A record number of children are living in B&Bs beyond the legal limit as England’s homelessness crisis pushes councils to breaking point.

MPs said there is a “dire need” for housing reform, with the lack of affordable homes forcing cash-strapped local authorities to haemorrhage their funds on temporary accommodation.

The “crisis situation” means there is less money in the pot to focus on homelessness prevention, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.

Councils are instead having to prioritise short-term solutions which can include putting families in bed and breakfasts – the fastest rising temporary accommodation type over the past decade, a Sky News analysis of government data found.

Temporary accommodation is meant to be a short-term solution for people who are homeless while they wait for more suitable and long-term housing options.

But the rising number of homeless households in England, driven by a shortage of social or otherwise affordable housing to move on to, means that increasingly this fix is anything but temporary.

A recent Sky News investigation found that children in some parts of England are spending as long as five-and-a-half years on average in temporary accommodation.

Length of stay has increased significantly in many areas since 2021, with particularly long stays in London and the South East.

B&B use was the fastest rising temporary accommodation type over the past decade, rising fourfold from 4,400 households in 2014 to a record high of 18,400 by 2024, according to government figures.

The data shows 6,000 of these households included children, of which two in three had been living there for longer than the 6-week legal limit.

All of this is cripplingly expensive for councils. B&Bs, meant to be reserved for emergencies only, were the largest single spending category in council homelessness budgets in 2024, at £723.9m.

This is more than triple the amount spent in 2014, which was £218m adjusted for inflation.

Overall, temporary accommodation costs to local authorities have risen from more than £1.6bn in 2022-23 to around £2.1bn in 2023-24, the PAC said.

‘Crisis situation’

The PAC is calling for a clear strategy and stronger support for local authorities to address what it called “a crisis situation”.

Despite there being an overarching homelessness strategy for each of the devolved nations, England does not have one.

Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said this had left local authorities “attempting to save a sinking ship with a little more than a leaky bucket”.

Read More:
Mum-of-three left homeless after reporting threats to police
National scandal’ as number of children living in temporary accommodation reaches record high

MPs also urged the government to justify its Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which calculate housing benefit for tenants renting from private landlords.

The committee said 45% of households in receipt of the benefit face a shortfall between what they receive from the government and what they are being asked to pay in rent, and the issue is “exacerbated by the lack of affordable housing”.

The government has pledged to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament, but it has not set a target of how many of them will be classed as affordable.

Sir Geoffrey said: “My committee is deeply concerned by the number of people currently being housed in sub-standard, overpriced and at times, wholly inappropriate accommodation, sometimes a long way from their previous home.

“A lack of affordable housing, a focus on short-term solutions and no clear strategy to tackle this issue have left us with thousands of families in deeply troubling circumstances.”

He added: “Local authorities find themselves at breaking point as they haemorrhage funds to cover the rising costs of housing families in temporary accommodation.

“We are calling for an overarching strategy that addresses the need for better connectivity across government departments to tackle the root causes of this crisis.

“Without one, we fear this will remain an issue into which money is simply poured, without effectively tackling the blight of homelessness.”

Schools, rail services, sporting fixtures and hospitals are all set to be affected on Friday when Storm Eowyn slams into the UK.

A string of public authorities have issued statements warning the public to only travel unless absolutely necessary, while around 4.5 million people in parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland were sent an emergency alert on their mobile phones on Thursday evening.

It was the largest real-life use of the emergency system to date and caused mobile phones to make a loud siren-like sound, even if they were on silent when the alert was issued.

Speaking before it was sent out, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The emergency alert system will send a message to every compatible mobile phone in the areas at most risk, containing information about the weather warnings and guidance on how to stay safe.”

Northern Ireland is braced for the strongest winds since 1998, police said, as they declared a major incident and described the storm as an “exceptional weather event”.

Power

At least 715,000 homes, farms and businesses have lost power in Ireland, according to Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB), as there has already been “unprecedented, widespread and extensive damage to electricity infrastructure”.

ESB said it would take a “significant number of days” to restore power to all affected customers.

In Northern Ireland, some 93,000 homes and businesses were without electricity.

Schools, colleges and universities

• All schools in Northern Ireland have been advised to close on Friday

• Schools and nurseries across central and southern Scotland have also been urged to shut

• Edinburgh Napier University, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University are among the sites closing their campuses to students and staff on Friday, with no access to any buildings

Health services

• NHS Lothian has cancelled all routine, non-urgent planned procedures on Friday and postponed the majority of hospital outpatient appointments to protect patients and staff

• NHS Lanarkshire has also postponed all non-urgent appointments in hospital and community settings

Rail services

• National Rail has said a “do not travel message has been issued from multiple train operators” as it advised passengers to check for travel advice before travelling

• It said the storm would affect Avanti West Coast services today

• CrossCountry services would also be affected, with a do not travel warning between York and Newcastle and Edinburgh

• LNER services will be affected until Saturday with a warning to not travel north of York

• Lumo services are warning not to travel north of Newcastle

• All ScotRail services will be suspended on Friday

• Network Rail has said “other lines across northern England, Scotland and northern Wales may also be closed at short notice”

