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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of people who were homeless in 2018 who had previously served in the armed forces.

The Government collects quarterly and annual statistics on the number of people who present as homeless to English local authorities. Until April 2018, veterans formed part of a wider vulnerable group category that included care leavers, ex-offenders and those who have fled their home because of violence or the threat of violence (other than domestic violence). As a result we are not able to identify the number of veterans presenting as homeless from this period.

In April 2018 the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government introduced a new case-level data collection called H-CLIC (Homelessness Case Level Information Collection). This gives local authorities and Government more information regarding homelessness and those presenting as homeless, including people who self-declared as having served in the armed forces as a separate category

In England from April to June 2018, of the 58,660 households to who, at the point of initial decision, were owed a homelessness duty by the local authority, 0.7 per cent (430) of main applicants stated they had served in the armed forces.

The latest local authority level statistics, and quarterly statistics since 2009, can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness.

This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.