances in that. We would obviously have to consider the detail of a proposal. I am not able to give a definitive position, because, again, we would need to listen to our members on the details of that. We are open to considering proposals. I am not denying the real issues, some of which we heard about from representatives earlier. Clearly, there are real issues. I suppose that the question is this: are criminal penalties the best way to address those issues, or do they merely address the symptom rather than the core of the problem?

Mr Kingston: My final thought is that it is not necessarily about arresting people, but at least people will be unable to say to the police that there is nothing that they can do about it, and they will know that the police have powers available to them to coerce.

Mr Baillie: That is a fair point. Again, what exactly the powers look like would need to be considered. At the moment, the threat is there for rough sleeping, but the powers are not used. It would cause a massive outcry if the police attempted to use them.

Mr Kingston: That would almost negate the police using the powers, because it is established practice that the law is no longer applied.

Mr McGlone: Hostels have been mentioned. I have dealt with constituents who have had to move into a hostel because they have been made homeless, and there may be children involved. That can be heartbreaking, and families can be split up. It is not inconceivable that a person who is harassing others, including shop employees, could be doing the same thing in the hostel in which they are a resident. I am conscious that we have a duty of care to those people, especially to children who have been uprooted from their home, school and friends and are often far away in, for example, a hostel in Belfast. How does a hostel deal with that? Is there any legislation that should be strengthened?

Ms Brolly: I cannot think of any specific examples of where that has happened. The Simon Community, however, would take that situation seriously, because the safety of the people in our hostels and the safety of the wider community are of the utmost importance. If that were to happen, we would never give up on people. We would always want to find the right setting for the person, and, in some cases, it might be that that setting is not the right place for them. They might clash with other people, as often happens when people live together, so we would try to move them to another service and find a more suitable setting for them.

Earlier, I gave the example of a young man helped through the Complex Lives initiative. Before he was moved to the service nearer his home, he was under another service. He was not violent, but there had been a clash. It was not the right service for him. We moved him to another service that was closer to his family, and that worked for him, because he had a support network. We always take such situations seriously, and we will try to move people into the right setting for them.

Mr Baillie: I asked the Complex Lives team how many individuals they had supported into tenancies out of sleeping rough or chronic homelessness, and I was told that it was 54 people in a couple of years. That is an impressive result, considering the range of issues that folks in that position face. That shows that there are ways to support people into accommodation where accommodation and proper funding for services are available. Complex Lives' approach has been a really effective multi-agency approach. It is not a silver bullet. It does not solve all homelessness or chronic homelessness, but it is a helpful approach in Belfast and other areas. Derry/Londonderry should consider whether that is the right option for it. We would recommend it.

Mr McGlone: Do you not see an opportunity to tighten up existing legislation or introduce new legislation to protect vulnerable people or those subjected to an intensified form of harassment or menacing behaviour, whether that be in the street, outside a shop into which young people may be coming to work or in places where other vulnerable adults and their children are going through rough times? You will know a lot more about that than I do.

Mr Baillie: There is a range of hostels in which there are different experiences. There are challenges; I will not deny that. There are issues with staffing in particular, because of the underfunding of the homelessness sector for many years. We are where we are.

I do not want to suggest that hostels are a unique environment. They are not the only places where there might be challenges with violence or something like that.

Mr McGlone: I am not suggesting that, but it came up in an earlier conversation. You were here for it.

Mr Baillie: I do not think that there is a need for a specific offence for anything that goes on in hostels.

Mr McGlone: I do not mean legislation that is specific to hostels. If you are harmonising the law, it should be applicable everywhere, whether that be outside somebody's house or in a hostel, which is there for a bone fide reason.

Mr Baillie: There should obviously be consistency in the application of the law. If there were to be a change, we would have to consider its effects. I agree with you about the need for consistency, if that is what you are driving at.

Ms Ferguson: I am conscious of what the Chair said about being succinct, so I will ask just two questions. How can we balance compassion with the community concerns that have been raised by, for example, Retail NI in the previous evidence session? Although Retail NI has raised those concerns, they are not and should not be applied solely to those who sleep rough or beg. Chris O'Reilly from Retail NI highlighted the ongoing support that he would give to someone who is vulnerable. How can we strike a balance?

My second question is a hard one. If the Committee could make one recommendation on how to strengthen the response to homelessness, what should it be?

Ms Brolly: As was said, I think that everyone in the room, even the witnesses in the previous evidence session, want the same thing. We all want to end homelessness, and we do not want anyone to be forced to sleep rough or forced to beg in order to get by. I think that it was Connie Egan who raised the point that the current framework is perhaps not working. The threat of criminalisation will not necessarily help us get to that point; it just moves people further away from the support that they need. The potential additional stigma of having a criminal record creates further barriers to housing, employment and the support that is needed to get people out of homelessness and to end homelessness for them.

