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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the efficacy of the current priority need system for allocating emergency housing in preventing homelessness.

The Housing Act 1996 provides that certain people are given a priority need for accommodation. They include households with dependent children, pregnant women and those who are vulnerable. A person can be vulnerable as a result of old age, mental or physical illness or disability or for any other special reason. Other priority need categories include, but are not limited to, those who are vulnerable as a result of serving in her Majesty’s Armed Services, being a looked after child, fleeing violence or abuse, or are homeless as a result of an emergency such as a flood, fire or other disaster.

However it is better to prevent a homelessness crisis happening in the first place than to expose households to the stress and upheaval of homelessness. That is why Government has maintained and protected homelessness prevention funding for local authorities through the local government finance settlement totalling £315 million by 2019/20. We want to go further to put prevention at the heart of our approach to homelessness and in December 2015, I made a commitment to work with homelessness organisations and across Departments to consider options, including legislation, to prevent more people from becoming homeless.