Build prefab homes to address harm to ‘generation of homeless children’, says Labour MP

A prefab home in Catford, south London. McDonagh said: ‘People were delighted by the pre-fabs [built after the second world war] and they outlived their life expectancy.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

A Labour MP has called for the government to start building prefabricated homes in England to address the “terrible things” happening to a generation of homeless children.

Dame Siobhain McDonagh, who helped found an all-party parliamentary group aimed at supporting record numbers of families in temporary accommodation after being “completely overwhelmed” by the amount of cases in her constituency, said the situation was “devastating”.