In the new child poverty strategy, ministers vowed to end children living in B&Bs and lift thousands of families out of poverty in the next five years.
Last week the government unveiled a new child poverty plan. As part of the strategy, ministers pledged to end children growing up in bed-and-breakfasts (B&Bs) and to expand childcare support for families on Universal Credit.
Officials said the measures could lift around 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030 – ‘the biggest reduction in a single parliament since records began.’
While speaking to BBC Breakfast, Homelessness minister Alison McGovern described the human cost of B&B and temporary accommodation, saying she was ‘really, really shocked’ that in the five years to 2024, 74 children (including 58 babies) died, and that ‘one of the causes that was attributed to their death was the effect of temporary accommodation.’
McGovern added the government wants to ensure no newborn is discharged from hospital into a B&B – something she said ‘does occasionally happen.’
According to the government, the new strategy will ban placing families with children in B&Bs for longer than six weeks. The change follows data showing there are 2,300 households with children living in B&Bs beyond the statutory limit as of March 2025.
More broadly, homelessness figures from Shelter reveal 169,050 children in England were living in temporary accommodation by March 2025 – the highest number on record, after a 12% increase in a year.
Charities welcomed the move, but stressed it is only a first step. The UK’s leading homelessness charity Shelter, said: ‘No child should be growing up in a B&B or mouldy bedsit’. Still, it urged the government to go further by unfreezing housing benefits and building a new generation of social-rent homes to move families into permanent accommodation.
Under the plan, the government aims to build 5,000 homes suitable for temporary accommodation by 2030, impose a legal duty on councils to inform schools and health services when children enter temporary housing and continue an £8m pilot to reduce reliance on B&Bs across20 local authorities over three years.
Prime minister Keir Starmer, added: ‘To many families are struggling without the basics: a secure home, warm meals, and the support they need to make ends meet.’
Image: Chinh Le Duc/UnSplash
In related news:
Leave a Reply