Chamber and committees

In my statement to Parliament on 2 September, I set out a suite of urgent actions to be taken in response to the housing emergency. Some of the measures to reduce homelessness include:

• Committing to a multi-annual, multi-billion pound affordable housebuilding project worth up to £4.9 billion over the next four years, capable of delivering up to 36,000 affordable homes or put another way, providing 24,000 children with a safe, warm and affordable home.
• Doubling investment in our immediate acquisitions fund from £40 million to £80 million this year. This will support the acquisition of at least 1,200 homes over the 18 months of the fund, helping families move out of temporary accommodation and into permanent tenancies without waiting on the construction of new homes.
• Investing a £3 million capital grant to expand Housing First and create new tenancies, alongside a £1 million uplift to local authorities to accelerate existing Housing First programmes.
• Extending rapid rehousing transition plan funding to 2026-27 to enable local authorities to prioritise settled housing for homeless households.
• Rolling out a £1 million new national ‘fund to leave’. This could help up to 1,200 women and their children to leave abusive relationships.
• Investing up to £2 million through the discretionary housing payments scheme to support households currently in temporary accommodation to find settled homes in the private rented sector. This is in addition to £97 million already being invested in discretionary housing payments in 2025-26 including £79m to mitigate the UK Government’s Bedroom Tax.

I called on partners across the housing sector and beyond to support work to accelerate the delivery of high-quality homes of all tenures, with a focus on the delivery of affordable and social homes. I have also set out the government’s expectation that local authorities, in compliance with ALACHO guidance, should contact every family in good quality temporary accommodation to explore opportunities to convert those temporary tenancies to permanent tenancies.