AN MP has accused the government of not doing enough to support homeless veterans.

Speaking in the Commons, Mike Amesbury, the shadow employment minister and Weaver Vale MP, quizzed Tobias Ellwood, the parliamentary undersecretary of state for defence, on the lack of reliable information on the number of ex-forces personnel living on the streets.

He said: "The Minister will know that there are few very reliable statistics on veterans who are homeless.

"What does the Minister intend to do to improve that?"

Tobias Ellwood replied: "It is not the MOD that needs to do it; it is actually local government.

"Thanks to the veterans board, we are now enforcing the covenant and encouraging government departments to ask, “Are you doing enough?”

"Each local authority has an armed forces champion, who should be looking at these issues to make sure that the authority is tackling homelessness issues in its area."

The first armed forces covenant is an agreement which was first published under a labour government in 2000.

Its two underlying principles are that the forces community should suffer no disadvantage compared to other citizens and they should have special consideration in some circumstances, for example for those who are injured or bereaved.

Speaking outside the chamber, Mike, the MP for Weaver Vale, said: "There’s a lot of good work being done around the country to support our veterans in need, by the third sector and by authorities and hard-working armed forces champions.

"But first and foremost the support should be coming from the government.

"Unfortunately, it seems to expect local authorities – which have lost almost 60p out of every £1 in funding since 2010 – to shoulder most of the responsibility.

"It’s simply not good enough."