Rough Sleeping: Families with Children

Debate between Iqbal Mohamed and Will Forster

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Forster]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; he makes a really valid point. The debate has rightly focused on housing, but there are wider impacts, and the Department for Work and Pensions needs to change our benefits system to ensure that families are properly supported so that we do not have children sleeping rough. I have highlighted the particular case of Surrey county council evicting families with children in my constituency, and I really worry that some of them may sleep rough. Across England, almost 5,000 people slept rough on one single night last autumn—a 20% increase on the previous year. We know the causes: chronic housing shortages, poverty, relationship breakdowns, gaps in welfare support and, above all, a lack of social housing.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

In the late ’70s and the ’80s, more than 80% of Government support for social housing—housing benefit—went to councils. That money was reinvested in housing and repairs, and the surplus was used in other services. In real terms, it was then worth about £28 billion; today it is about £30 billion, so it has not changed, but 20% now goes to councils and 80% goes to private landlords. Whatever 80% of £30 billion is— £24 billion—is now going out of the system, and that is money that was going to councils. Does the hon. Member agree that the right to buy, and councils’ inability to replenish stock, has adversely impacted not just housing but wider public services, and that we must allow councils to buy back homes or build new ones, so that housing benefit goes to councils?

[Mr Forster]

I completely agree. We have privatised our housing welfare system, which has resulted in worse conditions and a higher cost to taxpayers. The Liberal Democrats have been campaigning on housing since before we were the Liberal Democrats. The great architect of the welfare state, the Liberal William Beveridge, characterised the squalor of poor housing and homelessness in the early 20th century as a giant that needed to be defeated, yet we still have not slain that giant.

It is heartbreaking to hear these stories. Will the Minister ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to local authorities so that they can deliver the measures in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and provide accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse? Will the Government ringfence emergency funding for local councils to ensure that they can deliver permanent accommodation for rough sleepers? Will they exempt groups of homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, from the shared accommodation rule?

The Government have reduced the move-on period for refugees in accommodation from 56 to 28 days. When it was 56 days, rough sleeping notably reduced. It gave refugees a chance to set in motion plans for leaving state support, but 28 days isn’t working. The Government have made an exemption only for those who are pregnant, are over 65 or have a disability. Those are the only exemptions. I do not agree with changing the rule, but I will not ask the Minister to defend that. I ask her to raise it with the Home Office, to ensure that families with children are also exempt.

The Government must address this awful system, which is failing vulnerable children and their families. We cannot have children sleeping rough. The work of organisations such as the York Road Project in my constituency of Woking shows what people can achieve when compassion and community are involved. It is now the Government’s responsibility to match that endeavour and ensure that children and families do not sleep rough.