Housing: Social and Affordable Rents

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many homes to be offered for let at a social rent as opposed to an affordable rent they expect to be built in the next 12 months.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare that I am a locally elected councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, on a daily basis social rent will continue to be delivered by developers and housing associations across England through agreed Section 106 contributions with local planning authorities. The number and tenures of homes to be built outside government funding will depend on housing providers’ assessments of local needs and markets, which are agreed through negotiation of a Section 106 contribution. The Government’s current £7.1 billion affordable homes programme runs affordable rent. The Government introduced affordable rent in 2012 to maximise government investment, enabling us to build more homes for every pound of public spending. This has allowed us to build around 333,000 affordable homes since 2010.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the English Housing Survey produced by the noble Lord’s own department and published earlier this year tells us that:

“The number of families in the private rented sector has increased; and the number of families in the social rented sector has decreased”.


It goes on to say that those in the private rented sector,

“spend a significantly greater proportion of their … income on their housing costs”

than do social renters or those buying with a mortgage. Of the 46,328 building starts in the housing association sector up to June 2017, only 3,726 were at a social rent.

Can the noble Lord tell the House why the Government are so opposed to social rented housing playing its full role in dealing with the housing crisis, as evidenced by the Government’s own funding programmes and policies?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, we are not opposed to it. We are discussing it frankly with the London mayor—indeed, we discussed it with him last week. I absolutely accept that more needs to be done, but there has been an increase in affordable housing starts. We are looking at the social housing programme, particularly in the larger cities, and particularly in London. In the meantime, we are increasing the number of houses being built.