Reports of Committees

THE millenium has been attained. The Report of the Working Party on Vagrancy and Street O#ences,l widely welcomed as a liberalising measure, must be destined for the statute book. Costing little or nothing to implement, it suits exactly the exigencies of law reform in an age of austerity. Only an overcrowded legislative timetable stands between it and the sanctity of the statute book. Consultations have taken place. Criticisms advanced of an earlier consultative document with the same title have been answered-r ignored.2 It seems peevish to attack the product of so democratic a process. Yet it can be argued that the Bourbons d the Ho'me Office have not produced a liberalising measure, have not adequately answered earlier criticisms, and have quite possibly produced a document which could not only serve as an excuse for general inaction over the plight of homeless single peirsons, but may, unless any implementing Bill is scrutinised with care, conflict with the spirit of the Law Commission's proposals concerning squatting3 My primary criticism is not of the Working Party at all, but of the Home Office. The Working Party was instructed to look at the provisions d the Vagrancy Acts and legislation dealing with street offences. The clear inference, olne accepts, is that the Working Party would be doing its job by considering the text o f the statutes without much regard for the plight in general of homeless single persons. In

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