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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of (a) trends in the level of youth homelessness and (b) the adequacy of support available to young people (i) leaving care, (ii) fleeing domestic abuse and (iii) facing the threat of eviction.

Local housing authorities report their homelessness activities under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 by completing the Homelessness Case Level Information Collection (H-CLIC) statistical return which provides a breakdown of age of applicants owed a homelessness duty available at Homelessness statistics - GOV.UK (Tab A6). It also includes households with care leavers owed a homelessness duty. For the latest financial year, this is available at Statutory homelessness in England: financial year 2024-25 - GOV.UK.

On 30 September, amended homelessness legislation came into force to prevent care leavers who are in scope of the corporate parenting duty from being found intentionally homeless. The department published updates to the Homelessness Code of Guidance to reflect this reform, alongside a new chapter on young people, which is available at Chapter 22: Young people, including those with care experience - Guidance - GOV.UK.

As set out in our National Plan to End Homelessness, we are developing a national youth homelessness prevention toolkit and we are also developing a Domestic Abuse Homelessness Prevention Toolkit to help councils prevent homelessness and improve support for survivors of domestic abuse, including young people.

Since 2021, Tier 1 local authorities in England have a statutory duty to ensure that victims of domestic abuse and their children can access support in relevant safe accommodation when needed, backed by £499 million government funding over the period 2026-27 to 2028-29.  The statutory guidance Delivery of support to victims of domestic abuse in domestic abuse safe accommodation services - GOV.UK is clear that local authorities should consider the needs of all victims, including children and young people, when planning and commissioning support.