Alison McGovern
MP for Birkenhead · Labour · United Kingdom
“As part of that work, we expect all integrated care boards to complete a needs assessment so that we can get a detailed understanding of their current and future population, including people of all ages with palliative care and end-of-life needs.”
“Not for the first time this week, I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). He and I agree that we will all act according to our conscience and respect others if they come to a different conclusion.”
“Members and friends will know that in July, I lost my own mum, so I had a very practical education in this topic, and that experience will shape how I take this work forward. To conclude, I thank all hon. Members once again for all they have said.”
“The issue of assisted dying has been subject to extensive and detailed consideration over a number of years, most recently in this House and the other place in the previous Session, as well as outside Parliament.”
“I also respect my hon. Friend and, though it was not a point of order, the House will have heard what she said. I am attempting to address the points that have been raised in the debate, particularly on procedural matters, on social care and palliative care, which I turn to now.”
“On that basis, we would provide technical support to the promoter if Parliament chooses to progress the Bill. That said, I will repeat the comments made by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire from the Opposition Dispatch Box, which I now say on behalf of the Government.”
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“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I thank hon. Members across the House for the cross-party way in which they have engaged on the strategy. We will disagree—I am sure we will disagree about the manner in which Opposition Members sometimes discuss social security—but where we agree, let us make every effort to put the people who need this strategy first. Those are people who have been on the streets for too long and children who deserve a proper childhood. I hope that we can share that ambition. The hon. Gentleman asked about metrics. The Department publishes a number of datasets that we are using to analyse the metrics.”
“At the heart of the problem is the lack of social housing, particularly in London, which is why we need to build more. I am glad that this strategy comes closely after the child poverty strategy last week, which saw action to improve family incomes, not least the removal of the two-child limit.”
“I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her words and for her long-standing commitment to tackling homelessness in the capital and right across the country. She is right to ask about council pressures, and we are trying to address the inadequacies of council funding across the country. At the moment, the costs of TA and the spikes in demand are putting pressure on councils that will make it even harder for them to balance their budgets, and that serves nobody. We have to get this under control, because it is a waste of taxpayers’ money, no less than it is a waste of childhoods. We have got to get on top of it. My hon. Friend asks about incomes and whether I have discussed that with other Departments. This is a cross-departmental strategy, and Ministers from DWP and other Departments have been very involved in it.”
“Gentleman the details about the steps that we are taking. The hon. Gentleman also mentions the need to increase social housing, and I would recommend to him the detail on this published by the Minister for Housing, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). I do not think any of us should have a cap on our ambition for building social and affordable homes, and I encourage all parts of the country to get on with spending the investment the Chancellor has allocated so that we can put a roof over people’s heads.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the strategy and for joining the cross-party support for our objectives. It is important that we make it clear where we have agreement across the parties. I join him in welcoming the important work of the Shared Health Foundation. On his final question, there are exemptions to the shared accommodation rate, and I would encourage him to have a look at that part of the strategy. On the local housing allowance, as I said in response to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee a moment ago, it is important that family incomes improve, which is why we took the steps we did in the child poverty strategy. I spoke about the Vagrancy Act in my response to the shadow Minister, but I will happily also send the hon.”
“My hon. Friend knows that I am a fan of Banbury. I am hoping to get there before too long, and would be most grateful to meet that organisation; it sounds like it is doing sterling work, and I am grateful to them for it. It is true, as he says, that temporary accommodation is often anything but. The distinction we are trying to draw in the strategy is one of quality. While good-quality temporary accommodation often cannot help a family get back on the road to stability, we do see some really poor-quality temporary accommodation. To give people a long-term home where they can set down roots, as Members will know, our Planning and Infra- structure Bill has been proceeding through Parliament. That legislation will allow us to speed up the delivery of all housing, including the social housing we so desperately need.”
