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

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) refugees, and (2) asylum seekers were included in their most recent rough sleeping statistics.

The annual single night snapshot of Rough Sleeping in Autumn 2018 was published on January 31 2019 at the link (attached) below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2018.

This includes figures from all English local authority annual rough sleeping snapshots since 2010. Where appropriate, local authorities do capture some demographic information on those they identify sleeping rough including on gender, age and high level nationality (UK, Non-UK EU and Non-EU). This does not include refugee or asylum seeker status.

However, this does not mean that we are not focused on these cohorts, and all those who are vulnerable and sleeping rough. London’s CHAIN data, which provides information on the individuals seen sleeping rough by outreach teams in London throughout the year does contain this information in order to better understand each individuals unique circumstances. Their latest data can be found at the link below.

https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports.

This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. Already, this has provided over 1,750 new bed spaces and 500 staff. In all, the Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.