Homelessness: Homewards Initiative

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I welcome the Prince of Wales’s initiative. Maybe other larger landowners across this country could also look at those initiatives, as well as government. We have been working to release public land for new houses through the Public Land for Housing programme which ran from 2011 to 2020. By March 2020 over 60,000 homes had been brought on to the market on surplus government land. In October 2022 the Cabinet Office published the Government Property Strategy, which intends to drive efficiency in departments’ estates to look at surplus land that can be used for housing, particularly affordable housing.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is great that the Prince of Wales has turned the spotlight on this very important issue. Pilots are all well and good but is it not a damning indictment of this Government’s failure to tackle the housing crisis that between July and October last year, 1,210 homeless families spent longer than the six-week legal limit in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation—the highest figure in six years? How will the Government respond to this growing crisis across the country and the impact it is having on children’s development?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We are responding by offering support through initiatives such as spending £500 million on rough sleeping initiatives between now and 2025. Under the ending rough sleeping for good initiatives, £2 billion is going to local authorities over three years to look at their issues. Your Lordships need to understand that the increasing numbers are only in 5% of local authorities in this country. We need to target and help those local authorities, both with support and with money, which is what we are doing.