Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Andrew Lewin Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

As the newest member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, I want to start with my own thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), who has been such a welcoming Chair and who drives forward our business with passion and conviction.

I will focus my brief remarks on the settlement for social housing, which has the potential to be transformative in our mission to build social and affordable homes at scale. To understand why the challenge is so stark and why the funding is so badly needed, it is right to reflect on recent history. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and the subsequent Conservative Governments made an ideological decision not to build homes for social rent, and their lamentable record stands in contrast to what went before. In the last two years of the previous Labour Administration, 2009-10 and 2010-11, the Government built 73,053 homes for social rent, but in the last two years of the Conservative Government, 2022-23 and 2023-24—and those were the best two years—only 19,365 homes were completed, which is a reduction of nearly 75%.

We had 14 wasted years, in which the crisis deepened for the 1.5 million people on social housing waiting lists, for the 164,000 children living in temporary accommodation, and for the countless more living in overcrowded and inadequate homes in the private rented sector. It is a source of pride in Welwyn Hatfield that we have retained significantly more council housing than the national average—just over one in four people in my constituency lives in a social home, and in Peartree ward in Welwyn Garden City that rises to 44%—but that still is not sufficient to meet demand. We have more than 3,000 people on our waiting list and growing numbers living in temporary accommodation—a story familiar to Members representing communities all across the country.

In the spending review, the commitment to investing £39 billion over 10 years in the affordable homes programme was a statement of intent. This is the best financial settlement for social housing in a generation, but its ultimate success will be measured by the homes delivered and the lives changed. As a member of the Select Committee, I want to continue to hear from people on the frontline about what else is needed to act as a catalyst for activity. Do developers have access to the skilled workforce they need to scale up development? Is the priority to bring forward stalled sites, and how quicky can that be done? Do people in the sector share my experience that demand for homes for social rent is greater than for any other tenure type?

Planning and building homes takes time. There is inevitably a lag between a major funding announcement like this and seeing the impact in the communities we represent, but we have to move as fast as we can. Time is short and the stakes are high. I commend the Government for making this investment. Now, we are all invested in making sure that it delivers results.