Theresa May has sparked fury by hitting back at a Labour MP who asked her about homeless children, saying being homeless did not mean "sleeping on our streets".
Rosena Allin-Khan warned the prime minister that 2,500 children in the London borough of Wandsworth would "wake up homeless on Christmas Day", adding: "When will this austerity-driven government say 'enough is enough' and put an end to this tragedy?"
But the PM suggested Allin-Khan was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. "She talks about 2,500 children in Wandsworth waking up homeless on Christmas Day," May said. "Anybody hearing that will assume that what that means is 2,500 children will be sleeping on our streets. It does not mean that."
As Allin-Khan shook her head and Labour MPs erupted in anger during the last Prime Minister's Questions before the Christmas recess, Commons Speaker John Bercow was forced to call order.
May continued: "It's important that we are clear about this for all those who hear these questions, because we all know that families with children that are accepted as homeless will be provided with accommodation.
"And I would also point out to honourable members opposite that statutory homelessness is lower now than it was for most of the period of the last Labour government."
.@DrRosena challenges May over homeless children & those in poverty. Utterly vile that May finds it acceptable to a… https://t.co/M3Mri0c17O
The PM also claimed the government had "lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of absolute poverty".
Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, told BuzzFeed News: "I am disappointed that the prime minister continues to turn a blind eye to the problem.
"There will be 2,500 children homeless in Wandsworth on Christmas Day – they will be forced to live on sofas, in emergency accommodation, in hostels. The PM tried to add spin to a very tragic issue but refuses to accept the problem."
No answer on homelessness again. 120,000 children will wake up homeless this Christmas morning. Can Government Mini… https://t.co/VoEW5dmn1f
The exchange came as a damning report from MPs found that the government has been "unacceptably complacent" about the "national crisis" of homelessness.
The cross-party public accounts committee said ministers had failed both to monitor the true extent of homelessness and to set out a clear strategy for how to deal with it.
As of June this year, there were 78,180 households in England – including more than 120,000 children – who had lost their homes and been placed in temporary accommodation, which is often of a very poor standard.
Prime Minister’s angry response to @DrRosena Q about homeless children this Christmas very ill-judged - has a go at… https://t.co/0SDPPGACbg
The number of these households had risen by 63% since the end of 2010, and the number of children by 73%. In addition, an unknown number of "hidden homeless" people are housed by family and friends, or moving between hostels and the streets.
Meanwhile the charity Crisis estimates that 9,100 people were sleeping rough at any one time in 2016.