Children in temporary housing want a home – not an Xbox – for Christmas, MPs told

MPs have been told children living in temporary accommodation will have a new home at the top of their Christmas list at a new inquiry into an issue that Keir Starmer has called a “source of national shame”.

More than 151,000 children are living in temporary accommodation in England with the number of households without a stable home rising by 12.3% in the last year alone.

It’s an unsustainable situation that is blighting kids’ early years and leaving councils facing an annual £2.3bn bill pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee launched an inquiry on Tuesday (5 November), hearing from homelessness and local authority experts.

Emma Haddad, chief executive of homelessness charity St Mungo’s, revealed deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is set to step up government efforts this week when she chairs the first meeting of the long-promised interministerial group on tackling homelessness. 

Dr Laura Neilson, chief executive of Shared Health Foundation, told the committee: “When we talk to our children who live in temporary accommodation and ask, ‘What do they want?’ They all say: a home. So if you say, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ They don’t say an Xbox or trainers or anything else that your kids are asking for or mine are. They just say they want a home.

“The other thing they talk about a lot which is quite interesting is normal things that other kids do like having friends over, pets, very normal children things is what they want and none of that is possible in temporary accommodation.”

The committee, chaired by Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, heard the toll that unsuitable accommodation took on families and how out of area placements can see families housed hundreds of miles from where they live.

Rebecca Walker, director at London charity CARIS Families, said the government taskforce must look to find ways to prevent more families falling into homelessness.

At last week’s budget, the government announced an extra £233m to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping but failed to raise local housing allowance (LHA) rates, leaving families on low incomes struggling to find a place to live in the private rented sector.

“This is happening to ordinary families and when I say ordinary that means families that are earning less than £80,000 a year – that’s the average income estimated to be able to rent a two-bed flat privately in Camden and Hackney, the two boroughs we work in,” said Walker. “So you can’t even call it low-income families – it’s the vast majority of families.

“For us, a cross governmental taskforce really should be looking at raising the LHA rates so they are realistically in line with median rents because people cannot find flats that are rentable at that rate.” 

Francesca Albanese, executive director of policy and social change at Crisis, said local authorities are in a “really difficult situation” with a lack of affordable housing meaning costly temporary accommodation is the only viable last resort.

“This is an urgent issue,” said Albanese. “We need to fix the issues with temporary accommodation and the real impact that has on families day to day and how horrible that is but ultimately we have to look at the whole system.

“There is a real opportunity for the inter-ministerial group to share outcomes and what we want the homelessness system to look like over the medium to long term. There are definitely things we can do now to fix that to make sure that families aren’t placed in dangerous situations.

“But it’s also that long-term vision and making sure we have a focus across all the different areas that are driving homelessness. We also have a commitment for a housing plan – that’s really positive. Let’s join the two together. “

The second half of the 90-minute session focused on how the housing crisis is impacting local authorities.

Chris Hancock, head of housing at Hastings Borough Council, said the rising number of people living in temporary accommodation was “completely unsustainable”, revealing that the council was spending £6.8m on TA Council annually out of an £18m budget.

The local authority is now looking to buy temporary accommodation properties in a bid to cut costs and offer better standards for residents. But Hancock said the subsidy the council received for private temporary accommodation is pegged to 2011 LHA rates, leaving the council facing a £1.4m deficit in income compared to 2024 levels.

“There are lots of things we’d can’t do as a borough, outside of housing, that we want to do for residents,” said Hancock.

Cross-party group London Councils warned ahead of the budget that London boroughs were paying £4m a day in temporary accommodation costs.

Grace Williams, the group’s housing spokesperson, told the committee that temporary accommodation costs are eating up around 75% of councils’ spending on housing, leaving some facing effective bankruptcy.

Out of area placements are also having a knock-on effect on other areas outside London, she added.

She said: “London is at the centre of the housing crisis and is facing the brunt of temporary accommodation pressures.”

Williams added: “We’re at the situation now where we simply can’t sustain housing in our boroughs. The reason this is happening is we don’t have enough affordable housing.

“We do recognise now that we are in emergency times and we do need to work together to find solutions. One of the things we are pushing for is for us to talk about it nationally and recognise this opportunity for a homelessness strategy should be our chance to have a national system which is fair.”

Committee chair Eshalomi said the committee would work with ministers “so we don’t fail a generation of young people”.

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