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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will commit to building 100,000 homes for social rent per year.

We are committed to increasing the supply of social housing to further support struggling families and those at risk of homelessness. We have invested over £9 billion into our Affordable Homes Programme to deliver approximately 250,000 affordable homes by 2022, including at least 12,500 for social rent in areas of acute affordability pressure.

We have increased the size of the Affordable Homes Programme, re-introduced social rent, removed the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap for local authorities, and have set out a long-term rent deal for councils and housing associations in England from 2020. Housing associations and local authorities now need to accelerate delivery and build more affordable homes.

Since 2010, we have delivered over 430,000 new affordable homes, including over 308,000 affordable homes for rent.

On 18 September we announced an additional £2 billion of long-term funding certainty for housing associations. This extra funding will deliver more affordable homes and stimulate the sector’s wider building ambitions, through strategic partnerships.

We do not publish yearly targets but, deliver flexibly throughout the years of the programme to achieve our overall target and hold Homes England and the Greater London Authority (GLA) to account for delivery.

We will continue to provide opportunities for more people to afford home ownership and seek to build on the progress that has been made on building new social homes.