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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle the trend of fewer social homes being available due to their sale or demolition than are being built each year.

Since 2010, this Government has delivered over 382,300 affordable homes for rent, of which over 149,400 homes for social rent. We are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade.

This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme (AHP), which will deliver more than double the social rent than the current programme, which are typically 50 to 60% of market prices, with around 32,000 social rent homes due to be delivered. These homes for social rent will be available to deliver across the country, providing secure, affordable housing to families who need it most.

In March 2021, the Government introduced a package of reforms to the use of Right to Buy receipts. These reforms will help local authorities build more homes and make it easier to deliver homes for social rent. This set of reforms, combined with the abolition of the borrowing cap in 2018, gives councils substantially increased flexibilities to build new homes.