IT is very good to see that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been moved to point out to London councils that they are breaking the law in the way they are resettling their homeless people out of their areas, often into the North East.

It is a technicality that she has picked up on – that they are not notifying the new host council – but at least it shows that this issue is on the Government radar.

Because it is bad for the people who are being shifted hundreds of miles from the area they call home, and it is bad for the areas that receive them – the newcomers, through no fault of their own, put a strain on local resources and they change the nature of the streets in which they are settled.

It has fallen on local community organisations, like the Ladder Centre in Ferryhill, County Durham Together and the East Durham Trust, to do a valiant, valuable job and help the newcomers.

The only positive effect of this decamping is on the London councils’ statistics which show they are tackling the homeless problem when in reality they are moving it somewhere that is out of sight.

Beyond getting their knuckles rapped by the Deputy Prime Minister, what can be done to dissuade the London councils from decanting people to County Durham?

Well, it will be interesting to see what attitude Durham County Council, which has been strangely silent on this issue, adopts if it is regularly contacted by London councils informing it that another homeless person is going to be dumped in its area. Perhaps Durham should start sending the Londoners a bill to cover the extra usage of local services – at the very least, it should be asking for a financial contribution to the charities on the ground that are so often left to pick up the pieces.