Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to support prisoners on release in (a) the West Midlands and (b) England.

We are working collaboratively with other government departments and interested parties. Through the Rough Sleeping Strategy, the Government is investing up to £6.4m in a pilot to provide improved accommodation support through a new partnership approach between prisons, probation providers and Local Authorities (LA) to plan, secure and sustain accommodation for prisoners on their release.

The National Probation Service has improved commissioning rates and set minimum levels of funding for their commissioning of TTG services from CRCs for those people leaving non-resettlement prisons. This TTG service includes providing help to prison leavers with finding accommodation on their release.

The CRCs are currently working to a TTG Exceptional Delivery Model which identifies the minimum requirement for TTG delivery during the COVID-19 period taking into account the necessary restrictions to prison regimes. During the period of COVID-19, we set up seven divisional Homelessness Prevention Teams (HPTs) to deal with the urgent issues presenting in relation to securing accommodation for those being released from prison, initially as part of the End of Custody Temporary Release (ECTR) scheme and latterly in accordance with their Conditional Release Date (CRD). These teams have been very successful in securing improved accommodation outcomes and building new local partnerships with local authorities and housing partners.

A critical part of the HPTs success has been the exceptional funding scheme agreed with HMT to fund the provision of accommodation to individuals released from prison and at risk of homelessness. This emergency approval was for a limited time and ran from 18th May, closing to new entrants on 31st August as the public health and public protection risks warranted it. However, in light of the recent Government announcements relating to the introduction of the new three-tier COVID alert level system, and the national restrictions in England and Wales HMPPS considered the public health benefits of reinstating the emergency accommodation scheme. It has been agreed to reinstate the scheme until 21st January 2021, subject to regular review.