This week, Aylesbury MP David Lidington writes exclusively for Bucks Free Press readers:

We are fortunate to live in one of the most successful, advanced and fair-minded countries in the world. Yet despite this too many people still sleep rough on our streets in any given night.

The human cost of this is unacceptable. That’s why the government is committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and to end it for good by 2027.

One of the various government committees I chair is the Inter-Ministerial Task Force on Rough Sleeping which brings together the different government departments that we need involved if we are to succeed in tackling this scourge.

The Housing Department has the lead role and more than £1 billion has been earmarked for helping homeless people, including rough sleepers.

But it won’t be enough to supply more hostel places or build more homes - important though those objectives are.

We need to get better at preventing rough sleeping in the first place, and at interventions that get people off the streets and into safe accommodation as soon as possible.

For example, a large number of rough sleepers are former prisoners, many of whom have left gaol with no real home to return to.

The Departments of Justice, Housing and Work and Pensions are working together to try to ensure that no-one leaves prison without suitable accommodation in place.

Departments are also working together to help people who are already in crisis to get swift, targeted support.

We know that a lot of rough sleepers have a history of mental illness and of drug and alcohol misuse.

Good community mental health support for people sleeping rough or at risk of doing so isn’t as headline-grabbing as new hospitals or improved cancer treatments, but it too needs to be part of the NHS’s long-term plan.