Select Committee statement

We now come to the second Select Committee statement on behalf of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Florence Eshalomi will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not full speeches, and I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair, and not the relevant Government Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this important statement. This week, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee published our fifth report as part of our inquiry into housing conditions across England. The subject of the report is housing conditions of temporary accommodation provided to households facing homelessness. We also published a report on social housing in February, and we hope to report on conditions in the private rented sector in the coming months. Members may remember our report on children in temporary accommodation last year. We found that accommodation provided to households was often in a poor state, with families left living with serious hazards. A year on, we wanted to look at the quality of accommodation provided to homeless households. The quality of this accommodation matters. Temporary accommodation is anything but temporary; people can spend years in it before they move to a more settled home. During that time, they can be forced to move—sometimes with little or no notice—away from their family and friends, away from their children’s schools, away from their community and away from the local services on which they depend. That creates a situation in which they feel forced to accept whatever housing they are given, regardless of how unsatisfactory it may be. If they complain, they sometimes fear that they may be moved again, or even worse, be deemed intentionally homeless. The quality of temporary accommodation matters because of the serious consequences that poor conditions can have on people’s health and wellbeing. Yesterday, the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation reported that temporary accommodation has been listed as a contributing factor in the deaths of 104 children in England between 2019 and 2025. That figure includes 76 children under the age of one. Let that sink in: 76 children under one have died because of the conditions linked to their homes. The information we have on the prevalence of hazards and disrepair in temporary accommodation is limited. We are spending more than ever on temporary accommodation, yet we have limited information on the quality of accommodation provided to households. During our inquiry, we heard about the most shockingly poor conditions. We heard of mould so extensive that it had spread not only to the walls, but to people’s clothes, bedding and other belongings. There is a growing problem with infestation of mice, rats and other pests; we heard of a child who was bitten on the toe by a rat during the night, and another child who could not sleep properly after waking up covered in ants. We also heard about broken facilities, leaking sewage and exposed electrical wires. The list of poor conditions goes on. There is little space, with families sometimes housed in just one room. We heard about a family of six who shared one room with a double bed, a set of bunk beds, a small kitchenette and a toilet between them. Households with children can be placed in bed and breakfasts, hostels and other accommodation where they need to share facilities with other residents. The behaviour of the other residents can leave people feeling unsafe. We heard of situations where women and children fleeing domestic abuse were housed with single male adults. Sometimes, the condition of the property compounds this problem. For example, we heard of people living in shared accommodation without even basic functioning locks on their rooms. The Children’s Commissioner recently reported that, of the over 12,000 people living in shared accommodation as of June last year, over 9,500 had been living there for over six weeks. Even if the properties are in a good state, people living in temporary accommodation may not have access to some of the very basic things we all take for granted: somewhere to cook, somewhere to wash clothes, wi-fi, having people over to visit, and just being able to go and come without having to sign in at the reception desk. Through the national plan to end homelessness, the Government are taking steps to improve the quality of temporary accommodation and people’s experiences. We welcome the plan, and it is good to see the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness in her place. A lot of good work is under way, but the Government need to go further in strengthening the protections available to households living in temporary accommodation. I know that the Minister cares passionately about this. We welcome the Government’s plans to apply Awaab’s law to the new decent homes standard for temporary accommodation. We recommend that they start rolling out Awaab’s law urgently, so that it is fully applied to temporary accommodation before the end of this Parliament. We also want the Government to introduce interim milestones to ensure providers of temporary accommodation are on track to meet the new decent homes standard by 2035. In the meantime, councils should be required to inspect properties to make sure they are free from hazards, are in a decent condition and meet the needs of everyone in the household. We welcome the Government’s target to eliminate the unlawful use of B&B accommodation by the end of this Parliament. They are making really good progress so far; the number of households with children living in B&Bs and hotels for longer than the six-week statutory limit is falling. However, we have called on the Government to put in place safeguards to prevent councils from resorting to placing families in another local authority or in other types of shared accommodation in order to hit the target. The Children’s Commissioner has found that almost 6,000 children are living in council-run accommodation with shared facilities, such as shared kitchens and bathrooms. Our view is that this type of accommodation is simply not suitable for families, regardless of who runs it. We have called on the Government to extend the statutory six-week limit to other types of shared accommodation. We also remain concerned that there is no explicit rule to prevent or restrict councils from housing families, including single mothers with children, in accommodation where they have to share facilities with single male adults. We agree with the Government that temporary accommodation should provide homeless households with somewhere decent, safe and stable to live while they wait for permanent accommodation. Councils are working hard to increase the supply of good-quality temporary accommodation in the face of rising demand, but systemic barriers make it difficult, including unhelpful competition between councils, the Home Office and other public bodies for accommodation to fulfil their statutory duties; landlords increasingly opting to let properties on a nightly basis, rather than on a long-term lease; and the freeze to the local housing allowance and the rates councils can claim through the housing benefit subsidy. The Government must urgently address these barriers. We have also recommended that the Government should require councils to forecast future demand for temporary accommodation, and put in place plans for meeting this need. That includes ensuring there is adequate provision for people with more complex needs. The number of households living in temporary accommodation goes up and up every quarter, with 176,000 children living in TA as of September last year. Sadly, some of these children will spend a large part of their childhood without a permanent roof over their head, not knowing where they are going to call home after they finish school. I want to thank the many organisations, individuals, campaigners and local authorities that helped us with our inquiry by giving evidence, attending our sessions and making written submissions, and helped us with our visits. In particular, I thank the many families who we heard from at first hand, as they told us about their experience of living in temporary accommodation. In conclusion, we welcome the steps the Government have taken, but they need to go further to make sure those living in temporary accommodation have decent, safe and stable homes when they fall on hard times.

