The Government has backed our Don't Give To Beggars campaign.

Brighton Pavilion Labour MP David Lepper highlighted the campaign in the House of Commons.

He said: "Its aim is to encourage people to give money to agencies working with the street homeless and those with drug problems, rather than to beggars on the streets."

Ian McCartney, the Cabinet Office Minister whose 23-year-old son died of a drugs overdose last year, pledged to visit young homeless people in Brighton and projects to help them off the street.

He said: "People have the absolute right to donate to someone on the street. People will continue to do so, but not everyone can do that and they cannot do it to everyone who approaches them.

"If people want to make a contribution to solving the problems of homelessness, they should make it through an organisation that not only works with one young person but works with every young person who is in a vulnerable position, 365 days a year."

But at a Brighton and Hove Council meeting last night, Green councillor Pete West attacked the campaign.

Coun West, convenor of the council's three-strong Green group, said: "I am very worried, like many other people, about the alternative giving scheme."

Calling the campaign "vicious and nasty", he said the alternative giving scheme would encourage those on drugs to resort to crime or prostitution instead and would not help those who had no contact with the agencies.

He added: "Beggars are people as well and they are entitled to live where they like."

But Labour's Ken Bodfish praised the campaign and said it was wrong that some people were intimidated by beggars.

He added: "It has highlighted a real problem in the community and brought about a holistic response."

Lib Dem leader Paul Elgood also supported the campaign and said: "It is doing a good job."

Also lending his support was opposition leader Geoffrey Theobald who said: "This is the sort of thing we have been saying for years."

Councillors agreed to approve an array of measures to help homeless people, including the alternative giving campaign.