Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of housing costs in Greater Manchester on the ability of employers to recruit staff; and if he will make a statement.

The Government recognises that one of the effects of Britain's broken housing market is that property prices can stop people moving to where jobs are and prevents businesses from investing in our communities. In parts of Greater Manchester, house prices are nearly 9 times the average earnings. The Government's priorities are to boost housing supply and to build more affordable homes, supporting the needs of a wide range of people.

The Government is committed to building 300,000 homes a year on average by the mid-2020s. This will help to tackle the increasing lack of affordability by bringing more properties onto the market and slowing the rise in housing costs relative to the rise in wages.

In Greater Manchester in 2016/17 there were 7,030 permanent dwelling starts representing more than double the 2,810 starts of 2009/10 and showing the progress that has already been made.

The Prime Minister recently announced an additional £2 billion funding for affordable housing, increasing the Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21 budget to over £9 billion to deliver a wide range of affordable housing, including social rent homes, by March 2021.

The new funding will support councils and housing associations to build more genuinely affordable homes, in areas of acute affordability pressure.