Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Final Report of The Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, published on 23 September 2021, what discussions he has had with Ministerial colleagues in (a) HM Treasury and (b) the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the (i) continuation and (ii) expansion of Housing First.

We recognise that offenders face significant barriers to securing suitable accommodation, often linked to their lack of access to necessary funds, availability of local authority housing supply and affordability/access to private rented sector. However, overcoming these barriers is something that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) cannot do in isolation and we work together with Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), Welsh Government and Other Government Departments, to address this issue.

We welcome the publication of the Kerslake report and will carefully consider the commission’s findings, in collaboration with Other Government Departments and the Welsh Government. We are pleased the report reflects the action the Government took during the pandemic to protect health and reoffending by providing temporary accommodation through both HMPPS’ Covid Emergency Scheme and DLUHC’s Everyone In. This led to the levels of rough sleeping reducing by 37% in the last year and rates of prison leavers released to homelessness reduced by 28% from 2019/20 to 2020/21.

We are committed to focusing efforts on making sure that individuals turn their backs on crime when leaving prison and know having stable accommodation helps rehabilitation and reduces the likelihood of rough sleeping. We understand the concern about the challenges some prisoners can face in accessing services and support in the community upon release, especially when being released on a Friday. That is why we continue to explore how to improve services for those being released. To support this, £20m was invested in the Prison Leavers Project which will test new and innovative ways to reduce reoffending, by addressing the challenges people face when they are leaving prison. This includes a specific focus on day of release to better understand how we can deliver improved outcomes for people leaving prison.

DLUHC Housing First pilots are currently in their 4th year of delivery and their latest figures show that over 1,050 of the most entrenched rough sleepers are being supported on the programme. The combined authorities have adopted a collaborative approach towards delivery, including liaising with agencies such as the probation service. Each client has access to critical wrap-around care, including drugs and alcohol misuse and mental health support. As the pilots continue to progress, they anticipate seeing increasing numbers of vulnerable people with complex needs, including potentially prison leavers, moving into safe and secure homes.

Working together, DLUHC and MoJ have launched two schemes which will help prisons leavers find a settled place to live, through access to MoJ’s temporary Community Accommodation Service (CAS3) in five probation regions and a move into private rented sector accommodation through DLUHC’s £13m Accommodation for Ex-Offender scheme (AfEO).