A Labour MP has called for the government to start building prefabricated homes in England to address the “terrible things” happening to a generation of homeless children.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh, who helped found an all-party parliamentary group aimed at supporting record numbers of families in temporary accommodation after being “completely overwhelmed” by the amount of cases in her constituency, said the situation was “devastating”.
The number of homeless people has risen steadily over the past few years as Britain faces a shortage of about 4.3m houses. The most recent government statistics show there were 131,140 households in temporary accommodation in England, including 169,050 children, at the end of March. This is the highest figure since records began in 1998, and an increase of 11.8% on the previous year, before Labour took power.
Siobhain McDonagh: ‘The real solution in the long term can only be building more social housing.’ Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer
McDonagh added that she hoped parliament would urgently process Labour’s flagship renters’ rights bill in an effort to stem the tide of no-fault evictions, a major driver of homelessness. The party was elected on a promise to ban the practice “immediately” but the bill has not yet been made law more than a year after the election as Labour considers a number of amendments made in the House of Lords. The housing charity Shelter estimates that in England about 32,000 families have approached their local authority for housing assistance following a no-fault eviction notice since last July’s general election.
Research by McDonagh’s group also found that the conditions in temporary accommodation had been linked to the deaths of at least 74 children since 2019.
Speaking before Labour’s annual conference, which is due to begin in Liverpool on Sunday, McDonagh said: “The truth is, we don’t know how children are being harmed. We’ve got statistics on infant mortality but we are doing terrible things to a generation of children. A lot of the factors, because it was very young children [who died], was access to a safe sleeping space and the provision of cots.
“Beds and bed configuration are a big issue in temporary accommodation. You’ve got parents and children sharing beds, you’ve got siblings sharing beds. Most temporary accommodation is basically furnished and the configuration of beds can often be not suitable for families.
“The issues of damp and mould growth exacerbate the conditions families already have – asthma and general bronchial stuff. Obviously, there are consequences to not having access to a kitchen. People rely on takeaways, so obesity is an issue. Temporary accommodation is small, so you’ll have issues with children learning to walk.”
McDonagh said local authorities were obliged to provide cots for children under two but it was “difficult to know” if this always happened in practice. She added: “Some councils are under immense pressure and the realities of what families get access to and what it’s claimed they get access to are two very different things.”
McDonagh, who has been the MP for Mitcham and Morden in south London since 1997 and served as a whip under Gordon Brown, said she was aware of some homeless families from the south-east of England being accommodated as far away as Scotland and Wales, meaning children’s education is severely disrupted.
She added: “I think there needs to be a mission in the short term to provide more temporary accommodation. People were delighted by the prefabs [built after the second world war] and they outlived their life expectancy. The benefit is you can use quite small pieces of land.
“It’s just so desperate. It’s killing councils. They are falling over financially because they just can’t afford the rising costs. I think the renters’ [rights] act will have a big impact because landlords won’t be able to evict people so quickly for no good reason and the chase for ever-higher rents is made more difficult.
“Labour has a problem in the Lords because there are so few compared to the combined forces of the Conservatives, the Liberal [Democrats] and the crossbenchers. It’s really very difficult to get things through the Lords at the moment.
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“The real solution in the long term can only be building more social housing. I can understand why the government wouldn’t want to spend money on temporary [accommodation], but I think we have to. You wouldn’t choose to do that, but you need something that is quick.”
Since Labour’s general election win, 11,400 households in England have had their homes repossessed by bailiffs following a no-fault eviction order – an increase of 8% from the previous year. Charlie Trew, the head of policy at Shelter, said: “If the bill doesn’t pass until 2026, we think that at least 3,000 more households are going to be marched out of their homes by bailiffs.”
Emer Sheehy, a policy manager at Citizens Advice, said the charity was supporting about 100 people a day facing a no-fault eviction – known officially as a section 21 eviction.
The government says it plans to build 1.5m new homes by the end of this parliament to address the housing crisis in England. However, Hannah Aldridge, a senior research and policy analyst at thinktank the Resolution Foundation, said the “ongoing fall” in the number of properties given planning permission “casts doubt” on its ability to do so.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Every child deserves a safe and secure start to life, and somewhere to call home.
“That’s why we’re investing £1bn in homelessness services this year to get families out of temporary accommodation.
“And we are banning section 21 no-fault evictions and building more social and affordable homes with £39bn investment, to give families housing security.”
