Housebuilding: Target

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards meeting their target of building 300,000 homes a year.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

From April 2019 to March 2020, more than 242,000 homes were delivered—the highest level for over 30 years. Despite the pandemic, we enabled construction sites to stay open, allowing us to deliver more than 216,000 homes in England in 2020-21, well above the 186,500 forecast for the whole of the UK.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, but is he aware that the House of Lords Built Environment Committee has warned the Government that they will miss their targets by about half over the period of time in question? In order to catch up, will my noble friend consider greatly accelerating the number of homes built off-site, using modular construction? These are quicker, built to a higher quality and less susceptible to the weather than traditional methods. Within that, will he consider more homes for the elderly, which are in short supply, so that those who want to can downsize, freeing up their homes for families?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend has extensive experience of housing. The department recognises the importance of modern methods of construction, both volumetric and non-volumetric as well as those designed for manufacture and assembly, and we have a target within the affordable homes programme of delivering around 25% through these methods. Obviously, we recognise the need for housing of all types and tenures, and both supported and private housing for the elderly, and retirement communities are a very important part of getting the built environment right.