Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many households have been denied applications for social homes due to affordability checks; and what alternative options are available for those households in order to avoid homelessness.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government has already taken action to remove barriers for those most in need to access social housing including exempting care leavers under 25 years old and victims of domestic abuse from local connection tests.
Local housing authorities and landlords may carry out pre-tenancy and affordability checks when considering a person's application for social housing and these can play an important role in ensuring that a tenancy is sustainable. We do, however, expect local authorities and landlords to show consideration for individual circumstances when considering these.
The government has made clear that it intends to review and update statutory guidance on social housing allocations to ensure that allocations reflect local need and effectively support vulnerable households. As part of that process, we will also consider ways that local authorities and landlords can work more cooperatively on these issues, including those at risk of homelessness.
My Department does not collect data to enable us to assess the number of households being denied social homes due to affordability checks.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of pre-tenancy checks by housing associations on the ability of households experiencing or at risk of homelessness to access social housing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government has already taken action to remove barriers for those most in need to access social housing including exempting care leavers under 25 years old and victims of domestic abuse from local connection tests.
Local housing authorities and landlords may carry out pre-tenancy and affordability checks when considering a person's application for social housing and these can play an important role in ensuring that a tenancy is sustainable. We do, however, expect local authorities and landlords to show consideration for individual circumstances when considering these.
The government has made clear that it intends to review and update statutory guidance on social housing allocations to ensure that allocations reflect local need and effectively support vulnerable households. As part of that process, we will also consider ways that local authorities and landlords can work more cooperatively on these issues, including those at risk of homelessness.
My Department does not collect data to enable us to assess the number of households being denied social homes due to affordability checks.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he will take to remove barriers to accessing a social home for those most in need.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government has already taken action to remove barriers for those most in need to access social housing including exempting care leavers under 25 years old and victims of domestic abuse from local connection tests.
Local housing authorities and landlords may carry out pre-tenancy and affordability checks when considering a person's application for social housing and these can play an important role in ensuring that a tenancy is sustainable. We do, however, expect local authorities and landlords to show consideration for individual circumstances when considering these.
The government has made clear that it intends to review and update statutory guidance on social housing allocations to ensure that allocations reflect local need and effectively support vulnerable households. As part of that process, we will also consider ways that local authorities and landlords can work more cooperatively on these issues, including those at risk of homelessness.
My Department does not collect data to enable us to assess the number of households being denied social homes due to affordability checks.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking with the Department of Health and Social Care to reduce the number of people discharged from NHS care into homelessness.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
In January 2024, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health and Social Care published Discharging people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, guidance to help staff plan safe discharges and prevent homelessness after NHS care.
We will look closely at the issue of people being discharged from NHS care into homelessness in our cross-government Homelessness Strategy.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of lowering affordable housing requirements on levels of social housing supply in London in the (a) long and (b) short term.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
When it comes to development, London faces challenges that are common to all parts of England over recent years. These include a significant increase in building material prices; a rise in financing costs; and planning capacity and capability pressures.
In addition, the capital faces a number of challenges unique to its housing market which differs in important ways from the rest of the country. These include the fact that London is overwhelmingly reliant on flatted developments; has depended over recent decades on demand from international buyers and investors; and has a higher proportion of landowners (and traders acting on their behalf) who are global investors allocating development funding based on competing returns globally and across asset classes.
The combination of these and other factors has resulted in a perfect storm for housebuilding in our capital. Overall home starts in London in 2024-25 totalled just 3,990. Affordable housing starts in 2024/25 were less than 20% of their 2022/23 level. In the first quarter of this year, more than a third of London Boroughs recorded zero housing starts.
My Department has engaged extensively with housebuilders, registered providers of social housing, and London Boroughs to understand fully the housing delivery challenge in London and to develop measures to address it.
While viability pressures are impacting residential development in many parts of the country, we know they are particularly acute in London. Those pressures were already resulting in proportions of affordable housing being reduced on schemes following viability assessment. According to Greater London Authority (GLA) monitoring data, the average affordable housing level of referable applications that have been approved through their viability tested route was 20 per cent between 2022-2024.
To address this, the Secretary of State and the Mayor of London announced a new package of support for housebuilding in London that included developers to access a new, time-limited planning route to incentivise build out. This will sit alongside the existing Fast Track and Viability Tested routes and will enable developers to secure planning permission without a viability assessment on private land where they commit to 20 per cent affordable housing (60% of which must be Social Rent), of which half will be eligible to receive grant funding, with a gain-share mechanism to increase affordable delivery on sites that continue into the next decade where market conditions improve.
Our engagement with the sector indicates that these measures will encourage schemes to come forward, and existing schemes to progress, in the near-term, and will thereby support a rapid recovery in housing delivery.
The GLA opened a consultation for this time-limited measure on Thursday 27 November, and published a background information document with supporting evidence for decision making which can be found here.