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for a truly excellent report and for highlighting the issues of temporary housing. In Northern Ireland, the pressure for housing is critical, and temporary accommodation has therefore become more important and sought after. The hon. Lady is to be congratulated on this report. Will she also share it with the Northern Ireland Minister for Communities, my colleague Gordon Lyons? It has highlighted some matters that are very important to my people back home, and it is so important that when we learn something, we share it.

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It is really important for us to look at housing issues right across these isles, and any best practice we can learn from in England should be shared with Northern Ireland Ministers. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will do so when she talks with her counterpart across the Irish sea.

I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and for her leadership of the Select Committee during this inquiry. I would like to start by commending Cheshire West and Chester council for its efforts to substantially reduce B&B use for temporary accommodation. However, not every local authority is in the same position as mine, and this is a really difficult issue. I join my hon. Friend in thanking the people who attended our roundtable, particularly the families with lived experience of temporary accommodation who came and shared their experiences with the Committee. Many of them talked about how they had to sign in daily or risk losing their accommodation. Some talked about their fears of what are in effect reprisal evictions: if they complained about the state of the accommodation, the landlord or the B&B owner would be straight on the phone to the council, and they would lose their place. One young lady very bravely told us about how the council had provided her contact details to the hotel reception, for understandable reasons, but the hotel reception staff used that information to make unwanted advances to her. That was some of the absolutely disgusting behaviour we heard about. I particularly want to mention the evidence we heard from another woman about the increased travel time to school for her children because of her out-of-authority placement. We know that this inevitably leads to poor attendance, and can lead to off-rolling—in short, it is a safeguarding disaster. That was outside the scope of our inquiry, but does my hon. Friend agree that we should be tracking the outcomes of children who have experienced temporary accommodation, in much the same way as for children who have experienced care—I think we would find similar problems—and that doing so would affect the policy solutions we come forward with?

