Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of people needing homelessness relief from local authorities on release from prison.

We are taking a number of steps to reduce numbers of those being released from prison homeless, including measures to improve joint processes and guidance across prisons, probation and local authorities. Overall statutory responsibility for housing and homelessness lies with local authorities in both England and Wales.

We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and other Departments through the Inter-Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping to develop a new long-term cross-government strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness.

We deliver our Community Accommodation Service Tier 3 (CAS3) to support prison leavers who are subject to probation supervision and at risk of homelessness, by offering up to 12 weeks of basic transitional accommodation to provide a stable base on release.

We employ 50 prison-based Strategic Housing Specialists, including nine across the female estate, to support prisons to reduce homelessness on release by working in partnership with probation teams and Local Authorities.

Published figures relating to offender accommodation outcomes can be found here: Offender Accommodation Outcome Statistics - GOV.UK.