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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of the proportion of homeless people in England who (a) are veterans of the armed services, (b) have recently been released from prison and (c) have previously been in receipt of universal credit.

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.

In March we allocated an additional £1 million of bespoke funding to support ex- members of the armed forces who are or are at risk of becoming homeless. The funding has been allocated between the Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority, and will be used to develop new services and support them in engaging with existing service provision.

Accommodation data for Armed force veterans is limited as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government does not collect statistics on whether or not people sleeping rough have served in the armed forces.

However, the Combined Homelessness and Information Network stats suggest that 3 per cent of the rough sleeping population in London have served in the armed Forces.

We do not collect data on how many people, owed a statutory homeless duty, are veterans. However, in April 2018 my Department introduced a data capturing tool, the Homelessness Case Level Information Collection referred to as H-CLIC which captures the support needs of a household, including if someone has a support need as a result of being in the armed forces. The latest H-CLIC data for October to December 2018 shows that of the 61,410 households in England who were owed a homelessness duty in England, 0.72 per cent had support needs because they had previously served in the armed forces. This does not include households that did not approach their local authority for help or those who do not require additional support because they previously served.

In terms of prisoners released, during October to December 2018, 1.8 per cent of the 61,410 households owed a homeless duty in England were homeless on departure from prison.

Information is not held on people previously in receipt of universal credit who are owed a homeless duty.