Begging in Leicester. "The Mayor is wrong to disparage those less fortunate than himself" writes Leicester Liberal Democrats' Howard Sisson

I was disappointed and saddened to read Sir Peter Soulsby's comments regarding 'beggars' in the 'Peter Soulsby responds to readers suggestions' feature posted online by the Leicester Mercury last week. http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/leicester-mayor-peter-soulsby-responds-to-mercury-reader-suggestion-to-improve-city-centre/story-30077228-detail/story.html. Asked by readers to 'stop begging in the City Centre' Sir Peter's response was that 'studies done on this show that a high proportion of beggars are people with homes… and are taking advantage of people'.

Half an hour sifting through google throws up a number of articles touting this line, the most prominent of which being a widely reported news story from 2015 in which it was revealed that a Freedom of Information request had shown that less that one in five people arrested for begging were legally defined as homeless. The important thing to note here is that to be homeless is a technical legal term, which states, to quote the homeless charity Shelter 'you should be considered homeless if you have no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world available for you to occupy.' This strictly legalistic definition says absolutely nothing about levels of impoverishment; just because an individual has a place to occupy are we to assume therefore that they cannot be suffering from extreme poverty? Of course not, and I would contend that many of those finding themselves begging have no other source of income.

Many of these articles allude to the fact that these 'fake beggars' are often drink or drug addicts. Whilst I would never condone fraudulent begging, it goes without saying that addicts are some of the most vulnerable people in our society who are in need of our help. Hauling them through the legal system does not serve anyone particularly well.

And what about those who are genuinely homeless? Not only are statements of this nature from public figures insensitive, they are positively harmful towards those on the streets who are in genuine need of help and have now been dismissed as frauds.

The readers of the Leicester Mercury are right to raise begging as a problem; the mayor is wrong to disparage those less fortunate than himself.

Howard Sisson is the Membership Development Officer of Leicester Liberal Democrats