I have written the foreword to a recently released report by homelessness charity Shelter Cymru, which recommends that Local Housing Allowance is uprated and restored to cover the bottom 50% of private rental costs in a given local area.

Ahead of the Autumn Budget, I am calling on the Chancellor to put the necessary funding behind the policy so that it can once more be an effective tool in preventing homelessness in Wales.

You can read the report in full by clicking here.

Everybody in Wales deserves a safe, warm, and affordable place to call home.

I am the Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. In my constituency, housing-related issues have made up 14% of all the casework my office has dealt with, only a percentage point behind those relating to local government.

Of all households threatened with homelessness in Wales last year, it was only successfully prevented, for at least 6 months, in 57% of cases. Homeless deaths in the UK increased by nearly a tenth in 2024, an average of four a day.

I stood for office because I believe we are a fundamentally compassionate and generous society. We must, and can, do better.

It is in the government’s gift to make a real difference. It needs to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

Shelter Cymru’s excellent report shows this is just another welfare policy that intentionally allows people to fall through the cracks.

It tracks how an opportunity that could have prevented many thousands of cases of homelessness was wasted.

Introduced in 2008 and covering the bottom 50% of rents in an area, it only took three years for LHA to be reduced to cover the bottom 30% under the Conservatives.

Since then, LHA has been undermined by years of freezes, cuts, and skyrocketing rents. It now covers only 1% of private rental costs in Wales (2.4% in England).

Rents in Wales are rising faster than anywhere else in Great Britain. Gaps in LHA are being filled with alternative funding streams, causing further financial headaches for local authorities. Conditions are worsening as tenants don’t feel able to demand a home without mould while rents remain barely affordable.

Ahead of the November Budget, I am supporting Shelter Cymru’s calls to reconnect LHA uprating with current rental data, to stop disability related benefits being classed as income available for rent, and to restore LHA to the 50th percentile – the latter already the position of the Welsh Government.

Beyond that, the Welsh Government needs more power over its own welfare budget to make the most radical, substantive changes a reality.

With those tools, we could prevent homelessness at the source, ensure that those on low incomes have safer homes, and make big strides in reducing inequality.

The power to do so rests here in Westminster. We just need to find the political courage.