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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness that nearly 2,000 homeless people fleeing domestic abuse are not considered to be a priority for settled housing.

The 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. This 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.

In its first year, our Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) provided over 1,750 new bed spaces and 500 staff. This year we have expanded the RSI with investment of £46 million for 246 areas – providing funding for an estimated 2,600 bed spaces and 750 staff.

Although our data is still experimental the indications are that people who do not have priority need are being assisted by local authorities to prevent or relieve their homelessness. During the first 3 quarters for which we have published data 189,760 households have had a duty to prevent or relieve homelessness accepted, and only 6,020 households have been issued with a 'non priority homeless' decision. Our data indicates that less than 10 per cent of all applicants are homeless due to Domestic Abuse, and local authorities will be more inclined to provide accommodation to victims of abuse than others where there are competing demands for accommodation that is available to single people. People who are found to have no priority need are still entitled to assistance to relieve their homelessness.

The Homelessness Reduction Act is still very new and we expect outcomes to improve as the new duties are better understood. It is also important to understand that local authorities are adjusting to new reporting requirements that affect data quality, which is why MHCLG published data is experimental.