Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle changes in the level of youth homelessness; and how he plans to ensure the availability of age appropriate accommodation (a) in winter 2020 and (b) each of the next three years.

This year alone, the Government is spending over £700 million in total to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.

The Protect Programme builds on other recently announced measures to keep rough sleepers safe this winter.

We allocated £91.5 million to 274 councils in September to fund their individual rough sleeping plans and £150 million to local partners to deliver longer-term move-on accommodation for vulnerable people. We also provided a £10 million Cold Weather Fund for councils to provide rough sleepers with safe accommodation over the coming months.

We have put in place bespoke support for local authorities through our Homelessness Advice and Support Team (HAST), which includes dedicated youth homelessness advisor roles that have a commitment to work with local authorities to proactively promote positive joint working across housing authorities and children’s services, offering training, advice and support to all local authorities.