Mortality of Children in Temporary Accommodation

Chair: Chloe Hutchinson; Aide: Alison Jenner; Hall Aide: Chris Maines

Submitted by: 14 members 
Mover: Gideon Amos MP (Spokesperson for Housing and Planning 
Summation: Cllr Victoria Wilson

Conference notes that:

1. There are over 176,000 children living in temporary accommodation across England.
2. Mould, damp, rodent infestations, disrepair and electrical faults characterise too much low-quality temporary accommodation, which is also often inaccessible to children with extra needs and which is actively harming the health and wellbeing of children.
3. Families in Temporary Accommodation are being forced to share kitchen and/or bathroom facilities with single adults, placing children at risk from inappropriate behaviour, substance abuse and violence.
4. The crisis has led to thousands of households being moved out of their local authority area away from support networks, detrimentally impacting children’s lives, particularly when their schools and GPs change while they try to carry on with everyday life in an unfamiliar location away from their peers.
5. Families often have less than 24 hours’ notice of being required to move, whilst the Children’s Commissioner found that the more moves a child experiences, the less likely they are to achieve at least five GCSEs.
6. Since 2019, 104 children have died with temporary accommodation listed as a contributing factor to their death, 76 of whom were under the age of one, with deaths attributed to causes including lack of access to cots and Moses baskets, overcrowding, poverty and the chaos of homelessness.
7. Living in temporary accommodation violates some of the most basic rights of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the right to life, the right to play and the right to privacy.
8. A high proportion of Temporary Accommodation is within Permitted Development conversions of office, commercial and storage buildings with no requirements for outdoor or play space or even for any outward-facing window.

Conference reaffirms the Liberal Democrat commitment to:

1. Every child having the best possible start in life and incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law.
2. Exempting groups of homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, from the Shared Accommodation Rate.
3. Building 150,000 social rent homes per year and to binding targets for affordable and social housing set by the local authority, which would be allowed to build its own social and affordable housing to meet its targets, using borrowing to do so.

Conference therefore calls on the Government to:

1. Commit to ending child mortality where temporary accommodation is a contributing factor to death.
2. Ensure the essential needs of every child for education, health services and an adequate standard of living are met.
3. Ensure every child has their best interests taken into account when decisions are made about them or for them by public bodies, including a presumption of not removing them from their local area unless it is in their interests to do so.
4. Reduce the number of children living in temporary accommodation through the more ambitious Liberal Democrat target for building 150,000 social homes per year and by giving councils the power to end right-to-buy in their area.
5. Establish minimum standards for outdoor space and natural light for all new homes, including those created through permitted development orders, and take powers to require existing conversions to be remediated.
6. Require routine inspections of properties used as temporary accommodation, and provide cots or Moses baskets to all children under the age of two in temporary accommodation and to ensure no child is raised in accommodation without cooking facilities.
7. End the mixing of single adults and families in accommodation with shared bathroom and/or kitchen facilities.

Applicability: England except for a) which is Federal.

Mover: 5 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 10 of the agenda. You can submit a speaker's card online here or in person.

The deadline for amendments to this motion is 13.00 Monday 7 September; see pages 11-12 of the agenda for more information.

Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily. The deadline for requests for separate votes is 09.00 Thursday 17 September; see page 9 of the agenda for more information.