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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many registered Houses of Mulitple Occupancy there are in (a) Portsmouth, (b) Southampton and (c) Plymouth.

We estimate from local authority data returns for the period 2017-18, that there were 584 properties registered as Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) with mandatory licences in Portsmouth; in Southampton we estimate 592; and in Plymouth we estimate there were 695. Since these figures were published the Government has extended mandatory licensing of HMOs to properties of any size, given 5 or more people from 2 or more households. Data on properties licensed since the extension will not be available until local authority data returns for 2018-19 are published in 2020.