Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of child mortality rates among children living in temporary accommodation in England in each of the last five years; and what steps his Department is taking to improve the safety and suitability of temporary accommodation for families with children.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
It is unacceptable that living situations are contributing to the tragic deaths of children. The Child Poverty Strategy and our National Plan to End Homelessness set out our commitments to eradicate unsuitable or poor-quality accommodation and ensure children in temporary accommodation do not experience gaps in health care provision.
These include our commitment to eliminating the unlawful use of Bed & Breakfast accommodation for families by the end of this Parliament, introducing a clinical code to improve data and prevent incidents in temporary accommodation, ending the practice of discharging newborns into B&B or other unsuitable shared accommodation, and providing proactive outreach to families in temporary accommodation.
Through our Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots, we have been driving place-based good practice by working with local authorities with the highest use of B&B accommodation, backed by £10.5 million over two years. We will expand this work through an Emergency Accommodation Reduction Programme, backed by £30 million over three years.
The government is providing £950 million of investment for the fourth round of the Local Authority Housing Fund – the largest investment in the fund to date - to support local authorities in England to increase the supply of good quality temporary accommodation and drive down the use of costly B&B and hotels.
Alongside this, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will provide the strongest protections in a generation, making sure vulnerable children are identified and supported. We are also introducing a new temporary accommodation notification duty, to inform schools and specified health providers when a child is placed in temporary accommodation, to allow additional or different support to be provided to these children.
Asked by: Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat - Melksham and Devizes)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how the Department monitors local authority performance in supporting young people facing homelessness.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are taking action across government to provide targeted support to young people and their families at an earlier stage. The government is providing more than £3.6 billion funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, which councils can use to meet the needs of people in their area including young people.
Housing authorities have a duty to assess any eligible applicant who is homeless or at risk of homelessness. They must work with the applicant to develop a personalised housing plan with actions to be taken by the authority and the applicant to try and prevent or relieve homelessness.
We have also committed to develop a national Youth Homelessness Prevention Toolkit and develop a dedicated chapter of the Homelessness Code of Guidance on young people, to support councils to work collaboratively with other public services to prevent youth homelessness.
Asked by: Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat - Melksham and Devizes)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the Department plans to undertake a formal review to understand why the rate of young people presenting as homeless has continued to rise.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are taking action across government to provide targeted support to young people and their families at an earlier stage. The government is providing more than £3.6 billion funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, which councils can use to meet the needs of people in their area including young people.
Housing authorities have a duty to assess any eligible applicant who is homeless or at risk of homelessness. They must work with the applicant to develop a personalised housing plan with actions to be taken by the authority and the applicant to try and prevent or relieve homelessness.
We have also committed to develop a national Youth Homelessness Prevention Toolkit and develop a dedicated chapter of the Homelessness Code of Guidance on young people, to support councils to work collaboratively with other public services to prevent youth homelessness.
Asked by: Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat - Melksham and Devizes)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Department is taking to ensure consistency in how local authorities interpret and apply statutory duties to young people presenting as homeless.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are taking action across government to provide targeted support to young people and their families at an earlier stage. The government is providing more than £3.6 billion funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, which councils can use to meet the needs of people in their area including young people.
Housing authorities have a duty to assess any eligible applicant who is homeless or at risk of homelessness. They must work with the applicant to develop a personalised housing plan with actions to be taken by the authority and the applicant to try and prevent or relieve homelessness.
We have also committed to develop a national Youth Homelessness Prevention Toolkit and develop a dedicated chapter of the Homelessness Code of Guidance on young people, to support councils to work collaboratively with other public services to prevent youth homelessness.
Asked by: Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat - Melksham and Devizes)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if the Department will undertake a formal review of how local authorities assess young people who present as homeless under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are taking action across government to provide targeted support to young people and their families at an earlier stage. The government is providing more than £3.6 billion funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, which councils can use to meet the needs of people in their area including young people.
Housing authorities have a duty to assess any eligible applicant who is homeless or at risk of homelessness. They must work with the applicant to develop a personalised housing plan with actions to be taken by the authority and the applicant to try and prevent or relieve homelessness.
We have also committed to develop a national Youth Homelessness Prevention Toolkit and develop a dedicated chapter of the Homelessness Code of Guidance on young people, to support councils to work collaboratively with other public services to prevent youth homelessness.
Asked by: Lord Jamieson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 9 April (HL15984), what progress has been made to halve long-term rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We are taking action now to meet our target to halve long-term rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. This includes providing record levels of funding with £3.6 billion for homelessness prevention and rough sleeping services from 2026/27 to 2028/29. Councils will have more freedom and flexibility than ever before on how they use their funding.
We are also investing £15 million in our Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme to enable councils with the greatest pressures to deliver more personalised and comprehensive support for people with complex needs. We are supporting people into stable housing by investing £124 million in supported housing services and providing £37 million to our key partners working in the voluntary, community and faith sector to support recovery from homelessness.
The latest data shows that 3,175 people estimated to be sleeping rough over the month in December 2025 had been sleeping rough long-term.
Asked by: Lord Jamieson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 9 April (HL15984), what frameworks and oversight mechanisms will be used to allocate the £37 million intended for voluntary, community and faith organisations to help to reduce long-term rough sleeping.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The £37 million for voluntary, community and faith organisations (VCFS) will be allocated through a national grant programme (the Ending Homelessness and Communities Fund), via a competitive application process, as set out within the prospectus.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of council tax debt enforcement on the level of demand for local authority homelessness services in (a) England, (b) Thurrock, (c) Basildon and (d) Essex in the last 12 months.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government expects councils to be proportionate in the actions they take to recover debts and sympathetic to those in hardship.
The government has now published a response to its consultation on council tax administration setting out a package of reforms to the enforcement of council tax debts. These will deliver a fairer and more supportive system for taxpayers, reducing the number of households facing enforcement action. This consultation response can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what target figure for asylum dispersal has been given for a) Tonbridge and Malling borough, and b) Sevenoaks district.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Asylum Accommodation Plans are the mechanism via which the Home Office works towards achieving Full Dispersal and thus, a fair and balanced distribution of asylum accommodation across all local authorities nationally.
The Asylum Accommodation Plans are underpinned by an indexing model which accounts for a multitude of pressures within local authorities, including – availability of housing, levels of homelessness, availability of GP and dentists as well as levels of community cohesion. Development of the plans was informed by engagement with a range of national, regional and local stakeholders, to ensure that the evidence base was reflective of broader local authority feedback.
For the safety and security of those we accommodate and staff, it is our longstanding policy not to disclose information about sites which may or may not be utilised by the Home Office.
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of supported asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area, including those in dispersal properties. These statistics can be found at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many properties a) her department, and b) Clearsprings Ready Homes Ltd have acquired in i) Tonbridge and Malling borough, and ii) Sevenoaks district, since the 2024 General Election.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Asylum Accommodation Plans are the mechanism via which the Home Office works towards achieving Full Dispersal and thus, a fair and balanced distribution of asylum accommodation across all local authorities nationally.
The Asylum Accommodation Plans are underpinned by an indexing model which accounts for a multitude of pressures within local authorities, including – availability of housing, levels of homelessness, availability of GP and dentists as well as levels of community cohesion. Development of the plans was informed by engagement with a range of national, regional and local stakeholders, to ensure that the evidence base was reflective of broader local authority feedback.
For the safety and security of those we accommodate and staff, it is our longstanding policy not to disclose information about sites which may or may not be utilised by the Home Office.
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of supported asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area, including those in dispersal properties. These statistics can be found at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.