Hundreds of homeless young people, including dozens who are pregnant or have children, are being illegally turned away by councils when they ask for help. Centrepoint said its helpline recorded 82 cases in the last 14 months where homeless people aged between 16 and 25 who had children or were pregnant were turned away by councils, and helpline staff say this is increasingly common.

As government figures showed the number of households with children living in temporary accommodation in England rose 15% in the last year to nearly 75,000, it also emerged that young people were rejected because they were wrongly judged to have no local connection or to have made themselves homeless – in one case despite a person having fled domestic abuse.