Homelessness

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right in what he says. He will know that we have set a target of building 1.5 million homes over the course of the Parliament, which in the long term is the answer to tackling this issue. In the short term, we need to tackle the issue of many children spending years in temporary accommodation, when they need space to play and develop, at the same time increasing the funding to tackle the long-term causes of homelessness and poverty, which, as he rightly says, sit at the heart of this. The Renters’ Rights Bill, which is coming before this House very shortly, will tackle some of the causes of homelessness.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. As the Minister has identified, the primary cause of homelessness is a lack of homes. London has nearly 70,000 families living in temporary accommodation—over half the total in England. Of those, almost half—33,000—live out-of-borough compared with one in seven for the rest of the country. Does the Minister agree that this is largely down to London having failed to build the homes that its residents need? What will this Government do to get London building?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be aware that new targets have been set for building homes across the country, and in London no less. Local authorities use out-of-area placements to provide temporary accommodation, as he rightly mentioned. We are enabling more funding to go into London so that we can reduce the level of temporary homelessness accommodation. However, the long-term solution is to get more houses built, which is why we have increased the housebuilding target for London.