Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Hurley Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to increase funding for homelessness prevention services.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

7. What steps her Department is taking with local councils to prevent homelessness.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)]

The Government have increased funding for homelessness services by £233 million, bringing the total to nearly £1 billion. The 2025 spending review protected that level of investment until 2028-29, and provided £100 million of additional funding from the transformation fund.

[Patrick Hurley]

The number of people in the UK who have no recourse to public funds has increased significantly in recent years. Lots of those people end up falling through the cracks in the system—some of them perhaps end up rough sleeping, and some engage in antisocial behaviour—but the one thing they all have in common is that they do not have the support needed to regularise their lifestyle, and there is not the enforcement that is needed to remove them from their situation. Will the Minister outline the steps being taken to ensure that people with no recourse to public funds are not left in a bureaucratic limbo, which helps nobody?

[Rushanara Ali]

It is important that migrants coming to the UK should be able to maintain and accommodate themselves without recourse to public funds. We encourage councils to exhaust all options when working with people with restricted eligibility for public funds. The funding for the rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant can be used to help anyone, provided actions are within the law.