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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to address the proportion, availability and affordability of transitional housing, including on areas of disused public land.

We announced £100 million to deliver low cost ‘move on’ accommodation for people leaving homelessness hostels and domestic abuse refuges and helping them move towards independent living.

We are also engaging with the sector to help us shape the detail of the local grant for short-term supported housing. This funding will be ring-fenced so it can only be spent on short-term supported housing and we have committed to it being in place for the long term.

The short-term accommodation grant will remove rental costs for the tenants at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives, allowing them to seek work safe in the knowledge that their housing costs will be met. It will also help people who can, to move-on with greater choice about where they go without carrying a legacy of rent arrears and debt.

This Government have made a commitment to release more of its surplus land for housing during the current Parliament.

The Public Land for Housing annual report published in February 2017 shows that by September 2016 public sector land with capacity for 13,817 homes had been sold.