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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what data his Department holds on winter deaths associated with rough sleeping.

No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why Government has committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. We have announced a new Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State, which will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy to tackle this issue.

We have allocated over £1 billion through to 2020 to prevent and reduce all forms of homelessness reduction including piloting a Housing First approach for some of the most entrenched rough sleepers.

We expect local authorities to work closely with the voluntary sector to provide basic emergency accommodation to minimise the risk of harm to individuals when the temperature drops.

Our new Homelessness Advice and Support Team, drawn from local authorities and the homelessness sector, are providing targeted challenge and support to help local authorities to improve their response to homelessness, including on cold weather provision for rough sleepers.

In certain cases where a rough sleeper dies on the streets, local authorities can commission a Safeguarding Adults Review. This process is carried out to consider what agencies and individuals could have done differently to prevent harm or death.