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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November 2020 to Question 114247 on Sleeping Rough: Coronavirus, what progress he has made on allocating to local authorities the (a) £15 million of funding through the Protect Programme and (b) £10 million of funding through the Cold Weather Fund.

On 14 December, we confirmed that an initial £10 million funding had been allocated for 19 areas, plus the Greater London Authority, under the Government’s £15 million ‘Protect Programme’. This is to provide accommodation for rough sleepers during the pandemic in areas that required extra support throughout winter. A full list of allocations can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/extra-help-for-rough-sleepers-with-drug-and-alcohol-dependency

The Cold Weather Fund has been made available to all local authorities and we asked that they submit their proposals by the 4 December. As of 17 December, we have confirmed allocations totalling £7.3 million to over 260 local authorities and are in the process of confirming the final allocations, where local authorities have applied.