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Campaigners have warned that Keir Starmer’s Government’s planned benefits cuts are undermining its plans to end homelessness, as new figures show the number of households in temporary accommodation continues to rise.
Ministers have committed to increase funding for homeless services by £233 million next year, which will take spending to almost £1 billion, which they argue will put the UK on the path to ending homelessness.
However, the planned increases come as the Government also slashes spending on benefits, leading to fears that any progress could be reversed.
Speaking at the London Housing Summit on Wednesday, Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, who chairs Parliament’s housing committee, said that the most “shocking thing” about the housing crisis is that an estimated 160,000 children, 90,000 of which are in London “woke up in temporary accommodation”.
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“Some of those children will not sleep in the same bed tonight. Some of them will be asked to move to another B and B hostel. That 90,000 equates to one child in every single classroom here in London. And when I was elected as the Chair of the Housing Communities and Local Government select committee, I was determined to make sure we put the stories of those children and the impact on their day-to-day lives front and center of the work we are doing as a select committee”.
Her speech followed the release of statutory homelessness statistics for October to December 2024, which revealed that the number of households in temporary accommodation is at record levels and continues to rise.
127,890 households were in temporary accommodation on 31 December 2024, up 1.5% from the previous quarter and up 13.6% from the same time last year.
Eshalomi pledged to work to end the crisis, saying “let it be that every single home that we are bringing forward together with the Government includes generally affordable homes and social homes, so that we get those children out of temporary accommodation into a home of their own”.
Some campaigners in the housing sector worry that the Government’s housebuilding program will be insufficient to tackle the scale of the crisis.
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Dan Wilson Craw, Deputy Chief Executive of Generation Rent said, “Behind every statistic are thousands of stories of people facing some of the most stressful, traumatic and insecure times of their lives. More and more children are spending their formative years trapped living in temporary accommodation, often in overcrowded and unsafe conditions and at huge cost to local authorities. This is a national scandal that demands government action”.
He added “The Government’s house building programme is welcome, but will take years to have a noticeable impact. People need change now. It must intervene to slam the brakes on soaring rents, while also unfreezing Local Housing Allowance so those on low incomes have more options in finding a home.”
Others worry that progress also risks being undermined by the planned cuts to Personal Independence Payments.
Alex Bax, Chief Executive of Pathway, a charity focussing on the health of homeless people told Byline Times that there had been some positive changes since the Labour Government came to office.
“Things being done in the name of the Home Office are no longer quite so horrible […] the Government has a different set of people who are not as harsh or punitive or stigmatising as before”.
However, he added that this cultural shift was being undermined by further Government cuts.
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“We’ve got teams around the country either being cut completely, or having a staff cut, so our services are under pressure and being threatened”.
On the issue of cuts to Personal Independence Payments, Bax said “if you take money away from people who haven’t got very much money, you’ll get more homelessness… It’s not very complicated”.
A Government spokesperson said, “No person should be in poverty – that’s why we’ve extended the Household Support Fund again, are maintaining Discretionary Housing Payments and are giving an extra £233 million to councils directly for homelessness, including the largest-ever investment in prevention services, taking the total to nearly £1 billion for 2025/26.
“We have set out a sweeping package of reforms to health and disability benefits that genuinely supports people back into work, while putting the welfare system on a more sustainable footing so that the safety net is always there to protect those who need it most while our £1bn employment support package will unlock work and help move people out of poverty as part of our Plan for Change.”