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Families in Temporary Accommodation

Volume 566: debated on Monday 8 July 2013

4. What recent estimate he has made of the number of families with children living in temporary accommodation. (163428)

On 31 April this year there were 40,450 families with children in temporary accommodation. Under the previous Government the number reached 74,180.

We are talking about this Government’s abysmal record. Some 76,000 families are living in temporary housing. Of those, the number in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has gone up from 630 three years ago to 1,970 at the end of March this year. These figures show that the Government are not even following their own guidance, which says that B and B accommodation is not suitable for families with children. The truth is that this Government are failing families with children up and down the country as regards providing decent housing.

I reject that argument. After all, the number of families in bed and breakfast for more than six weeks, to which he referred directly, has gone down by 14% in the past six months. However, we are not complacent; there is a lot to do. It is appalling for families who find themselves in those circumstances. This Government are determined not to reach the peak, which was treble the current level under the previous Labour Government.

Over 80% of the families who are in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for longer than six weeks come from 15 council areas. What more can the Department do to encourage councils to share best practice in how to deal with this?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the problem is concentrated in certain areas. For example, the numbers in temporary accommodation in the past 12 months halved in Leeds but rose in Birmingham. We need to focus on this. We are therefore putting £1.8 million into the bed-and-breakfast taskforce to really get under the skin of why there are these local variances and to make sure that we tackle the problem at source.

Mr Speaker, may I first echo your congratulations to the British and Irish Lions and to Andy Murray? They are remarkable sportsmen with their team at its very best.

On his appointment, the Housing Minister released a manifesto for housing entitled “Mark’s Manifesto”. In a gripping read, he said that it was wrong that tens of thousands of people should be without a home and that the Government had

“acted to cut the number of households in temporary accommodation.”

Yet only this morning a study for Centrepoint by Cambridge university has pointed to a “severe” shortage of affordable housing, leaving the most vulnerable in the cold, and said that the number of households in temporary accommodation has risen by 10% over the past year. Can the Minister explain why?

There has been a rise in temporary accommodation in the past 12 months, but the numbers as a whole show that the number of families in temporary accommodation is half what it was under the previous Labour Administration. We are trying to tackle this at its root source. That is why we need to be clear about what Labour would do. Labour has a poor record on this, but will not say what its prognosis is.

On facing up to one’s record, the truth is that the only thing that this Government have cut is the budget for affordable homes, as the National Housing Federation has said. Homelessness and rough sleeping are up by a third since the general election, eight times more families are living in bed and breakfasts than three years ago, and the number of affordable housing completions fell by 29% in the past year. Why does the Minister not accept responsibility for presiding over the biggest housing crisis in a generation, forcing thousands of decent families into temporary accommodation and costing the taxpayer £1.8 billion?

We got the lengthy rhetoric, as usual, but no analysis or thought. The reality is that we are building more affordable homes—170,000 in this Parliament, and we plan to build 200,000 in the next Parliament. Labour’s record is that it managed to oversee the loss of 420,000 social homes in 13 years; no wonder Labour Members do not want to talk about it.