Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the conclusions of the Local Government Ombudsman's report entitled No Place Like Home, on the numbers of disabled people on housing waiting lists.

No Place Like Home is about the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families.

The law is clear that bed and breakfast accommodation should be used to house homeless families only in an emergency, and then for no longer than six weeks.

The Government is determined to tackle the unlawful and avoidable practice of placing families in bed and breakfast for more than 6 weeks. That’s why we made £2 million available in 2013-14 to support local authorities to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to the problems which drive the use of bed and breakfast accommodation. Those seven councils who received funding reduced their numbers by 96% by December 2013 and their numbers remain low.

Homelessness figures for July to September 2014 show a 38% decrease in the numbers of families with children in bed and breakfast for longer than six weeks, when compared to the same quarter in 2013 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness). This shows that Government’s action on this issue is working.

We are also helping other authorities by drawing on the lessons learned from the funding by investing £80,000 to identify good practice that will be shared with other local authorities.

We would not expect the report to have an impact on the numbers of disabled people on housing waiting lists. The statutory reasonable preference categories ensure that people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds, including grounds relating to a disability, are given appropriate priority on social housing waiting lists.