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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to reduce social housing waiting lists.

The social housing waiting list in England has decreased by 37 per cent since 2012.

Local authorities have freedom to set their own criteria determining who qualifies for social housing in their district, through changes introduced in the Localism Act 2011, and how this is delivered. However, they must ensure that reasonable preference (overall priority) for social housing is given to certain categories of people in housing need, including homeless households, people living in overcrowded housing, and those who have medical and welfare needs.

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has made £9 billion available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022. Since 2010, we have delivered over 464,500 new affordable homes, including over 331,800 affordable homes for rent.

Building on this, we announced at Budget 2020 that we are investing £12 billion to build affordable homes between 2021/22 - 2025/26. This will be the biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade.