Alison McGovern MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I will happily discuss it with him and with my colleague the fire Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon). If my hon. Friend thinks there are errors, he can by all means send us more details, and we will work on that.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point out, as I did, the consequences of council cuts. They are not just theoretical on a spreadsheet—we all saw the effects in our parks and our town centres. We want to turn that around in Gravesham, and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend over the weeks and months to come to make that real for her residents.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  Well, you should see the level of debt that the Tories left us with. The global financial crisis was a tough time, but I never thought a Tory Government would leave us with a debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 100%. To return to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) and the important work that we are doing to rebuild local authorities after that awful period of austerity, we will be releasing information to councils today so that they can start the budgeting process. We will engage heavily with local authorities over the months to come so that they can set their budgets in the normal way in the spring. I encourage her local authority to be in direct contact with the Department, and I would be happy to meet her to talk about the impact on her constituency.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I very much agree. For those places that bore the costs of bad decisions many years ago and have never been able to get fully back on their feet, this is part of turning the corner. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on that.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  Members will be reassured to know that ample time is reserved in my diary to meet them in the new year, and I would love to meet my hon. Friend to discuss rurality and the other things he mentioned. On new homes, we are making sure that councils get all the benefit for every new home they build. That is part of the settlement. We want to build 1.5 million new homes and we want councils to feel the benefit of that when they make the relevant decisions. I will happily talk my hon. Friend through the detail when we meet.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the case he makes, which shows people in Bracknell that they have an effective MP who is prepared to stand up for them, champion them and make sure they get the services they need.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I will.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question on behalf of the people of Birmingham. We know that they deserve better. Birmingham is a great city; I was there only recently and always feel welcome and at home. It is right for us to invest in our cities. I am sick to the back teeth of people having a go at places like Birmingham and where I am from in Merseyside. It is time we backed our cities, including Birmingham.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done, as part of our homelessness strategy, to draw attention to homelessness and rough sleeping in his city of Exeter, which is a wonderful place and deserves to have the county council and others look after it properly. This investment in local authorities will make sure that everyone in our country feels proud of the place where they live. We want to see all our places grow, and I expect all councils to do that work. I look forward to meeting him to discuss this issue further.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her input into the strategy on behalf of her constituents. I would be happy to arrange a meeting.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is of course right. The great city of Edinburgh deserves a lot better in so many ways, and I support everything he said. I long for the day when we can have a pan-UK strategy, including Scottish Labour, to end homelessness where we work together, which we will do. On veterans, it will be important to us all to know that people who have served our country are supported in every aspect of their life afterwards, and it is an absolute disaster if a former member of the armed forces experiences homelessness. That is why the MOD has played a full part in the creation of the strategy. I have spoken about it directly with my hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans and People. Through her work on Operation Valour and other things, we are ensuring that we have in place the necessary care and support for veterans, because they deserve the absolute best.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I will have more to say about funding for local authorities specifically in the coming days. As the hon. Member will know, we are expecting the provisional statement for local authorities. She mentions renters’ rights. Section 21 evictions are a significant cause of homelessness, so it is right that we have brought those to an end through the Renters’ Rights Act. We all want to see good-quality private rented accommodation too. Any area needs a mix of housing so that people can have choice and a good community around them.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes his case well. If he would care to send me some details of the case, I will of course meet him.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I think I have responded a number of times on our ambitions for social housing and mixed communities. On section 21, the right hon. Member will have noted that we are investing more in this year to help councils respond to the crisis that we face now, as well as having long-term objectives.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question, which is a really important one. She will know that the Department for Education is introducing the unique identifier, which is at the core of the data we need to track this properly. On an ambition for the number of days lost, in an ideal world it would be zero. We need to get the work with the DfE under way and plot a course through the action plan over the coming weeks and months to get the numbers reduced significantly.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He demonstrates his expertise, both from his life experience—and the House is so much the better for having people in it today who know what we are talking about—and the considerable work that he has done on this matter. He mentioned a couple of areas where we need to work with NHS and health colleagues. That is exactly the nature of the work we have been doing. I trust that he will use his place on the Health and Social Care Committee to hold us all collectively to account.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his apposite question. There is extra money for supported housing in the strategy, and we will be monitoring the success of that. There is also money for recovery, because there is no doubt that people live with the trauma of homelessness for many years, and we need to help them move forward.