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I am told that it is due, in part, to a reluctance to deal with overcrowding in isolation from other housing issues. A perfectly coherent argument, of course, but not one that has prevented the setting of targets on bed and breakfast use, among other measures.

The government's preferred approach is to incorporate overcrowding standards in the health and safety ratings system. This would give councils a number of options to deal with hazards, including "internal rearrangements, other improvements to the accommodation or a reduction in the number of occupants".

Now, I am wholly unworried by the means used to get us to a desired end. Yet if we fail to recognise the impact and severity of this growing, albeit localised, problem, we are at risk of coming up with the wrong solutions, or no solutions at all. Defining the problem is integral to winning the argument for policy changes or for resources. For example, low demand is quantifiable and has generated demands for an appropriate response. The same goes for poor housing conditions, which are used as a poverty indicator. Targets are used to develop responses for rough sleeping and B&Bs. If overcrowding is not a recognised problem at the national level, as these are, it will simply be marginalised in pursuit of other targets. In fact, this is exactly what seems to be happening.

The options under the proposed health and safety ratings system may work in some circumstances. But they lack something.

How might they apply to real people?

Mr M is a constituent of mine. His home is statutorily overcrowded, according to the 1935 legislation. However, earlier this year, Kensington council's environmental services told me: "Under the circumstances, I do not see how environmental health or housing needs can assist at the present time. If we were to require the landlords to take steps to abate the overcrowding, this could result in the family's eviction from the flat. The head of housing needs has advised that there are 'many hundreds' of families with similar overcrowding. Regrettably, unless the family are prepared to move away from West London, they will be obliged to remain in their present living accommodation for the foreseeable future." Not much scope there.

How would Mrs C rearrange her flat, given that she has four habitable rooms for herself and seven other people, two of whom are disabled?

Then there is Mrs C. How would she rearrange her third-floor flat, given that an assessment by environmental health has revealed that she has four habitable rooms for herself and seven others, two of whom are disabled? And perhaps someone might like to explain to Mrs D which person should be removed from her household of five, which currently lives in a two-bed flat. Should it be her? Or perhaps one of her children: the 10-year-old, the six-year-old, the four-year-old or the three-year-old? This is not a conversation I intend to initiate.

The thing is, under the existing overcrowding legislation, neither Mrs C nor Mrs D's families even count as statutorily overcrowded. However, plenty of others do.

In one half of my constituency, they gain extra points as a result and, once or twice in a decade, a large enough property becomes available. The rest moulder on sclerotic waiting lists. Family life virtually ceases to exist. If homework gets done in such an environment, it is a miracle. Sleep is constantly interrupted. Privacy is unheard of.

I remain open to any practical suggestions that would relieve the misery of hundreds of families in my backyard alone, and I suspect my colleagues with similar populations feel the same way. Interior rearrangement and a reduction in the number of residents strike me as falling a long way short.