§ Mr. David TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of the number of homeless people in(a) North West Leicestershire, (b) Leicestershire with Leicester and (c) the East Midlands; and if he will make a statement on his strategy to combat homelessness. [92187]
§ Mr. Raynsford[holding answer 22 July 1999]: Local authorities in England report in their quarterly P1(E) returns the number of households accepted as 720W unintentionally homeless and in priority need under the homelessness provisions of the 1985 and 1986 Housing Acts.
The latest available estimates are for the quarter ending March 1999, as follows1
Number Number per thousand households North West Leicestershire1 59 1.7 Other Leicestershire districts, including Leicester and Rutland unitary authorities2 331 1.0 East Midlands region2 2,030 1.2 1 Figure as reported 2 Figures include estimates for non-responding authorities My right hon. Friend, the Minister for Local Government and Housing, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Ms Moran) on 19 May 1999, Official Report, columns 355–61, stated that at June 1998 there were 1,850 people sleeping rough in England on any single night. The answer included details from all local authority districts which had counted the number of rough sleepers in their district or estimated more than 10 people sleeping rough on any one night.
The central aim of our housing policy is to offer everyone the opportunity of a decent home and so promote social cohesion, well-being and self-dependence. The Government are committed to reducing all aspects of homelessness. Then making an additional £5 billion of resources available for investment in housing in England over the lifetime of this Parliament. The Government have a manifesto pledge to increase the protection for unintentionally homeless people in priority need. We are considering what further steps should be taken to achieve this.
The Government have also set a tough new target to reduce the numbers of rough sleepers by two thirds by 2002. The Rough Sleepers Unit headed by Louise Casey has an integrated budget of £145 million to tackle and prevent rough sleeping and a £34 million Homelessness Action Programme has also been established to tackle rough sleeping outside London.
National estimates for acceptances in each quarter, which include estimates for non-responding local authorities, appear in a quarterly Information Bulletin which is available in the Library. The latest figures, for the first quarter of 1999, were released on 16 June 1999. An associated Supplementary Table, showing the figures as reported by individual local authorities, is released with the Information Bulletin.
1 Source of data—information on English local authorities' activities under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1996 is collected on Part E of the quarterly P1(E) returns from local authorities. The information is collected on homeless households rather than homeless people and relates to households which were eligible, unintentionally homeless, and in priority need.