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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to extend to all local authorities the permission to bid for additional housing revenue account borrowing to build new council housing.

104 of the 166 local authorities with a Housing Revenue Account are in an area of high affordability pressure and so are eligible to bid for the additional borrowing programme. We will review how authorities respond to this opportunity, and consider whether any further action is needed.