Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate his Department has made of the number of local authorities that take into account the needs of veterans in their housing strategies.

Local authorities must frame their allocation scheme for social housing to give additional preference to certain members of the Armed Forces community, where they fall within one or more of the reasonable preference categories and have urgent housing needs. In line with the Armed Forces Covenant we changed the law in 2012 so that those serving in the Armed Forces as well as those who have recently been discharged do not lose their qualification rights for social housing because of the requirement to move from base to base.

When exercising their allocations function, local authorities must also have regard to statutory guidance (2020) which strongly encourages local authorities to take into account the needs of all serving or former Service personnel, including veterans, when framing their allocation schemes. The guidance also encourages local authorities to consider the housing needs of family members of serving or former Service personnel who may themselves have been disadvantaged by the requirements of military service.