Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on his continued work on homelessness. He is respected across the House, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), said, and we are all grateful for his work.
I thank the 14 hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I again agree with the shadow Minister that that number, along with the 17 hon. Members who spoke in the last such debate, sends a message to people outside this place that tackling homelessness is a priority for Members on both sides of the House of Commons. I will encourage all officials in the Department to read this debate to understand where MPs are coming from and the priority that this subject represents for them. The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 of the hon. Member for Harrow East is a priority for me, and I want to work with him to implement it. I hear what he said about its delay and take that as an instruction to work harder to get it done.
More broadly, I thank hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. As has been said, although homelessness is a problem of not having enough houses, it is not just a housing problem; it is a profound injustice that devastates lives. Everyone has a right to a roof over their head. Homelessness is a visible reminder that our society falls short in the duties that we owe to one another—something that the Labour Government are determined to change.
Some hon. Members mentioned the homelessness strategy, about which I can only say, “Watch this space.” I am determined to get on and publish it before Christmas, and I am really keen to work cross-party with hon. Members to make it work. We had an excellent parliamentary engagement session last week, which was less formal than this debate, and I think it works really well to have a combination of informal opportunities and debates such as this for hon. Members to talk through what they want to see in the strategy.
As we move towards the delivery phase of the homelessness strategy, it will be right for us to continue holding those parliamentary engagement sessions on a range of issues to make sure that hon. Members can feed into them. Last week, we talked through the preventive nature of the strategy from the point of view of housing and affordability, and how we can enable the support that the most vulnerable people need. A couple of hon. Members also made important points about people with complex needs.
You will forgive me, Mr Vickers, if I briefly mention the Budget. I have no doubt that, as with any Budget, not every hon. Member got all their heart’s desires, but ending the two-child limit was one of mine. I have met many kids in temporary accommodation, or otherwise living in poverty, who will benefit. I think of those children every day when I walk into the Department, and what we can collectively do to give them their futures back.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) said, we announced in the Budget that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will lead a review, involving me and other Ministers, of value for money in homelessness services. It will include looking at ways to improve the supply of good value for money and good quality temporary accommodation and supported housing, such as through greater co-ordination in planning and procurement in different parts of the state.
A couple of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon)—who I commend for his work as my predecessor as Minister for Local Government, setting in train a really important set of reforms that will help in this area—mentioned the absolutely dire state of temporary accommodation, both for the kids in it and for the taxpayer, and the fact that we are not getting value for money at the moment. I encourage all Members to engage with that value for money review; we want to see some of the worst cases so that we can provide an evidence base.