Christine Jardine
Main Page: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Alok Sharma
Of course I will meet the all-party group, but the whole point of a call for evidence is to allow everyone to feed in their views, and it is precisely those views that we want to hear. Following that, we will, of course, set out plans to take this further.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Alok Sharma)
The Government are providing substantial support for the building of social homes. We recently announced an additional £2 billion of funding, which takes the figure for the affordable homes programme to more than £9 billion. We have provided rent certainty for social landlords, and we have announced that there will be a £1 billion lift in housing revenue account borrowing caps.
Christine Jardine
The number of homes delivered for social rent has fallen by more than 85% since 2010. Just 5,380 are expected to have been completed in 2016-17, compared with nearly 40,000 in 2010-11. The Budget contains virtually no support for the building of new social housing, and only £6 billion of new money for housing altogether. Is that not a far cry from the £50 billion that was called for by the Secretary of State himself, and does it not mean that the number of houses will fall far short of the number that we need?
Mr Speaker
Order. That was far too long; absolutely hopeless. The hon. Lady’s questions will have to be much shorter in future. I am always keen to encourage her—she is a new Member, and a prodigious attender—but she needs to apply the blue pencil.