Rough Sleeping and Good Growth Funds

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

One of the key pressures that we see is the revolving door of criminals being released with nowhere to go. This is about how we tackle and address the stigma with criminals coming out from prison. We are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to identify and ensure that before prisoners are released, they have somewhere safe and secure to go. Ultimately, this is about looking at where the funding is going. With regard to the right hon. Lady’s comment about the tents, I am not aware of that, but I am happy to provide her with additional information.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome this statement and the commitment of the Prime Minister and the Government. I note that in the Minister’s statement, she talked about the commitment being to offer everyone sleeping rough a route off the streets this Christmas. We know that during covid, some people were offered accommodation who were so used to living on the streets that they were not able to take it; in Hackney, the excellent lead on homelessness took a really pragmatic approach to dealing with that issue in the short term. Does the Minister have any idea of the percentage of people who will be affected by that issue and how they will get wraparound support if they refuse to take accommodation?