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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will take steps to ensure that there are more available affordable rental properties in response to the recently published survey by Propertymark which found that the number of available rentals had halved.

The Private Rented Sector remains an important part of the housing market, with 4.4 million households currently in the Private Rented Sector.

We are investing £11.5 billion in the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme, which will build up to 180,000 affordable homes, should economic conditions allow.  Around half of these will be for sub-market rent, and half for affordable home ownership. We also strongly support expansion of the Build to Rent (BtR) market. BtR boosts housing supply, diversifies the private rental sector and increases quality and choice for renters in cities and towns across England.  We have revised the National Planning Policy Framework and issued a new chapter of planning guidance to support the delivery of more BtR homes, including affordable rental homes.