“As part of the strategy, I have worked closely with my colleagues in the Home Office to support their priorities, which are to secure our borders, deal with the dreadful criminality of people trafficking across borders and get the backlog down. That is the best way to achieve what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, which is to have the resources to support people who have fled conflict and need to rebuild their lives. We want to ensure, through this strategy, that we get help quickly to the people whose cases have been decided, with the outcome that they are a refugee and will be settling in the UK. That means councils knowing where the people are and the support being available. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for that approach.”
“I will join my right hon. Friend in commending Oxford city council’s plans. That is exactly the sort of action that this strategy envisages. We must get kids out of totally unsuitable B&B accommodation and help councils to have the resources to acquire much better accommodation that can stabilise family life. In order to back councils to do that, we have the £950 million local authority housing fund, which I mentioned earlier. I want to see local authorities charging forward to tackle this problem. Oxford’s council is not the only one that is getting this right—there are others across the country—but I would encourage all local authorities to look at the approach that Oxford is taking.”
“I will have more to say about funding for local authorities specifically in the coming days. As the hon. Member will know, we are expecting the provisional statement for local authorities. She mentions renters’ rights. Section 21 evictions are a significant cause of homelessness, so it is right that we have brought those to an end through the Renters’ Rights Act. We all want to see good-quality private rented accommodation too. Any area needs a mix of housing so that people can have choice and a good community around them.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question, which is a really important one. She will know that the Department for Education is introducing the unique identifier, which is at the core of the data we need to track this properly. On an ambition for the number of days lost, in an ideal world it would be zero. We need to get the work with the DfE under way and plot a course through the action plan over the coming weeks and months to get the numbers reduced significantly.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He demonstrates his expertise, both from his life experience—and the House is so much the better for having people in it today who know what we are talking about—and the considerable work that he has done on this matter. He mentioned a couple of areas where we need to work with NHS and health colleagues. That is exactly the nature of the work we have been doing. I trust that he will use his place on the Health and Social Care Committee to hold us all collectively to account.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and through him I would like to give my own thanks to the organisations in his constituency that he just mentioned, which I am sure are doing vital and important work. One of the biggest challenges for local authorities in recent years has been living hand-to-mouth, with year-to-year funding, which they then pass on to the organisations that they fund. Having three-year settlements, which ensure a level of predictability, will not only help organisations to plan better, whether they are a council or a voluntary sector organisation, but will mean that they can engage more in preventive work, because they will have enough time to see the benefits.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his apposite question. There is extra money for supported housing in the strategy, and we will be monitoring the success of that. There is also money for recovery, because there is no doubt that people live with the trauma of homelessness for many years, and we need to help them move forward.”
“I think I have responded a number of times on our ambitions for social housing and mixed communities. On section 21, the right hon. Member will have noted that we are investing more in this year to help councils respond to the crisis that we face now, as well as having long-term objectives.”
“Housing associations will have heard the comments that my hon. Friend has made. I am sure that they all aspire to treat their residents with the utmost respect and care, but they will have heard what he has said and will want to ensure that they fulfil that ambition.”
“We know how many people present themselves to councils with a risk of homelessness. This strategy sets out an objective to increase the number of cases when homelessness is prevented. Let us have transparency, let us have clarity about where it is happening and not, and let us make sure that councils have the tools in the box to do the job.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work over so many years on this issue. He mentions a number of legislative vehicles, some of which have already made a change and some of which could. I will work with him to do what we need. On the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act, he will have noticed in the Budget that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is leading some work on value for money in that sector. I will write to him with details on that. On the duty to collaborate, I am sorry to say that we are all aware, as constituency MPs, of terrible cases where homelessness could clearly have been prevented at a number of turns and was not. Two things are necessary: we need to introduce a duty to collaborate and work across the House to do that, but we also need transparency about results.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Children who are stuck in inappropriate B&Bs should know that they have a champion in this House, they should know that there is someone who has been there too, and they should know that they are not alone. On the timeline for getting kids out of B&Bs, we will end the use of B&B accommodation by the end of the Parliament in all but the most extreme cases—an absolute emergency. It is already the law—it has been for 20 years—that children are not supposed to be in B&Bs for more than six weeks. What on Earth is going on in this country when there are 2,000 children in such a situation? Let us work together, let us do something about it and let us bring those numbers down very quickly. [ Official Report , 15 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 9WC.] (Correction)”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that I and the ministerial team who produced this report agree with him can be evidenced by the foreword written by the people who did not just come to Ministers, give their experience and say what they have been through—although they did do that—but who shaped policy. That is exactly how it should be and I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us of that.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the use of taxpayers’ money. As she will have heard me say in previous responses, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is leading some cross-ministerial work on value-for-money questions on the provision of support for homeless people. That is important, because we cannot afford to waste a penny in this mission. I would be delighted to visit her constituency.”
