National Plan to End Homelessness

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is very important that we continue to work with local authorities in tackling this problem. Under the new strategy, every council will publish a tailored action plan alongside its local homelessness strategy, with local targets and key outcomes. That will feed into the national picture so we can make sure that we are targeting the funding where it most needs to go. The new formulas we have devised for the local government finance settlement, which will be published later this week, are focused on making sure that the money goes where the need is and where there is less ability to raise additional funds through council tax. We are working very hard on making sure that the funding goes where the need is, and we will continue to do that. With councils now being able to set their own targets on this, we will be able to feed those into some more national targeting.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I welcome the continued investment of £185 million allocated to the rough sleeping drug and alcohol treatment programme from 2026 to 2029. But what progress has been made towards this Government’s safer streets and opportunity missions to improve support and early intervention, particularly for children and young people who are struggling with the dual crises of substance abuse and experiencing homelessness? Is this work one of the factors being used to determine which additional councils will receive this new funding?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Two pieces of work are going on here around the homelessness strategy and the child poverty strategy. Having set up a Housing First scheme in my local authority when I was a council leader, I know it is very important that you do not tackle just one issue. The roof over the head is key but so is support for complex needs. That is why homelessness is such a complex issue—you have to tackle the underlying issues. Those issues can be drug and alcohol abuse, poor mental health, financial capacity, chaotic lifestyles or any combination of those factors. All these things have to be worked on at the same time, which is why it is crucial that we have the interministerial working group. It is working across departments to tackle all these issues together so that we can make a real impact on homelessness.