§ Ms Oona KingTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to commission research on the provision of temporary accommodation for and the resettlement support needs of young pregnant women and single parents. [101187]
§ Mr. MullinDETR has no plans to commission such research, but the research programme for the coming year has not been finalised yet.
The Teenage Pregnancy Unit in the Department of Health, which has been set up in light of the Social Exclusion Unit's report "Teenage Pregnancy", is in the early stages of drafting its research strategy and cannot say whether it will include anything on support for teenage mothers.
Following publication of the SEU's report, the Housing Corporation has invited bids from Registered Social Landlords to develop around 15 pilots to test alternative approaches to the provision of supported accommodation for 16–18 year old lone parents. Research, in the form of evaluation of both the pilots and existing projects providing supervised accommodation, will be initiated once the pilots are established.