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  As part of the strategy, I have worked closely with my colleagues in the Home Office to support their priorities, which are to secure our borders, deal with the dreadful criminality of people trafficking across borders and get the backlog down. That is the best way to achieve what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, which is to have the resources to support people who have fled conflict and need to rebuild their lives. We want to ensure, through this strategy, that we get help quickly to the people whose cases have been decided, with the outcome that they are a refugee and will be settling in the UK. That means councils knowing where the people are and the support being available. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for that approach.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that I and the ministerial team who produced this report agree with him can be evidenced by the foreword written by the people who did not just come to Ministers, give their experience and say what they have been through—although they did do that—but who shaped policy. That is exactly how it should be and I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us of that.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the strategy and for joining the cross-party support for our objectives. It is important that we make it clear where we have agreement across the parties. I join him in welcoming the important work of the Shared Health Foundation. On his final question, there are exemptions to the shared accommodation rate, and I would encourage him to have a look at that part of the strategy. On the local housing allowance, as I said in response to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee a moment ago, it is important that family incomes improve, which is why we took the steps we did in the child poverty strategy. I spoke about the Vagrancy Act in my response to the shadow Minister, but I will happily also send the hon. Gentleman the details about the steps that we are taking. The hon. Gentleman also mentions the need to increase social housing, and I would recommend to him the detail on this published by the Minister for Housing, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). I do not think any of us should have a cap on our ambition for building social and affordable homes, and I encourage all parts of the country to get on with spending the investment the Chancellor has allocated so that we can put a roof over people’s heads.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Children who are stuck in inappropriate B&Bs should know that they have a champion in this House, they should know that there is someone who has been there too, and they should know that they are not alone. On the timeline for getting kids out of B&Bs, we will end the use of B&B accommodation by the end of the Parliament in all but the most extreme cases—an absolute emergency. It is already the law—it has been for 20 years—that children are not supposed to be in B&Bs for more than six weeks. What on Earth is going on in this country when there are 2,000 children in such a situation? Let us work together, let us do something about it and let us bring those numbers down very quickly. [ Official Report , 15 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 9WC.] (Correction)

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I thank hon. Members across the House for the cross-party way in which they have engaged on the strategy. We will disagree—I am sure we will disagree about the manner in which Opposition Members sometimes discuss social security—but where we agree, let us make every effort to put the people who need this strategy first. Those are people who have been on the streets for too long and children who deserve a proper childhood. I hope that we can share that ambition. The hon. Gentleman asked about metrics. The Department publishes a number of datasets that we are using to analyse the metrics. He mentioned a couple of them—children in temporary accommodation and long-term rough sleeping—but we also know how many people present themselves to councils at risk of homelessness, and we want to increase the rate at which that is prevented. I will ensure that we report regularly to Parliament on that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned repealing the Vagrancy Act. Some other bits of legislation need to come into force so that we can do that. I will write to him with the exact timings, because they relate to the business of another Department. On the matter of councils’ strategies and whether it is just paperwork, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it very much is not. The statistics show that in some areas, we have been able to get on top of B&B use—there are more details in the strategy—while in some areas, we have not. It is less about paperwork and more about transparency over outcomes and then taking action to ensure that best practice informs what is going on everywhere. The hon. Gentleman asks about targets and how cast-iron they will be. Thinking about the state of house building, we were always going to have to ramp up over time. I am clear that the goals in the strategy are achievable, and I would welcome the support of the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the House in ensuring that we see them done.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her words and for her long-standing commitment to tackling homelessness in the capital and right across the country. She is right to ask about council pressures, and we are trying to address the inadequacies of council funding across the country. At the moment, the costs of TA and the spikes in demand are putting pressure on councils that will make it even harder for them to balance their budgets, and that serves nobody. We have to get this under control, because it is a waste of taxpayers’ money, no less than it is a waste of childhoods. We have got to get on top of it. My hon. Friend asks about incomes and whether I have discussed that with other Departments. This is a cross-departmental strategy, and Ministers from DWP and other Departments have been very involved in it. At the heart of the problem is the lack of social housing, particularly in London, which is why we need to build more. I am glad that this strategy comes closely after the child poverty strategy last week, which saw action to improve family incomes, not least the removal of the two-child limit.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point about the use of taxpayers’ money. As she will have heard me say in previous responses, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is leading some cross-ministerial work on value-for-money questions on the provision of support for homeless people. That is important, because we cannot afford to waste a penny in this mission. I would be delighted to visit her constituency.