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a member of the Select Committee, for his engagement and his work. I also thank all the other Committee members and the Clerk for their work on this important report. The point raised by my hon. Friend is so important. I visited Crawford primary school in my constituency this morning before I came here, and the key issue raised by the headteacher was temporary accommodation and how the number of children living in TA is affecting their educational attainment. We really need to ensure that the Government are addressing this, because we want every child to benefit from the massive increases the Government are making in breakfast clubs and in more teachers. If our children are not turning up to school because they are travelling for, in some cases, two hours just to get there, they are not going to benefit from those changes.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this report. I am not alone in this House in being moved by the stories that she has shared and that her Committee unearthed during its inquiry. A number of my constituents who live in temporary accommodation also have special educational needs and disabilities, and the impact on them is twofold, because they may also struggle to live in inappropriate accommodation that sometimes does not meet a physical or an emotional need. Does she agree that when local authorities look at placing people or at moving them on from temporary accommodation, due consideration must be given to children who have a special educational need or disability, and the impact on them?

I thank my hon. Friend for the experience she brings to this issue and for her role in ensuring that children with additional complex needs have a voice. It is vital that we remember the children who are being failed by the system—let us be honest—and look at their needs. When placing families, especially those with children with additional needs and disabilities, we need to ensure that accommodation is suitable, including such basic things as access for a child in a wheelchair, who needs to be able to go through the door of a property. That would happen if councils placing families in temporary accommodation carried out checks, but they are not currently in place. Councils should do those checks before placing vulnerable families in temporary accommodation.

I thank my hon. Friend for her Committee’s work on this important issue. It is one of the most comprehensive reports I have read and many elements of it are heartbreaking. I declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation. In the light of the report’s findings on poor conditions and a lack of national data, what steps does she believe need to be taken to improve oversight and standards, in particular for constituents such as mine in Redditch who are sometimes asked to take a privately run temporary accommodation site miles away from their friends and family, often in conditions that are so disgraceful and simply unsafe that they lead to my constituents deciding to go on the street rather than the accommodation they have been placed into?

I thank my hon. Friend, and I thank the all-party parliamentary group for its important work in meeting campaigners and, most importantly, the people caught up in temporary accommodation. It is vital that we recognise that a lot of this accommodation is paid for by taxpayers—that is the shameful thing. The fact that the accommodation is not suitable for human habitation should worry us all. That is why I agree with the Minister. We need to ensure that the homelessness strategy considers how we can work with councils to bring forward their own temporary accommodation locally, rather than relying on out-of-borough placements. Frankly, those landlords and providers should not be getting a penny of taxpayers’ money for that accommodation.

I thank my hon. Friend for her tireless work in this area and for her fantastic stewardship of the Select Committee. The report is harrowing to read. Such reports cannot be written without witnesses giving evidence, and very often in doing so they put themselves on the line and at risk, so I commend all the witnesses who wrote to or appeared before the Committee, or who participated in roundtables. It is a scandal that children and families are living in these conditions in Great Britain in 2026. Will my hon. Friend impress upon the Minister that we really need to see a change? That means every single local authority making that change and committing to it, in particular in rural areas such as mine, where temporary accommodation is really scarce, meaning that people are living many miles away in areas they do not know or understand and without family support networks.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that valid point. It is important, when considering housing, temporary accommodation and homelessness, that we remember the massive impact in rural constituencies such as hers, where people sometimes have to travel for a good hour and a half by bus in order to access services. People with additional complex needs have to get to appointments, and it is vital that we recognise that the issue of temporary accommodation and homelessness is not just confined to our inner cities; it is right across England. We recognise that for many councils, after special educational needs and disabilities and adult social care, temporary accommodation and homelessness are a big strain. We are seeing a shift. We are seeing more money coming in. This is about ensuring that the Government remain focused on this issue. I am sure that the Minister agrees with me on that. We need to continue to help her to make that case to the Treasury, to make sure we continue to fund our councils adequately. Bill Presented Hunting Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57) Neil Duncan-Jordan, supported by Sarah Champion, Dr Simon Opher, Alex Sobel, Richard Burgon, Abtisam Mohamed, Nadia Whittome, Mary Kelly Foy, Adrian Ramsay, Kate Osborne, Imran Hussain and Cat Eccles, presented a Bill to amend the Hunting Act 2004; and for connected purposes. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 8 May, and to be printed (Bill 431).