Every year I am proud to take part in Burton YMCA's sleep out, and spend a cold November night sleeping in a cardboard box at the Pirelli Stadium.

The idea is to both raise money for the brilliant cause that is the YMCA, and to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness.

The reasons for someone becoming homeless are often complicated ones. It can be due to financial difficulties, relationship breakdown, addiction to alcohol or drugs, mental health problems and many other factors. No one likes the thought of anyone being without a roof over their heads or a place that they can call home, and no-one wants to see people having to sleep rough.

The Government wants to do more to help people who are at risk of becoming homeless, before they get to the point where they find themselves on the streets. This is why the Homelessness Reduction Act has been introduced, to try and help people who are threatened with becoming homeless.

It places a duty on local councils to help everyone who has found themselves in this situation, 56 days before they could potentially become homeless, with the idea being that earlier intervention will help to resolve any problems sooner, and before someone could find themselves on the streets.

Andrew Griffiths, the MP for Burton will not see any changes to his constituency
Andrew Griffiths, the MP for Burton

There is also more being done to help those who are sleeping rough, with a new taskforce set up to work on the best ways to intervene and help those who are on the streets.

In total, the Government has allocated more than £1.2 billion in funding to help tackle homelessness until 2020, much of which is being given to local councils for them to use to introduce measures in their local areas to help those who are at risk of becoming homeless or already on the streets.

This work to tackle homelessness and help those who have found themselves on the streets is being led in Government by my constituency neighbour and South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler. Last week I invited her across the border into Staffordshire for a meeting to discuss homelessness in our local area.

We sat down with the YMCA, East Staffordshire Borough Council, Trent and Dove Housing, and Burton Hope, and we had a productive and helpful conversation about what is working well to help those who are homeless, and what more can still be done.

Thanks to Heather for coming to talk to us and hear what everyone had to say. I know that she is committed to doing everything possible to reduce the number of people who are without a home.

If we all work together – central government, local government and voluntary sector groups like the YMCA - we can all do as much as we can to help prevent people from becoming homeless, and those who are already on the streets.