New Homes

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity to say that I went to visit British Offsite with Weston Homes in Braintree earlier this week. What a fantastic example of British innovation, using recycled steel to build MMC products. MMC is an important opportunity to improve productivity in the construction sector, to deliver quickly the very high-quality energy-efficient homes we need, and to create new and diverse jobs. We are working to address the strategic barriers to the further uptake of MMC, including improved supply chain confidence, clarity for warranty and insurance markets, and planning reform. We will say more about that in the long-term housing strategy next year.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, there are currently tens of thousands of Section 106 affordable homes with detailed planning permission waiting to be built out on active sites, but stuck because the registered providers will not take them on due to the current financial capacity in that sector. Will the Government as a short-term emergency measure consider the use of Homes England grant funding specifically, so that registered providers can afford to take up these much-needed affordable homes on these stuck sites?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite right about the stuck sites but, in spite of the very difficult Budget round this year, the Government have put £500 million more into affordable housing. That takes the total for affordable housing up to about £3 billion. Homes England is working through its programme of how it is going to support the delivery of those affordable homes. I am sure that support for registered providers will form part of that.