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 ensure the social housing system supports those with mental health problems.

The Social Housing Green Paper recognises many landlords play a role that goes beyond their key responsibilities, which includes providing guidance to vital services such as mental health services. Through the Green Paper, we are seeking to gather evidence on the impact of the important role that many social landlords are playing.

Social housing and more widely, supported housing, provides a vital service for vulnerable people, including people with mental health issues. Safeguarding provision and supply of appropriate supported accommodation is a priority for my department and we will continue to provide capital grant funding to promote new supply of supported housing.

Our recent announcement confirming funding for all supported housing will stay in Housing Benefit, will also give confidence to the sector to continue to invest in new supply. We are also reviewing oversight arrangements for all supported housing. As a Government, we are investing record levels in mental health, spending £11.98 billion in 2017/18.