Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to help Afghan refugees who have not secured settled accommodation through (a) a direct offer and (b) the Find Your Own Accommodation scheme by the time the bridging hotel accommodation ends.

All eligible Afghan citizens who come to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) have valid immigration status, which means that they have the right to work, the right to rent, access to education and healthcare and can apply for public funds.

The Find Your Own (FYO) accommodation pathway has been established and empowers Afghan families to source their own accommodation, rather than the Home Office. Council support staff in hotels will work closely with households to help them navigate the pathway.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) own the FYO accommodation policy. Guidance has been made available to local authorities on the FYO accommodation pathway and how to support those on Afghan Resettlement Schemes looking to move into the private rented sector. Local authorities have also been provided with resources which can be distributed to Afghan households on the FYO accommodation pathway. This includes information on the support available, the process, advice on guarantors and how to search for a home. Local authorities can access all available resources on Knowledge Hub.

Whilst the Home Office are unable to provide the requested breakdown of the numbers participating in the FYO accommodation scheme, Home Office officials continue to work at pace, alongside c.350 local authorities across the UK, to meet the demand for housing.

The latest Immigration System Statistics, year ending December 2022, published on 23 February, show that over 9,000 people have now been supported into settled accommodation (This breaks down as c.8,500 moved into homes with an additional c.500 matched but not yet moved).

In December, DLUHC announced the £500 million Local Authority Housing Fund for English councils to obtain housing for those fleeing conflicts (including Ukrainians and Afghans). It is expected to deliver up to 500 homes for Afghan households including larger, complex families. As announced on 28 March this fund is being expanded by £250m with the majority of the additional funding used to provide further housing for Afghans currently in bridging accommodation, and the rest used to ease existing homelessness pressures.

Across the UK, we will provide over £7,000 per person of flexible funding to enable LAs to support move-on from hotels, consisting of a much more flexible allocation of the existing Housing Costs Fund and £4.1k per person of new funding. This new funding recognises the additional burdens being place on councils to support Afghans into settled homes as quickly as possible and in a way that makes sense locally. The flexibility of this funding looks to provide councils with the ability to address the key supply and affordability challenges this cohort face in accessing their own accommodation.

Alongside this new, flexible funding, we will also increase the flexibility of the wraparound support payment to enable it to be used more widely for housing costs, including capital spend where necessary to support moves out of hotels.

The Home Office is unable to provide the amount allocated to each local authority participating in the FYO accommodation scheme.