“Through her work on Operation Valour and other things, we are ensuring that we have in place the necessary care and support for veterans, because they deserve the absolute best.”
“My hon. Friend is of course right. The great city of Edinburgh deserves a lot better in so many ways, and I support everything he said. I long for the day when we can have a pan-UK strategy, including Scottish Labour, to end homelessness where we work together, which we will do. On veterans, it will be important to us all to know that people who have served our country are supported in every aspect of their life afterwards, and it is an absolute disaster if a former member of the armed forces experiences homelessness. That is why the MOD has played a full part in the creation of the strategy. I have spoken about it directly with my hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans and People.”
“Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon)—who I commend for his work as my predecessor as Minister for Local Government, setting in train a really important set of reforms that will help in this area—mentioned the absolutely dire state of temporary accommodation, both for the kids in it and for the taxpayer, and the fact that we are not getting value for money at the moment. I encourage all Members to engage with that value for money review; we want to see some of the worst cases so that we can provide an evidence base.”
“Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) said, we announced in the Budget that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will lead a review, involving me and other Ministers, of value for money in homelessness services. It will include looking at ways to improve the supply of good value for money and good quality temporary accommodation and supported housing, such as through greater co-ordination in planning and procurement in different parts of the state. A couple of hon. Members, including my hon.”
“Last week, we talked through the preventive nature of the strategy from the point of view of housing and affordability, and how we can enable the support that the most vulnerable people need. A couple of hon. Members also made important points about people with complex needs. You will forgive me, Mr Vickers, if I briefly mention the Budget. I have no doubt that, as with any Budget, not every hon. Member got all their heart’s desires, but ending the two-child limit was one of mine. I have met many kids in temporary accommodation, or otherwise living in poverty, who will benefit. I think of those children every day when I walk into the Department, and what we can collectively do to give them their futures back. As my hon.”
“Members mentioned the homelessness strategy, about which I can only say, “Watch this space.” I am determined to get on and publish it before Christmas, and I am really keen to work cross-party with hon. Members to make it work. We had an excellent parliamentary engagement session last week, which was less formal than this debate, and I think it works really well to have a combination of informal opportunities and debates such as this for hon. Members to talk through what they want to see in the strategy. As we move towards the delivery phase of the homelessness strategy, it will be right for us to continue holding those parliamentary engagement sessions on a range of issues to make sure that hon. Members can feed into them.”
“The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 of the hon. Member for Harrow East is a priority for me, and I want to work with him to implement it. I hear what he said about its delay and take that as an instruction to work harder to get it done. More broadly, I thank hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. As has been said, although homelessness is a problem of not having enough houses, it is not just a housing problem; it is a profound injustice that devastates lives. Everyone has a right to a roof over their head. Homelessness is a visible reminder that our society falls short in the duties that we owe to one another—something that the Labour Government are determined to change. Some hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on his continued work on homelessness. He is respected across the House, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), said, and we are all grateful for his work. I thank the 14 hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I again agree with the shadow Minister that that number, along with the 17 hon. Members who spoke in the last such debate, sends a message to people outside this place that tackling homelessness is a priority for Members on both sides of the House of Commons. I will encourage all officials in the Department to read this debate to understand where MPs are coming from and the priority that this subject represents for them.”
