Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Let me once again take the opportunity to commend my hon. Friend for all the work that he has done, in this House and beyond, to combat homelessness, including with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which he championed. He is right to highlight the new funding that has been provided: £28 million for the three Housing First projects, and an additional £20 million to help to prevent people in the private rented sector from getting to homelessness in the first place. We will be looking carefully at, and talking widely about, how best to make use of that money.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

22. One million pounds is about to be cut from Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s homelessness budget by the Conservative and Independent Alliance that runs the authority. That will push the job of supporting homeless people on to excellent organisations such as the YMCA, which is run, in my constituency, by Danny Flynn. If those organisations cannot count on support from local authorities, what help will the Minister give direct from central Government to make sure that voluntary organisations that help homeless people get the resources that they need?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is right to ask what central Government can do to help. One of the ways we are helping is by providing the resources nationally—over £1 billion of funding to 2020, which is the highest budget that has ever been dedicated to combating homelessness.