There’s no doubt that eviction and having to live in temporary accommodation, as 792 families are currently doing, is a traumatic experience for a child. The impact of homelessness on children begins at birth. Children who are born to mothers who have been in B&B accommodation for some time are more likely to have a low birth weight. They are also more likely to lose out on their vaccinations. One in two mothers evicted from their homes experiences depression. The children themselves will suffer, and the impacts are numerous. Compared to other children, homeless children have four times as many respiratory diseases and four times the rate of asthma. They are five times as likely to suffer from diarrhoea and stomach upsets, six times more likely to have speech defects and stutters, and they are admitted to hospital urgently twice as often as their counterparts. There is also clear evidence of the impact on health of overcrowded homes, and overcrowding is, of course, common in temporary accommodation. Children in housing that is over capacity are 10 times as likely to suffer from meningitis than children in general, which as well as threatening life, obviously, can lead to the long-term impacts of hearing loss, the loss of sight and behavioural problems. There is a strong link between overcrowding in homes during childhood and the helicobacter pylori condition, which is one of the main causes of stomach cancer, and other conditions of the digestive system in adults, including chronic gastritis and peptic ulcers. Those living in very overcrowded homes during childhood have been found to be twice as likely to suffer from this disease when they reach 65 to 75 years of age.

So, call a B&B or a hostel a temporary home if you like, but there is nothing temporary about the impact that that can have. In the context of the cruel bedroom tax, I would invite any Members who believe that under-occupancy is the major problem facing social housing to think very deeply about the facts that I’ve just listed. The long-term impact on mental health is also an issue. Homeless children are three to four times more likely to suffer mental health problems as compared to their peers, even a long time after they’ve been rehoused—even 12 months, maybe, after being rehoused. So, given the health impacts, is it any surprise that educational attainment also suffers? Homeless children in temporary accommodation on average miss 55 school days, which corresponds to 25 per cent of the school year, because of the problems that they experience in moving into or moving between temporary accommodation. And there is also the fact that temporary accommodation, more often than not, is inappropriate as a place for a child to learn, whether it’s in terms of carrying out formal schooling work or a more educational hobby, such as learning a musical instrument.

Let’s turn to the financial costs now. The costs to public services in Wales are numerous. We could split them, perhaps, into a number of different categories—the direct costs of the eviction itself for the landlord; the broader direct cost of rehousing the individual or the family that has been evicted; but then you also have the broader costs to other public services. Shelter Cymru estimates that this cost is some £23.4 million per annum, and this, I have to say, is quite a conservative estimate that doesn’t include long-term health issues and educational costs for a child who has lived through that experience. Anyone who supports the practice of eviction does have to face the question of how you’re going to pay for this, because the fact is that any analysis of economics comes to the conclusion that it’s always a lot cheaper to prevent homelessness and to prevent evictions—even more so when we are talking about children with families, where the long-term cost for society in going down that route will be great.

To conclude, therefore, I am shocked that we haven’t received a critical report from the audit office on the practice of evicting people. We are spending £468,000 per week on evicting people from their homes. Why not use that money for education?