Shapps: “The Government Is Protecting the Homeless from Council Cuts”

‘By suggesting that reductions in council budgets will "wreak devastation on the lives of tens of thousands of the most vulnerable people", Patrick Butler paints an apocalyptic picture of impending social disaster that I simply do not recognise. Tackling homelessness is what first got me into politics… [The Government has] entirely protected homelessness funding at £400m in the spending review, and took deliberate steps to protect this central funding so that the impact of cuts do not fall on those most in need. So I completely disagree when Butler says that councils "have no choice but to drastically cut Supporting People, given the reduced size…of the wider financial settlement". The Supporting People housing programme was relatively shielded from the public sector spending reductions - so, nationally, for every pound Supporting People funding provided last year, 99 pence will be provided this year. Local authorities on average will only receive a reduction in their overall spending power of 4.4 per cent this year, and we have taken steps to cap the maximum reduction for any individual council at 8.9 per cent to protect those dependent on government grants.’ Read more on the CLG website. The article the Minister is replying to is immediately below this posting.