As we talked about, for us, it comes down to the fact that Complex Lives works. It is about having a multi-agency, collaborative approach that goes as far upstream as possible. That is what we need to start looking at. We know that there are many issues. There have been so many challenges and so much trauma in the lives of people who sleep on the street. They have had so many engagements with public services, and those are often missed opportunities to identify people and try to break that cycle for them. A multi-agency approach needs to be taken, with everyone having a role in trying to break the cycle of homelessness before it reaches the crisis point of rough sleeping and begging. That is what we would want to see.

Mr Baillie: I will answer your second question, Ciara. You heard me talk about the need for social housing. The lack of social housing is crippling our ability to prevent and reduce homelessness. The number of people in temporary accommodation keeps rising and rising, and that is incredibly challenging. The main reason for that is that not enough social homes or genuinely affordable options are available to people. Until we address that situation, the number will continue to rise. It is so demoralising that there are people who experience homelessness today who would not be if the housing that is needed had been built. That is tragic. I know people who have been through that harm to their health and well-being, and that is what is tragic. Given that we are where we are, that would be the number-one thing for me.

If you were to allow me to name a second thing, it would be this. I have the privilege of representing staff in the homelessness sector in Northern Ireland. I consider that to be a huge privilege, because those staff give everything. Day in, day out, they go the extra mile, and they are simply not paid enough for what they do. The lack of funding has been a significant challenge for us, and it will continue to be. We have been in a staffing recruitment and retention crisis for many years. I believe passionately that, if we were to have a properly funded homelessness sector, we would see better outcomes in the prevention and reduction of homelessness. We will see better outcomes only if we have the housing supply, however.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you. I want to clarify for everyone one thing about Complex Lives. I have been lobbying with Grainia and the Housing Executive for a long time. To me, it is simple. It is about taking an inter-agency approach, whether that be the public sector, the community sector and businesses getting around the table to support the most vulnerable, who are found on the streets. They need the most help. An excellent job is being done. Belfast City Council has a small team that leads on that work, but it is a one-off project. At this stage, it has not been extended to anywhere else. Are you aware of any plans to do extend it?

Mr Baillie: I am not aware of any specific plans. I am aware that thought has been given to extending the project to the Derry City and Strabane District Council area, but that is as much as I have heard. There may be a funding challenge involved as well, but Derry City and Strabane District Council should seriously consider following Belfast's approach. It would look different there, because homelessness is different in that part of the world, but we would encourage that for the Derry City and Strabane District Council area specifically.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK. Thank you. No other members have indicated that they wish to ask a question, but I have one.

Homeless Connect suggests that the Committee:

I suspect that such a requirement would appear in statute by way of an amendment or in another way. What form should such a report take, and how should the impact be measured in order to show success?

Mr Baillie: That is a good question, Paul. First, the report would need to be independent and external rather than conducted by the PSNI or the Department. Secondly, to measure success, whether there is evidence of a big increase in begging or rough sleeping — that is a valid measure to look at — would need to be looked at, and, if there is, the question would be this: what should be done by way of response? It would not necessarily be about going back to what we had, as we might need to provide more wrap-around support and do other things. The report would need to take a holistic view of the impacts.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): What period after Royal Assent should there be before the review is conducted?

Mr Baillie: We have suggested three years, but it does not have to be. It could be five or another number of years, provided that it is long enough for the effects to be assessed.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much for your time. Sorry, you want to come in, Brian. I ask you to be brief.

Mr Kingston: I will be brief. I have been looking at my notes from when Professor Brown was before the Committee. He suggested that legislation might be needed to address organised begging and aggressive begging. What knowledge do you have of organised begging? Have you witnessed it or heard evidence of it happening in Belfast or elsewhere?

Mr Baillie: Again, I think that the PSNI may be better placed to answer that. I have heard rumours, but it is not helpful to the Committee for me to speak about rumours. It is possible that organised begging has happened, but I have no hard evidence for it, and suggesting otherwise would be of no assistance to you.

Mr Kingston: It is not glaringly obvious.

Mr Baillie: No. Not that I am aware of.

Mr Kingston: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK. No other members have indicated to ask a question. I thank you for your time, for your evidence and for answering our questions today.

Ms Brolly: Thank you.

Mr Baillie: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): A response from you to Professor Brown's piece would be greatly appreciated by the Committee.

Mr Baillie: I will have a discussion about it with my boss.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I also wish you all the best with your recovery, Mark. I just hope that everybody who sees you walk out of the room saw you walk in. Otherwise, the Committee will get a reputation that it might not want. [Laughter.]