Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of social housing waiting lists on the capacity of homelessness services.

We recognise England is in an acute housing crisis, with the social housing waiting list standing at 1.29 million in March 2023, and there is insufficient social housing to meet demand.

This Government will deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, and has already set out a number of steps - Housing targets increased to get Britain building again - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). We will be providing £450 million to enable councils to acquire and create homes for families at risk of homelessness and more widely we will develop a long-term strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness.

Local authorities are required by law to give priority to certain categories of people when allocating social housing, this includes people who are homeless.

In addition, when designing their allocation scheme local authorities must consider their homelessness strategy. Where a Private Registered Provider has been requested by a local authority to assist them in the discharge of their homelessness functions, it must cooperate to such extent as is reasonable in the circumstances in offering accommodation to people with priority under the authority’s allocation scheme.