Housing Support and Homelessness Services

Part of 3. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 14 March 2023.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:38, 14 March 2023

Thank you, Peter. In support of our ambition to end homelessness, as I said, we're already investing over £207 million in homelessness and housing support services this financial year alone. Our main homelessness prevention grant is the housing support grant, which is provided to local authorities. In 2021-22, this was increased by £40 million, which is over a 30 per cent increase, to £166.763 million. For 2023-24, we've been able to maintain that increase in the housing support grant budget, so it remains at £166.763 million, despite the extraordinarily difficult budgetary position we currently face. We also uplifted funding for the vast majority of projects funded by the homelessness prevention grant by 6 per cent in 2023-24. We recognise the pressure on homelessness services, so the homelessness prevention budget also will increase by £15 million in 2023-24, which is an additional £10 million more than previously planned.

We face an unprecedented problem, don't we, with the inflation. The inflation is causing a real problem out there, but it's also causing a real problem in here. The money we have had goes less far, and the money they have goes less far. So we've been working with our local authorities to make sure that services can be maintained. We're currently running a recruitment campaign into housing advisory services. I really pay tribute to the staff, who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic and really stepped up to the mark; I'm proud of what Wales has achieved. But the budget situation this year has been awful—it's the worst I've ever seen, and I've been a Minister here for a very long time now. It has not been possible to do everything we'd wanted to do. But we have managed to maintain an unprecedented increase in that budget, and we've put the homelessness prevention budget, as I say, up by £15 million already. I have a lot of sympathy with the sector, I pay tribute to the work that they do, but the budget situation this year has been very difficult.