The Housing, Community and Local Government (HCLG) Committee has urged the UK Government to accelerate its interventions into poor conditions in temporary accommodation.

In its report on Housing Conditions in Temporary Accommodation, the committee says children and families are placed into housing that is “unfit for human habitation”.

It outlines three key areas where the government can tackle the problem – by strengthening existing protections further, phasing out other types of shared accommodation for families in addition to B&Bs, and by putting in place long-term plans to improve the supply of temporary accommodation.

Temporary accommodation is among top financial pressures for councils

Victoria Searle, Principal Associate in the government team at UK and Ireland law firm Browne Jacobson, said: “The committee is right to highlight the crisis in temporary accommodation, the fact that the total number of households living in temporary accommodation continues to rise to record levels, and that the standard of temporary accommodation is highly variable.

“It’s also right to acknowledge that spending on bed and breakfast and nightly-paid accommodation has risen rapidly, and that temporary accommodation – alongside adult social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services – is one of the most significant financial pressures facing councils, leading councils to divert resources away from effective homelessness prevention and other early interventions.

“We welcome many of the committee’s recommendations, particularly where those recommendations include a specific requirement for government to provide additional funding to meet new burdens. However, we are concerned that some of the committee’s recommendations could exacerbate the problems the sector, which is already in crisis, faces.

Councils harnessing existing powers to leverage better accommodation

“We are working closely with councils across England and Wales to eliminate the use of private B&B accommodation by the end of this Parliament. Our clients are already using all their powers across housing, planning, and regulatory and enforcement to leverage as much good-quality, self-contained accommodation as possible.

“They’re also showing real innovation in using small amounts of public subsidy to leverage in private investment to increase the supply of new social housing and other tenure types for use as temporary accommodation. There are some genuinely exciting deals in the pipeline, involving close collaboration between local authorities, registered providers, and other social and private landlords, and institutional investors and pension funds.

“However, we think the committee is wrong to criticise local authorities for using certain tenures of non-self-contained accommodation, such as their own hostel accommodation. Local authority hostels are not analogous to private B&B accommodation, not least because councils provide not only secure accommodation but the care, support and supervision their residents need to move on from homeless accommodation and to break the cycle of homelessness for good.

Out-of-area placements already comprise enforceable safeguards

“We also think the committee is wrong to suggest that councils are doing something wrong by placing applicants for homelessness support out-of-area. There are already robust safeguards around the use of out-of-area placements, and those safeguards are enforceable through a robust system of statutory reviews and appeals.

“We are particularly concerned by the suggestion that local authorities should be sanctioned for using out-of-area placements and other types of shared accommodation, to reduce their use of private sector B&B accommodation. These solutions, while not ideal, are entirely lawful and indeed desirable in many cases. It is wrong to suggest the local authorities should be financially penalised, or publicly named and shared, for discharging their functions in accordance with the existing legal and policy framework.

A fairer settlement for local authorities

“The only long-term and sustainable solution to the crisis in the temporary accommodation sector is a fairer funding settlement for local government.

“We wholeheartedly endorse the committee’s recommendation that the Department for Work and Pensions unfreezes the subsidy rates by increasing the rate that councils are reimbursed to match the current local housing allowance rate and we call on the Government to urgently enact this recommendation in the forthcoming Autumn Budget.”

Victoria Searle will share her experience of working with local authorities on innovative solutions to temporary housing and best practice at UKREiiF for a panel discussion titled ‘Beyond crisis management: Delivering temporary accommodation that actually works’. 

The event, hosted by 31ten Consulting, takes place on Wednesday 20 May 2026 from 11.30am to 12.15pm and is free to anyone attending UKREiiF.