Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question; he never fails to disappoint. Interestingly, one area where councils will be able to flex their muscles more is in taking on empty homes and looking into quality rented properties that are affordable for everybody so that communities stay together. I think that is something Bradford Council ought to do.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

5. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of affordable homes in rural areas.

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

More than 119,000 affordable homes have been delivered in rural communities since 2010. Homes England has invested £142 million in the rural affordable homes programme schemes in the past four years, which is around 9% of total spend.

[Neil Parish]

I very much welcome those figures on affordable homes. There are redundant farm building sites, which could be classed as brownfield sites. If they were, that would release a lot more land for affordable homes. Will the Minister consider that, please?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have introduced a requirement for each local authority to publish registers of brownfield land. More than 90% of local authorities have done so, and the information to date suggests that nearly 16,500 brownfield sites covering 26,000 hectares have already been identified in England alone.