Starmer reassures and worries on homelessness

Posted: July 28, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bed and breakfast, Homelessness, Temporary accommodation |Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

If you’re looking for a chink of light ahead of the promised government strategy on homelessness, the number of homeless households living in bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) is down for the third quarter in succession.

But it’s only a chink since government figures for the end of March saw the total number of homeless households (131,140) and children (169,050) in temporary accommodation rise to new records. 

At the most expensive and temporary end of the spectrum, there were 3,870 families with children in B&Bs, down 28 per cent since Labour took power in July 2024. Of those, 2,300 had been there for longer than the six-week legal limit, a decline of 39 per cent. 

However, those falls were more than matched by an increase in the use of nightly paid, privately managed accommodation. This is also expensive and temporary but self-contained so that families do not have to share a bathroom and kitchen. 

This sub-sector took off after 2013 when the coalition government tried in vain to cut use of B&Bs and private landlords and management companies realised they could charge more on a nightly basis than for longer-term leases. 

Over the next seven years, the number of homeless households in nightly paid accommodation doubled and since 2020 it has almost doubled again to 46,710. Since Labour came to power the number of families with children in non-B&B nightly paid accommodation has increased by 27 per cent to 32,160.

Of those, more than half (17,810) had been there for more than a year and 14 per cent (4,640) for more than five years. 

By contrast, there were just under 25,990 households in private sector leased accommodation, roughly the same as in 2013 despite  a doubling in the total numbers in temporary accommodation overall. 

Trends like these highlight what’s at stake in the homelessness strategy both for homeless families stuck in temporary accommodation and for local authorities creaking under the strain of paying for it .

In the long-term, the solution can only be more and permanent social housing. The government has recognised this by ploughing £39 billion into the Social and Affordable Homes Programme over the next ten years and forecasts that it will produce 300,000 homes, including 180,000 for social rent. 

But what does that mean for the 131,000 households already in temporary accommodation who have been accepted as being homeless and in priority need for social housing or for those newly accepted as homeless?

The strategy might give them greater priority in allocations, though that will have to be balanced against fairness to the 1.3 million households on waiting lists.

And it will take time: the SAHP is back-loaded into the 2030s and only about a third of the money will be spent in this parliament; London will only get 30 per cent of it despite having 56 per cent of the households in temporary accommodation; and other factors will continue to tip new families into homelessness.

Prime minister Keir Starmer was questioned about many of these issues at the Liaison Committee just before parliament went into recess. Some of what he said was reassuring but some of it was worrying.  

Pressed on the freeze in Local Housing Allowance, in the context both of homelessness and the imminent strategy on child poverty, he revealed the government’s willingness to ‘look again’ when the Budget comes around in the Autumn.

That seems essential since a continuation of the freeze will mean greater shortfalls against their rent for private tenants followed inevitably by rent arrears and eventually eviction and homelessness. 

However, ‘look again’ does not necessarily mean changing course and the Treasury will see ending the freeze as extra spending that it can ill afford after the u-turn over welfare reform. 

More worrying was the way that the prime minister responded to a question from Sir Geoffrey Clinton-Brown, the Tory chair of the Public Accounts Committee, about the impact of the LHA freeze on homelessness. 

Sir Keir responded: ‘In relation to homelessness… we have put a lot of money, £950 million, into more temporary accommodation. That is money straight into local authorities. Often a lack of temporary accommodation is one of the causes of the problem.’

Does the prime minister – or the advisors who briefed him – really think that the solution to homelessness is more temporary accommodation, when the people stuck in it are already homeless?

That impression was reinforced when Sir Geoffrey pressed him about the PAC’s findings about out-of-area placements and families with children in B&Bs beyond the six-week limit. 

Sir Keir acknowledged the problems that causes for families, especially for children’s education, but he went on: ‘That is why it is important that we have put the extra money into temporary accommodation for local authorities, to make sure there is a wider range of accommodation. Now, you cannot fix this overnight, but you are absolutely right that it needs to be turned around, for all the reasons that you have identified and that I absolutely understand.’

The funding for councils is allowing them to acquire their own temporary accommodation which will save them money and be better for families than nightly-paid options. But that can only ever be an interim solution – is that the strategy? 

Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Liaison Committee, asked him about his vision for housing and temporary accommodation in three years’ time. 

Sir Keir responded that: ‘I  want to see the money that is going into temporary accommodation having immediate effect—in other words, I want to see more accommodation available. Obviously, it is going to take some time to get it into place, but this is not a delayed project.’ 

But where is the accommodation going to come from when the Home Office could be bidding for the same properties to get asylum seekers out of hotels?

He said: ‘There is lots of housing in many local authorities that can be used, and we are identifying where it can be used.’ 

Would it mean homeless families being put in the hotels vacated by the asylum seekers, asked Dame Meg.

The prime minister denied it: ‘No, we are looking at what accommodation is available, and I will make sure that we send a detailed letter.’ 

There are some intriguing hints here of what may lie ahead and already there are reports of funding for councils to buy empty homes, disused tower blocks and student accommodation to house asylum seekers.

But what exactly does that mean for the record number of homeless families stuck in temporary accommodation and for councils struggling to pay for it? 

The fall in B&B use may be good news in the short term but the homelessness strategy will have to come up with some long-term answers.  

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