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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the collection of data on the number of older people who are homeless but who are not included in official statutory homelessness statistics.

The Department has recently launched a project to overhaul the data it collects on homelessness. It is intended that the new system will collect data on all those who approach local authorities for housing assistance, whether statutorily homeless or not, and the data will be at the household rather than aggregate level. This will deliver a much greater understanding of the causes of homelessness and the effectiveness of responses.