Oral Answers to Questions

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unlock a new scale of housing and infrastructure delivery across all tenures to help build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament. We are also taking action in the Bill to improve local decision making by modernising planning committees and ensuring that planning departments are well resourced by allowing local planning authorities to set their own planning fees.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister please explain why her Government will not set a target for the provision of social housing? While I welcome the investment in the social and affordable homes programme that she set out, the reality is that it will meet only 10% of the total number of new homes anticipated and only 10% of the current demand for social housing. If she believes that setting national targets like the 1.5 million homes target is important to drive change, why will she not set a target for social housing?

[Angela Rayner]

The Government have not set an affordable housing target to date, but we continue to keep the matter under review. Accurately trying to forecast long-term delivery is inherently challenging, but we believe that our new social and affordable homes programme could deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over its lifetime, with around 180,000 for social rent. The measures we have taken, alongside the commitment for rent so that there is this long-term programme, will hopefully help with the supply, and I have made it categorically clear to the sector that we want more social rent housing.