Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 4 July 2025 to Question 63255 on Property Development: Repairs and Maintenance, whether the 2026-36 Affordable Homes Programme will allow a proportion of programme delivery to come from (a) acquisitions of existing (i) new build and (ii) second hand homes and (b) funding replacement homes on regeneration schemes.

The government’s new Social and Affordable Homes Programme will not have numerical targets for particular types of homes other than Social Rent nor will it have ringfenced budgets for particular regions or types of home beyond the portion allocated to the Greater London Authority.

While the new programme will focus on the supply of new homes, it will also continue to support some regeneration schemes that provide a net increase in homes on a site. The programme will also allow for a limited number of acquisitions of existing housing stock,  to support wider delivery while more rapidly increasing the supply of social and affordable homes.

We will allow bids for individual projects on an ongoing basis, and for Strategic Partnerships over the life of the programme, including bids for funds over the entire 10 years of starts with homes completing after 2036 also eligible. A competitive bidding round for Strategic Partnerships will launch this winter, followed by later opportunities.

It is our intention to publish a full prospectus for the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme in autumn 2025 and open it for bids in the winter.