The homelessness minister, Heather Wheeler, has apologised after leaked emails showed her using “racist” language to describe rough sleepers before she joined the government.
In an email sent in October 2017 to a homeless charity three months before she became minister, the Conservative MP for South Derbyshire described rough sleepers in her constituency as “the traditional type, old tinkers, knife-cutters wandering through”.
The email emerged during filming of a Ross Kemp ITV documentary that will air next month investigating discrepancies in the official rough sleeping figures in England, which are used to determine vital funding to tackle homelessness and which the UK statistics regulator has warned should not be trusted.
Wheeler’s comments prompted Stephen Robertson, the chief executive of the Big Issue Foundation, to call on her to resign. He said: “The use of pejorative terminology to describe marginalised people has no place in this day and age; it serves only to stigmatise individuals, questioning their fundamental legitimacy and reinforcing the impossibility of tackling societal challenges.
“This is not a matter of undue political correctness, it reflects the need we have to embrace diversity and equality in modern Britain, stamping out obsolete attitudes once and for all. In light of her comments it is only appropriate for Heather Wheeler to resign.”
Wheeler issued an apology for her “inappropriate language”, and said it “is not at all representative of the great cultural contribution and rich heritage that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities make to this country”.
Michelle Gavin, from Friends, Families and Travellers, a leading national charity working on behalf of Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, said the language was “disgraceful”.
“The word ‘tinker’ is a racist term used to put down Irish Travellers. To think that a government minister is using this language is disgraceful,” she said.
“Irish Traveller children should not have to grow up in a society where government ministers show such contempt for their culture, heritage and identity.”
The Labour MP Alex Cunningham, the shadow housing minister, asked how anyone could have confidence in a minister who “dismisses homeless people with such shocking and shallow views”. He added: “Government ministers must understand the problems of homelessness in order to fix them, and they’re failing.”
Wheeler, who promised when she took the job to step down if she failed to halve rough sleeping in five years, has heralded an apparent 2% fall in rough sleeping in England in 2018 despite accusations that some councils have deliberately under-reported the figures.
South Derbyshire, where Wheeler is an MP, reported having no rough sleepers in 2018. But the film crew for Ross Kemp: Living with Homelessness interviewed a man who called himself Ebenezer Goode and said he had been sleeping rough in the constituency for 32 years and was surprised not to be included in the estimate submitted for the national count.
A charity in nearby Burton said it had frequently provided services to rough sleepers from Wheeler’s constituency in the last few years. In response to an offer of help from John Anderson of Burton Hope in October 2017 to support people on the streets in her constituency, Wheeler wrote: “Historically rough sleeping in South Derbyshire has been the traditional type, old tinkers, knife-cutters wandering through.”
Goode was known to Wheeler, his MP. In the same email to Anderson she said she was aware of his presence in the area. “More recently the district council looked after a man who slept by the offices, rehoused him a few times but he kept going back on the street and is still seen around Swadlincote,” she wrote.
She later confirmed she was referring to Goode. “[He] has been known to council officials for some time. [I] spoke to Goode, explained to him that the Homelessness Reduction Act introduced new duties on councils to support those who are, or at risk of becoming homeless.”
Despite this, Wheeler congratulated South Derbyshire on recording a rough sleeper estimate of zero. “I am delighted,” she told Derbyshire Live, a local paper.
When asked why she congratulated the council for having no rough sleepers, she said that a return of zero “does not imply there are no rough sleepers in South Derbyshire throughout the year”.
Makers of the programme also contacted other areas where the count was zero, including Northumberland. The Rev Davey Falcus, from Ashington Life Centre, called this a “joke” and said there were hundreds of rough sleepers in Northumberland county council’s jurisdiction. The council said accurately counting or estimating the number of people sleeping rough within its jurisdiction was inherently difficult, “given the hidden nature of rough sleeping”.