• 11 Dec 2025 · National Plan to End Homelessness · Hansard source

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  I would like to make a statement to the House about the publication of our national plan to end homelessness. The strategy we have published today, I want to say from the outset, builds on the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). I pay tribute to both of them for their considerable work. This Labour Government inherited a homelessness crisis. Both rough sleeping and households in temporary accommodation increased radically from 2010. It is not just the people we can see sleeping in Westminster tube station as we leave this building, but the families and children we cannot see—those living in unsuitable temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfasts, without a kitchen and far away from family, friends and schools. For some, this has been a matter of life and death: 1,142 people died while homeless last year, and 74 children’s deaths were connected to temporary accommodation in the five years to 2024—58 of them were babies under one. Everyone deserves a roof over their head. Children in the worst housing our country can offer deserve the attention of this House. The strategy outlines the tangible actions and targets we have set ourselves for delivery this Parliament, which will act as milestones on the way to achieving the long-term vision. We have looked at the issues carefully. As well as the interministerial group, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government convened a lived experience forum, so that the people who have experienced homelessness and rough sleeping could influence the strategy. We established an expert group to bring together representatives from organisations that support people, local government and experts to provide knowledge, analysis and challenge. I thank them all, on behalf of the House, for their contribution. To tackle the root causes of homelessness and break the cycle of failure, we must build more homes. We want to build 1.5 million new homes, including more social and affordable housing—more than has been built for years. The new programme could deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over its lifetime, with about 180,000 for social rent. Not having enough money is another cause of homelessness. The child poverty strategy, presented to the House last week, will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030, including through the removal of the two-child limit. The implementation of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 will give more protection to renters by abolishing section 21 no-fault evictions, closing a key route into homelessness. Building more homes and preventing homelessness overall will take time, but families living in squalid, overcrowded conditions simply cannot wait. The Government will eliminate the use of B&Bs for families in this Parliament and make sure that, on the rare occasion that homelessness cannot be prevented, temporary accommodation is liveable. We have already proven that that is possible through innovation funded by our emergency accommodation reduction pilots programme. The programme funds new work to find more sustainable accommodation, the inspection of properties, the acquisition of long-term accommodation for families, and support to make that transition. That is why, in this strategy, we are increasing funding to £30 million to stop a wider range of poor practice, including the overuse of B&Bs and unsuitable out-of-area placements. There is £950 million for the fourth round of the local authority housing fund. That means councils can invest in owning their accommodation, rather than paying through the nose to rent bad accommodation, and we will explore partnering with social impact and institutional investors to use private finance and support from the National Housing Bank to yet further increase the supply of good-quality temporary accommodation. To make sure that children in temporary accommodation get the support they need, we will introduce a new duty on councils to notify schools, health visitors and GPs when a child is in temporary accommodation—something that Members have called for. That will improve health outcomes and school attendance, and reduce the risk of mortality for those children. Most crucially, we will work with the NHS to end the practice of discharging newborns with their mums into B&Bs. There is no worse feeling for any of us as public servants than seeing a man or woman on the street in need of help that we failed to give them. Over a third of people who have been sleeping outside have been doing so for months, and some for years. They have complex underlying needs and have been failed by services again and again. This cannot continue, so today we are setting a target to halve the number of people sleeping rough long term by the end of this Parliament. We will help more vulnerable people off the streets and into stable housing by investing £124 million over the next three years in supported housing services. We will provide £37 million to our partners working in the voluntary, community and faith sector to support recovery from homelessness. We will target £15 million for councils to test innovative approaches to helping people experiencing long-term rough sleeping, which is often complicated. In a country such as ours, we really should be able to prevent homelessness; instead, hard-working professionals are stuck responding to crisis after crisis. Many councils have simply become overwhelmed by the costs, and people are having to face a night on the street just to access support in the first place. I am proud that the strategy prioritises the targeted prevention of homelessness among vulnerable groups, like young people and survivors of domestic abuse. We are providing more support to young people in supported housing, helping them to develop the skills and independence they need. By making work pay—crucially, by removing the work disincentive for those in temporary accommodation and supported housing —we are ensuring that a job is a reasonable and achievable outcome. Public institutions should lead the way in preventing homelessness, and this strategy sets out our long-term ambition that no one leaves a public institution into homelessness, with cross-Government targets to start the change to reduce homelessness from prisons, care and hospitals. To force lasting system change, we will introduce a duty to collaborate—to compel public services to work together to prevent homelessness. We are backing up all these actions with record levels of funding. We have invested more than £1 billion in homelessness services this year, including the largest ever investment in prevention services. Today I can announce the allocation of an extra £50 million top-up to the homelessness prevention grant this year, which further boosts the support available to people at risk of homelessness right now. The strategy sets out how we will provide a further £3.5 billion for homelessness and rough sleeping services over the next three years, with much more freedom and flexibility for councils to get on and do. We have made our ambition clear, and we will hold ourselves accountable for achieving the outcomes we seek. The strategy sets out three new national targets, alongside commitments from six of our most crucial partner Departments across Whitehall. The interministerial group on homelessness and rough sleeping will continue to meet to deliver the strategy, and will publish a report on progress at least every two years—although I have absolutely no doubt that hon. Members will hold us accountable for the targets week in, week out. We will monitor local progress with new outcomes metrics, with councils setting targets and publishing action plans. On those goals—ending the use of B&Bs, halving long-term rough sleeping and increasing the rate at which homelessness is prevented—I know that everyone in this House wants all our places, up and down the country, to succeed. Now more than ever, we need our partners to join us in this mission: councils, frontline public services, homelessness organisations, and voluntary, community and faith groups. If we join forces, the strategy will set us on the path to ending homelessness and will deliver immediate action to improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping. For every child without a bedroom to do their homework in, for every adult whose life could be turned around by an arm around their shoulder, and for every person who needs a home for Christmas and beyond: this plan is for you, and this Government are for you too. I commend this statement and our strategy to the House.