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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the level of central Government funding required to enable local authorities to assist in meeting the Government’s target of halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it by 2027.

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, committing to end rough sleeping for good, with the aim of halving it by 2022. The strategy 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. This year, Rough Sleeping Initiative investment totals £46 million and has been allocated to 246 areas – providing funding for an estimated 750 additional staff and over 2,600 bed spaces, in addition to the £30 million allocated last year to those areas with the highest numbers of rough sleepers through the same initiative.

The Chancellor has said that there will be a Spending Review this year, and the Government will be looking at long term funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services as part of that. Ministers have made very clear that homelessness and rough sleeping is a key priority for the Government. We are working with other Government departments to assess what more can be done to combat rough sleeping and wider homelessness. This work is being overseen by the Ministerial Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce which includes HM Treasury and will play an important part of our preparations for the forthcoming Spending Review.