You'd think the homelessness minister would know how many homeless people there are. You'd be wrong.

Alison McGovern went on LBC this morning to announce an £87 million government fund to tackle rough sleeping. Good news. Except Nick Ferrari asked her the most obvious question in the world: how many homeless people are there in the UK?

She gave the government's figure. 80,000. That's the number of people who report themselves as homeless.

Ferrari pushed. Did she know the actual estimate from Shelter, one of the country's biggest homeless charities?

She didn't.

"I understand why you challenge me on knowing the numbers and I try to be across my brief, but I don't know the latest Shelter figure off the top of my head."

The answer is 382,000. That's the Shelter estimate as of December last year. 382,000 homeless people in England alone. Nearly five times the government's number.

She's the minister. This is her entire job. She went on national radio to talk about homelessness and didn't know the basic numbers.

The government says 80,000. Shelter says 382,000. That's not a rounding error. That's a government that doesn't want to count the problem because then they'd have to fix it.

£87 million sounds like a lot. Divide it by 382,000 homeless people and you get £227 each. That won't even cover a week in one of those migrant hotels.