• Train services across Northern Ireland have also been suspended

• Transport for Wales has warned services may be subject to last-minute changes and cancellations on Friday

Roads

• The A66 between the A1M in North Yorkshire and M6 in Cumbria, as well as the A628 Woodhead Pass in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, were both closed overnight due to strong winds, National Highways said

• The M48 Severn Bridge was closed, while the Tamar Bridge on the A38 between Devon and Cornwall was closed to high-sided vehicles until 5am

• Avon and Somerset reported a number of local roads had been blocked due to fallen trees, advising motorists to “take care when travelling”

• Police Scotland has urged drivers not to travel

• RAC Breakdown has also advised motorists in areas covered by red weather warnings not to drive “unless absolutely essential”

• Bus services in Northern Ireland will be suspended on Friday

Airports

• At least 334 flights have been cancelled across airports in Scotland and Northern Ireland, including Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow, analysis of flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows. The cancellations affect about 50,000 passengers

• Dublin Airport has announced the cancellation of about 230 flights to and from it

• Dozens of flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh airports were cancelled on Friday morning

• Multiple flights departing from London Heathrow Airport, Newcastle Airport and Liverpool Airport have been cancelled

• Some flights from Manchester Airport have also been cancelled, as well as to and from Dublin Airport

• Edinburgh Airport has said operations “will be limited” during Friday’s red weather warning, which is in place from 10am until 5pm. A spokesperson added: “Airlines will make decisions on the operations of their own flights”

• Glasgow Airport said it was “limiting operations” from 10am until 5pm on Friday, and warned passengers to “check the status of their flight with their airline before travelling

• Belfast International warned of significant disruption to flights

Ferries

• All CalMac ferry services scheduled for Friday have been cancelled

• Northlink Ferries, serving the Northern Isles, has also amended its services for Friday and is keeping its sailings for Saturday under review, with “a high probability of cancellation” for morning services

Public services, spaces and other sites

• Edinburgh Council said all non-essential services in the region, including parks, museums and galleries, would be closed or suspended on Friday. All council buildings will also shut

• Glasgow Life, which runs libraries, museums and cultural venues in the Scottish city, said all its sites would be closed on Friday

• The V&A Dundee will be closed throughout Friday. It plans to reopen on Saturday

• All Scottish courts within or near to the red warning zone will be closed

• The Scottish Parliament will be closed all day on Friday

• Some children’s playgrounds in London parks, including Hyde Park, will be closed on Friday as a precaution

Sport fixtures

• The Scottish Women’s Premier League match between Celtic and Hearts, scheduled for 7.30pm on Friday, has been postponed

• Sheffield United’s home game against fellow Championship side Hull City at 8pm on Friday is still scheduled to go ahead

The 52-year prison sentence of Axel Rudakubana is to be reviewed following complaints it was “unduly lenient”.

Southport’s MP Patrick Hurley was among those calling for a longer term on Thursday after the 18-year-old was jailed for murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in July last year.

The Labour backbencher said: “In my view, the sentence passed is unduly lenient. The crimes he committed were horrific and natural justice demands he spends the rest of his life behind bars.

“I have therefore made a request to the attorney general to have the sentence reviewed urgently, with a view to making sure he is never released. My community deserves nothing less.”

The Attorney General’s Office later confirmed the case had been referred under the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) scheme, which requires just one request in order for punishments handed out in court to be reconsidered.

A spokesperson said: “There is a high threshold for a successful ULS reference. The sentence must be not just lenient but unduly so, for example if the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence.”

Attorney General Lord Hermer and Solicitor General Lucy Rigby now have 28 days to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal for further consideration.

Rudakubana was sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to the murders, along with the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

He was also convicted of having a knife, which he had bought on Amazon, on the date of the killings, production of the deadly poison ricin, and possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

His 52-year minimum term is thought to be the longest imposed on a killer of his age. Once the minimum term is reached, he would be subjected to a Parole Board review before he could ever be considered for release.

Because he carried out the crimes just nine days short of his 18th birthday, it means by law he could not be sentenced to a whole life order, which would mean he would never be released from jail.

This tariff is usually only imposed on criminals aged 21 or over but can be considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.

Read more:
Police investigation continues
The 14 minutes of terror
Victim’s parents describe horror

Describing the minimum sentence as “substantial”, Mr Justice Goose, sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, said he would serve “almost the whole of his life in custody”.

He added: “I consider at this time that it is likely that he will never be released and that he will be in custody for all his life.”

The judge also said he “must accept” that the prosecution had made it clear the attack did not meet the legal definition of an act of terrorism because there was no evidence of attempting to advance a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

A parent of one of the children who survived the attack, who cannot be named, told The Sun the crimes were so horrific the killer should “rot in jail” and the “law needs changing”.

Mr Hurley said he supported demands for a law change, as did Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who said there was a “strong case” for amending the law to allow for whole life orders to be imposed on people aged under 18 in some cases.

Downing Street declined to comment when earlier asked about the proposal.