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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what protocols are currently in place with (a) the Ministry of Justice and (b) the Home Office to identify individuals at immediate risk of homelessness prior to their discharge from prison or exit from asylum accommodation.

Our National Plan to End Homelessness sets out a long-term ambition that no one should leave a public institution into homelessness.

Alongside the Ministry of Justice we have to committed to a 50% reduction in the proportion of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison and are subject to probation supervision by the end of this Parliament. We will also deliver an overall increase in the number of prison leavers in settled accommodation at 3 months after release and thereafter by the end of this Parliament.

We will achieve this by embedding as standard practice local partnerships, co-location and pre-release planning. We will also continue to invest in integrating digital community accommodation services, maximising artificial intelligence opportunities and automating information sharing to identify and match individuals to the right housing-related support and accommodation at the right time.

The Home Office has also committed to ensuring councils receive information from asylum accommodation providers for 100% of newly granted refugees at risk of homelessness, to enable councils to commence a homelessness assessment.