Local Government Finance

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are a big supporter of modern methods of construction, which I think is the broad equivalent of prefab houses. We seek to see more houses built using those methods of construction. As the noble and learned Baroness knows, it can be a very efficient way in which to produce new homes.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

I welcome my noble friend to her new role. I suspect that every Member of your Lordships’ House is aware that there is a chronic shortage of accommodation and in the supply of social housing. Against that background, now that she is in a position to have a look at the whole of this area, I hope my noble friend takes time to do that, and see in particular whether we can bring forward more social housing to address the huge need that we have at this difficult time.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there are a number of different actions that we need to take to address homelessness. We have the action on homelessness prevention strategy and the rough sleeping strategy; that is backed by more than £2 billion over three years, in addition to the increase in councils’ core budgets that I mentioned at the beginning. But we also need to look at the underlying supply of affordable and social homes, which is why we have the affordable homes programme in place. We are committed that that will continue to deliver large increases in the number of affordable homes available in this country.