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Select committee: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee

Conclusion 10

Sixth Report - Protecting the homeless and the private rented sector: MHCLG’s response to Covid-19 Published 31 Mar 2021 Paragraph 37 Addressed to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) on homelessness and the private rented sector All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Conclusion (the committee's words)
Everyone In by definition has finished. The Government believes Everyone In continues to exist, but by its own admission it is no longer helping everyone. The principle of Everyone In was that everyone, no matter what their normal eligibility for homelessness assistance, would be provided with accommodation to self-isolate by their local authority. The Government made a clear decision to change this from May 2020 onwards. The Permanent Secretary admitted that what at the beginning was a very broad intervention is now focused on individual assessments. This backtracking by the Government led to councils deeming individuals ineligible for support when they in fact have legal powers to support such individuals under the Local Government Act 1972 and NHS Act 2006, as shown by the Ncube v Brighton and Hove City Council case. The Government is trapped between its exemplary humanitarian efforts to accommodate these individuals, and its insistence that its immigration policies have no flexibility, even during a pandemic. We do not think it is sufficient, as the Minister told us, to pass this responsibility on to charities and turn a blind eye to their predicament.

From: Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Sixth Report - Protecting the homeless and the private rented sector: MHCLG’s response to Covid-19 (HC 1329), paragraph 37, 31 March 2021

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 25 May 2021 (deadline 31 May 2021).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The document published on 24 May 2021 is the government response to the Committee's report on COVID-19, homelessness and the private rented sector, but the text available here does not set out the government's position on the report's recommendations.

  • The response is to the Committee's sixth report of Session 2019 to 2021, following its inquiry into the impact of COVID-19 on homelessness and the private rented sector.
  • The page describes the Committee's inquiry as considering support for rough sleepers, the wider homeless population, renters and landlords, and as making recommendations about future support.
  • The full response (Ref: CP 439, 16 pages) is available as HTML and PDF. Its content on agreement, disagreement or specific commitments is not included in the text provided, so none is summarised here.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error