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

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people have been assisted into accommodation on release from custody since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

The Homelessness Reduction Act changes the response of local authorities to homelessness from crisis intervention to prevention, ensuring that both a wider group of people receive support and that everyone receives support at an earlier stage. Already, people are being referred by prisons for homelessness support before they leave custody through the Duty to Refer, which came into effect on 1 October. We are aiming to publish the first set of statistics collected since the commencement of the act in December.