Layla Moran, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, has said “the Government needs to get serious about eliminating rough sleeping” as figures show the number of households assessed as rough sleeping across Oxfordshire have risen by 90.5% in the past year, up from 95 to 181.

Layla, who recently held a House of Commons debate on rough sleeping, has called on the Government to take action to live up to their manifesto commitment of ending rough sleeping across the country stating that we are “in dire need of action”. 

Layla Moran has written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak urging him to “demonstrate a clear commitment” to the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge of ending rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament by rolling out Housing First across England at the forthcoming Spending Review, and by pushing for the scrapping of the Vagrancy Act. 

In her letter, Layla says that the “time is right for a new national and political effort to tackle homelessness”, adding that “Because Housing First works, we also know in the long term it saves us money.”

After meeting with local farmers from across her constituency, Layla Moran, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, has echoed calls to urgently fix the labour crisis in farming. Farmers from across Oxfordshire highlighted the impact shortages of staff are having on harvesting crops and keeping livestock.

Layla Moran is backing the #FoodOnPlates campaign to stop millions of tonnes of fresh, unsold food from being wasted when it could instead go to charities and community groups feeding families. 

Layla Moran has set out a Liberal vision for ending rough sleeping in a debate she led yesterday in the House of Commons’ Westminster Hall, calling for an approach that restores trust between rough sleepers and government, councils, and services. 

Layla said that the Everyone In scheme, which saw rough sleepers put into emergency accommodation during the pandemic, “was a phenomenal response to an international health crisis”, but that on its own “it is not a sustainable response to a national rough sleeping crisis.”

Layla Moran, voted against Boris Johnson’s social care tax plan last night, saying it “will hit low earners and the young the hardest” and that the social care crisis needs to be fixed “in a fair and progressive way.”

The changes, which go against the Conservatives’ manifesto promise not to raise taxes, will mean hard-pressed local families and small businesses will be left paying hundreds of pounds more in tax each year.  Liberal Democrat MPs voted against the government plans, arguing that they fail to fix the ongoing social care crisis and will fall disproportionately on the young, the low-paid, and small businesses.

Layla Moran, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, yesterday afternoon signed an open letter to the Prime Minister, organised by the Stop the Arc group, urging him to “act decisively” and rethink his planning reforms, as well as looking again at the Oxford-Cambridge Arc proposals.

Layla Moran MP has said extra money must be granted to councils to provide vital services to help refugees settle. Layla said "Oxford is proud of its role as a “city of sanctuary”, but years of slashed council funding will limit the abilities of councils to offer education, housing, mental health and language provision to help refugees settle in the UK".

Earlier today, Layla Moran MP, Tobias Ellwood MP and Sarah Champion MP urgently wrote to Dominic Raab urging the UK Government to reverse its decision to not give visas to Chevening scholars still in Afghanistan. The text of the letter is below:

Following the sentencing of Tong Ying-kit under Hong Kong's National Security Law, Lib Dem Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Layla Moran has written to Dominic Raab urging the UK Government to step up.