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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the number of people on waiting lists for social housing.

Since 2010, the number of households on local authority waiting lists has reduced by over 33 per cent from 1.74 million in 2010 to 1.16 million in 2017. We have given local authorities flexibility to manage their waiting lists, alongside action we have taken to build more affordable homes.

We are supporting social landlords to build even more homes, including homes for social rent for those in housing need who are currently waiting. Since 2010, we have delivered over 357,000 new affordable homes, including over 257,000 affordable homes for rent. We have recently announced an additional £2 billion funding for our flexible Affordable Homes Programme, increasing the budget to over £9 billion.

We are also undertaking a wide-ranging review of issues affecting social housing and intend to publish a Green Paper in the Spring.