Ms Karen Buck – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ms Karen Buck on 2014-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the (a) change and (b) percentage change was in the number of homelessness acceptances arising from the end of a private sector tenancy in each (i) London local authority and (ii) English region between March 2010 and December 2013.

Kris Hopkins

To assist public scrutiny, I have placed in the Library of the House, a table showing homelessness acceptances due to loss of private sector tenancy, by local authority, in each year from 2003 to 2013.

Data is not collected by Parliamentary constituency. My Department does not publish statistics by the former government office regions.

The dataset shows that under the last Administration, the average numbers were higher than under this Administration, especially when taking account the changes in the overall size to the private rented sector.

I would note that the rental sector policies of HM Opposition would make the problem worse, by reducing the availability of private rented accommodation, forcing up rents and discouraging investment in the private rented sector. By contrast, this Government is increasing house building, delivering £19.5 billion of investment in affordable housing, supporting billions of private investment in new private rented accommodation, providing £470 million to prevent and tackle all forms of homelessness, and avoiding the excessive regulation which would harm the interests of tenants.