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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to collate statistics on the number of families who are not owed a statutory duty by a local authority but are living temporarily in bed and breakfast accommodation, private hostels, short-stay houses of multiple occupancy or guesthouses.

The Homelessness Reduction Act brings more people into scope to receive assistance from their local authority. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period. A household who has become homeless unintentionally and contains dependent children is considered to be priority need and a local authority has a duty to secure accommodation for these households. A household may have to spend time in temporary accommodation before a final offer of accommodation is made. Details on these priority need, households with children have been captured through the Department’s new case level data collection system, H-CLIC, since April 2018. This data can be found online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness