Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship in this debate, Sir John, on such an important issue. I was unaware of your views on green suits, so I shall try not to err in future. I thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) for securing this debate. He and I have discussed this issue a couple of times, and he has written to the Department. I congratulate him on working hard to make sure this issue gets the attention it deserves. It is complex, but we set out our national homelessness strategy before Christmas, as the hon. Member mentioned, and we can make a difference. I will run through some of those areas and come to the points that he has raised.
As a Government we inherited a homelessness crisis, with both rough sleeping and the number of households in temporary accommodation more than doubling since 2010. Those pressures stem from years of underinvestment in affordable housing and overstretched local homelessness systems, and I am sure the hon. Member would recognise that. Insufficient truly affordable housing means that councils in England too often have to rely on poor- quality, high-cost options to house homeless households. That has a huge impact on families in temporary accommodation, which is at record levels. As of June last year, 132,000 households, including 172,000 children, were living in temporary accommodation. It is shocking to hear those numbers and that is why we are determined to put it right. Our national plan to end homelessness sets out how we will do that: committing to record investment in homelessness and rough sleeping services, and giving a huge boost to social housing because, in the end, the cause of all of this is not having enough homes that people can afford. Even though it will take time, our commitment to £39 billion of investment to build the social housing we need must be at the root of our response.
The scale of the crisis means we will need to make progress over time and there will be a transition period as the situation stabilises and services are able to move toward longer-term prevention, rather than moving to some of the crisis responses that the hon. Member set out. In our plan we set out that sustainable change to tackle the root causes of homelessness, including the delivery of 1.5 million new homes. In the medium term, while we are building the homes that we need, we are investing £3.5 billion in homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, which will help councils intervene earlier, keep people in their homes and reduce the number of households entering temporary accommodation.
In the short term, we are taking immediate action to increase the supply of good-quality temporary accommodation through the £950 million local authority housing fund and, where it is needed, we are working to improve the experience of people living in temporary accommodation. I mention that because two important new goals in the national plan to end homelessness will help the situation that the hon. Member faces in Eastbourne. First, I want to see local authorities prevent homelessness and not end up in the position where they have to place people at all, never mind place them out of area. We will not be able to do that overnight, but if we can stop people becoming homeless in the first place, that problem will not arise.
Secondly, too many places that are using out of area placements to fulfil their homelessness duty have poor access to good-quality temporary accommodation in their own areas. Addressing that is a way to prevent the problems arising, before I get to the reasonable points that the hon. Member has made about what happens when authorities do need to place out of area.
On out of area placements, as of June 2025, 42,0000 households in temporary accommodation were placed outside their home district, with the majority placed in nearby regions. London boroughs accounted for the vast majority of those moves—placing 34,000 households out of area—and also received the highest number of inward placements from other boroughs. As a proud northerner, I sometimes hear from colleagues in the north of England about whether London is the cause of all of our problems. That is just not true; London is dealing with significant issues related to poverty itself. This is a huge amount of disruption for the individuals and families who are affected. We cannot accept it as inevitable, as I have said. We think our plan will help us get to the root cause of it, but we must act now to address poor practice in managing out of area placements to ensure that they are not used where closer, more suitable accommodation is available, and that, where they are used, there is collaboration between the placing and receiving authorities. That comes to the heart of the points that the hon. Member for Eastbourne has made.
The homelessness code of guidance makes clear that all temporary accommodation placements, including those out of area, must be suitable. That includes minimising disruption to schooling, healthcare, support networks and other essential services. The household’s circumstances, safeguarding and support needs must be considered, with links with schools, doctors and social workers retained wherever possible. The guidance does what I think the hon. Member for Eastbourne is arguing for; the question is why it is not working, if the guidance is already there. He mentioned a commitment to strengthen the guidance made by my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali). That is restated by the homelessness strategy, and we will be engaging with councils. He has already written on behalf of Eastbourne, and I am in touch with councils week in, week out—including Brighton, which he also mentioned, on a number of occasions. I will be on the hunt for the areas where we need to strengthen the guidance in all my conversations with local authorities, which he will know are very regular at the moment because of the funding settlement.