Our reason for criminalising squatting is crystal clear – decent, law-abiding people deserve to have their homes protected
An astonishing disengagement from reality is necessary to actually believe there is something sinister about protecting people's homes from invasion through squatting.
The fact some academics in their ivory towers and lawyers in their inns of court believe it's morally wrong to stop this destructive behaviour only shows how completely disconnected from everyday life they have become.
Our reasons for criminalising squatting are crystal clear – we want to protect the rights of regular hard-working homeowners against the damage squatters can inflict on their homes, and the distress this causes in their lives.
I've heard people argue that squatting is already an offence, because squatters must go once they've been asked to leave. But this approach is totally inadequate – the offence should be invading someone else's home with the intent to stay, not dawdling after being asked to leave.
It's what the public has long demanded and it is what this government is determined to deliver.
We'll follow the precedent set by Scotland where the law is unambiguous – where squatting is wrong and squatters can be evicted immediately. The amendment will only ban squatting in private property and won't infringe on any right to protest in public property.
I'm fully aware why people disagree with me – with the cost of living so high, why not let people live in abandoned buildings? After all, surely it's better than people sleeping rough on the streets, and there's no one using these buildings anyway? At face value these arguments might seem plausible – but the problem is they totally ignore the true nature of squatting.
This is not the attention-seeking, placard-waving protest-tourism near St Paul's, where protesters work in "squatting shifts", and come accessorised with their guitars and young children.
Real squatting is quite different, and the gentle and romantic image of communal harmony and a counter-cultural lifestyle is an illusion. Certainly for Connan Gupta, who went to visit his sister and when he returned found 15 squatters had taken over his home. Or for the Cockerell family, who found their new London home invaded and trashed, with the squatters only driving away in their expensive cars after Mrs Cockerell's pregnancy was publicised in the newspapers.
In both cases these individuals were normal hard-working people who had to fight to get their homes back, and this is unacceptable.
While the damage these squatters cause is often ignored, so too is the destitution that drives others to squat in larger, abandoned buildings. These buildings are death traps of despair where accidents are common, and fires frequent. The squatters' lives are characterised by gloom and anguish, amplified by drug addiction and alcohol abuse.
Tackling this type of homelessness and rough sleeping is a subject I am passionate about. It's what first got me into politics, and I am the first minister to set up a cross-Whitehall ministerial group to address the problems that cause homelessness.
So I'm shocked and saddened that some people still, in the 21st century, look at this problem of homelessness as something that cannot be solved. It can. None of us want to live in a society where people are forced to sleep in shop doorways, on park benches or in dangerous, run-down buildings.
The idea that squatting in some way offers a reasonable solution to the issue of homelessness is both false and cruel. Instead it keeps these vulnerable individuals away from the real help they need.
And the help they need is available – the government has protected homelessness funding so people can get help putting their lives back on track.
We've recently pledged an additional £42.5m for the Homelessness Change programme, which will deliver over 1,500 new and improved bed spaces, and we've swung our support firmly behind the No Second Night Out initiative with £20m of funding, so no one should ever have to spend two nights on the streets.
After years of inaction and inertia, this government is also getting to grips with the huge number of empty properties in the country. We've set aside £150m government funding for pioneering housing schemes that will ensure empty properties that ruin neighbourhoods are lived in once again, and at the same time provide affordable housing.
Many of these projects will also provide jobs and excellent training opportunities, and with the New Homes Bonus applying to empty homes as well as new ones, communities will also benefit from six years' worth of funding for every local home that is brought back into use, something the squatters could never provide.
For too long the pain inflicted by squatters on law-abiding homeowners has been ignored, as well the destitution of many people who squat. But the tables are finally turning, and I will continue to work hard to end the totally unacceptable invasion of other people's property, and to tackle the issues that cause some people to squat in the first place.