“I have absolutely no doubt that when it comes to debates in Westminster Hall on this subject, this ain’t going to be the last.”
“We need the cross-party collaboration that we have demonstrated again here today, and a whole-system approach. On hospital discharge, on prisons, on victims of domestic abuse and on veterans, I have engaged with Ministers in those areas and I will continue to do so. We have an interministerial group meeting coming up before we publish the strategy, and I can report that all those other Departments are engaging enthusiastically on the strategy. We need to prevent homelessness. That will mean less cost for the state and, crucially, much better outcomes for families and individuals who desperately need better support. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed today. It has been inspiring, again, to understand how important this issue is. Most of all, I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East for securing the debate.”
“Members on our value for money review, because we know that we desperately need more resources in this area and some of the resources that are there at the moment are not being spent in the way that we as Members of Parliament would wish. We have a collective duty to resolve that situation in the strategy’s implementation phase. I will conclude and allow the hon. Member for Harrow East to say a few words. In the end, we want to see lasting change, whether through social homes being built or our goal to improve disposable incomes so that people are less likely to be unable to fulfil their tenancy. Those are the steps that we can take to end homelessness for good and make sure, for anybody experiencing homelessness, that it is a brief period and never repeated.”
“Section 21 no-fault evictions are a leading cause of homelessness, forcing thousands of families into crisis every year, but we have abolished them through the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. The best way to prevent homelessness is to stop it before it starts, and that is what the Renters’ Rights Act will do. We have also strengthened protections for the social housing stock by reforming the right to buy. Many hon. Members mentioned supported housing, which is crucial. I say to the hon. Member for Harrow East that I am working very hard on the implementation of his Act. It is vital that we drive out rogue landlords. As I mentioned, I will welcome the engagement of hon.”
“We will show how we will have visibility and transparency over outcomes so that we can understand exactly where the problems are and take steps to tackle them. I look forward to engaging with all hon. Members on that framework. We know that our investment in councils on homelessness is making a difference. The latest annual figures show early signs of progress, with 11% fewer households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That is a small bit of progress, but I agree with all hon. Members who have expressed real concern about where we are at the moment; we still have a long way to go. Far too many people are experiencing homelessness and we have to provide the homes that they need, as I have said. Alongside increasing supply, as I mentioned, we need to reform the private rented sector.”
“Members also mentioned the tension that exists between ringfencing funding and allowing local authorities the flexibility to lead solutions that work for their place. Following the work of my predecessor, I am very glad that we have been able to provide local authorities with a three-year funding settlement and reconnect council funding with deprivation. The twin effects of those policies will help in that area. We as Members of Parliament have to recognise, however, that there is a tension between curtailing local authorities’ freedom through things like ringfencing, which might target resources in the right place, and enabling them to tailor support to their local area. We will square that circle through the local government outcomes framework that we will publish shortly with the full settlement.”
“I think the record will show that the Government have taken action to bring in more tax from people who owe it—from those at the top of society—and that, because we have done so, we have been able to get rid of the two-child limit and commit £39 billion to build more social and affordable housing. That investment will make a difference in tackling the social injustice of homelessness. As a few hon. Members mentioned, we are taking action now, even before we have published the strategy. This year, we have invested more than £1 billion— the largest annual investment to date—to enable local authorities to invest in prevention, provide tailored support and reduce the reliance on costly short-term solutions. Several hon.”
“Our homelessness strategy will be published soon. Our overall goal will be to prevent homelessness before it starts, saving people from trauma and saving taxpayers the cost of failure. Councils can use our homelessness funding flexibly to meet those needs, including by commissioning Housing First services, which evidence has shown can transform the lives of people with complex needs.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, who has a long-standing record of campaigning for those who have experienced rough sleeping or homelessness. Housing First, as we have discussed, is one way that areas can provide person-centred and trauma-informed support for people with complex needs, which is important in preventing long-term rough sleeping. Areas across England can use flexible funding, including our £255 million rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant, to do so. The Liverpool city region combined authority, which includes his constituency of Southport, received nearly £4 million of funding through the grant this year.”
