Housing Benefit: Temporary Accommodation

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The subject that the noble Baroness has raised is to do with temporary housing, and we appreciate that these remain difficult times and that local authorities are subject to many pressures. We will continue to review the situation with housing benefit subsidy rates, but perhaps I can help the noble Baroness by saying that, following the Autumn Statement back in 2023, the Government announced additional funding of £120 million to help councils address in particular the Ukraine situation and homelessness pressures looking ahead to 2024-25. Today, I am pleased to say that it has been announced that England’s share of the £120 million is £109 million, which is to be paid via the homelessness prevention grant top-up for the year 2024-25.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the undersupply of social housing has meant that spending on temporary accommodation has increased by a staggering 62% over the last five years. Yesterday, Shelter and the National Housing Federation published new research by the CEBR on the economic impact of building social housing. It showed the massive economic and social benefits of building 90,000 new social rented homes and found that delivering social housing at this scale would save nearly £250 million a year on the benefits budget, result in £4.5 billion in housing benefit savings and save local authorities £245 million a year on homelessness services. What action can the Government take to urgently improve delivery of social housing and reverse this vicious cycle?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that building more houses and finding more houses, including social housing but also in the private rented sector and for homeowners, is incredibly important. We remain committed to our target of delivering 300,000 homes a year in England. We also recognise that the planning system can be complex. The levelling up White Paper marked an important moment, making clear the scale of our ambition to address the inequalities for communities right across the country, which I think was the gist of the noble Baroness’s question.