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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number of homeless people accommodated through the Everyone In programme who have no recourse to public funds in (a) the London Borough of Ealing, (b) London and (c) England.

Yesterday, the Government published the management information that supports the announcements from Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP, and Dame Louise Casey that 15,000 people have been accommodated by local authorities in response to Covid-19.

We have collected management information from 302 local authorities nationally.?We are continuing to work with local authorities to understand the work they are doing to help the most vulnerable in our society.

£3.2 billion of additional Government funding has now been made available to help councils respond to coronavirus, including meeting the costs of accommodating some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This is in addition to £3.2 million specifically targeted to help rough sleepers during the coronavirus emergency and the £489 million committed in 2020 to 2021 to help rough sleepers, a £121 million increase in funding from the previous year.

This funding has been provided to help local authorities to reduce risks to public health and to support individuals on the basis of need.

The Government is aware of concerns about those with no recourse to public funds experiencing homelessness during the Covid-19 crisis.

The legal position on those with no recourse to public funds has not been amended.

The Government recognises that these are unprecedented times, and expects local authorities to support people who are sleeping rough, and also to minimise unnecessary risks to public health, acting within the law.