“There we have it: in a question about homelessness, we have a Tory MP getting up and asking how he can say no to more homes. [ Interruption. ]”
“Homelessness and rough sleeping doubled under the previous Tory Government. Our homelessness strategy will be published very shortly. Last week we published our policy statement on the fair funding review, which will stabilise council funding and target it at those areas with significant levels of deprivation. I look forward to the hon. Member’s support in ensuring that councils have the powers they need to ensure that everyone has a roof over their head.”
“The Government are changing the way we fund local authorities, reconnecting funding with deprivation after 14 years of Tory Governments cutting councils in the poorest places. The vast majority of upper-tier councils will see their income increase in real terms over the next three years. For 2025-26, the local government finance settlement made available up to £577 million for Buckinghamshire council—a 5.7% cash-terms increase in core spending power on the year before.”
“As I said in an earlier answer, we made a policy statement on the fair funding review consultation last week. In addition, as I have said, the vast majority of upper-tier councils will see their incomes increase in real terms over the next three years. More details will come as we finalise funding arrangements. The Department will work closely with Buckinghamshire and all other councils to ensure that their finances are stabilised after 14 rocky years.”
“I know how important it is for my hon. Friend to champion those towns and villages. He is right to say that the three-year funding settlement for councils will help, including with forward planning. Where we are considering cost pressures—those in adult social care, for example—it will help us to change the way in which services are delivered so that we can support people and ensure that councils across the country, such as Buckinghamshire, have more stable finances in the future.”
“Our Labour Government will build the homes that Britain needs and put our country on a path to end homelessness for good, unlike the Tories, who—if people have not heard us say this already today—allowed homelessness and rough sleeping to double. We will publish the child poverty strategy and the homelessness strategy shortly, and both will set out steps to defend families against the risk of getting stuck in temporary accommodation.”
“That is a very important point: London is a fine city, but we need to ensure that everyone there is housed well. That is why the Labour Government are investing more than £1 billion in homelessness services this year—an increase of more than £300 million. That includes £10.9 million of top-up funding, announced last month, to increase access to support services in areas with the highest number of children in temporary accommodation, like the one mentioned by my hon. Friend. We have to get everybody in this country properly housed.”
“My hon. Friend is an expert in these matters. She knows that the Secretary of State has taken recent steps to make sure that we do build homes, including social and affordable homes, in London. We will certainly work very closely with her, and with the information she mentions, to get homes built.”
“The homelessness strategy will be published soon, so the hon. Lady does not have long to wait. She characterises the situation well. We can fund sticking plasters and we can fund help, but in the end we have to get to the heart of the matter: No. 1—build homes; No. 2—make sure that families have enough money coming in to pay the rent. That will be at the heart of our strategy.”
“I refer the hon. Lady, who asks a very reasonable question, to the response I gave some moments ago. Collectively, we must leave no stone unturned when it comes to available land for housing, particularly in the capital, where we desperately need more social and affordable homes.”
“I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for setting out that, aside from the fact that we care about temporary accommodation because every child deserves the space to play and do their homework, this problem is putting local councils under a financial pressure that is not bearable. We have to get a grip of this situation. We will have more to say about this crucial issue in the homelessness strategy, and I look forward to engaging with the Chair and the whole Committee on it.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his important question. We all want to see empty homes brought into use, and councils already have extensive powers in this area. My job as the Local Government Minister is to make sure that we stabilise councils’ funding so that they are able to invest in that action, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to engage with the Department on the powers he would like to see, our door is very much open.”
“The Government keep the homelessness code of guidance under regular review, and this will continue once we have published the strategy that I mentioned previously. We will develop further good practice guidance and toolkits to support local government to deliver homelessness services.”