Dear Department for Communities and Local Government,

My local MP, Steve McCabe, recently asked the "Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many homeless children aged 16 years old and under were accommodated in bed and breakfast accommodation provided by local authorities for more than six weeks in each of the last seven years". Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 17 October 2012, c300W)

In his response, Mark Prisk claimed that there were no such figures as the local authorities did not provide details of how long each family or person had been in bed and breakfast accomodation, only how many were currently in that type of accomodation. However, he then went on to say "The Department has offered support and assistance to authorities with the most families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks to help them reduce those numbers."

From my understanding, he claimed to not know the figures but then claimed to be acting upon those very same figures. It may be that he has no knowledge of the full 7 years worth of figures but going by his final statement, he must know some figures. Please would you provide these.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Davidson