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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of housing affordability in (a) Cambridge city, (b) Cambridgeshire, (c) Bedfordshire, (d) Milton Keynes, (d) Oxfordshire and (e) Oxford.

The Government planning framework guidance sets out that local planning authorities should objectively assess and evidence their full housing needs, working with neighbouring authorities where housing market areas cross administrative boundaries.

The assessment should address the need for all types of housing, including affordable housing, and identify the scale and mix of housing, and the range of tenures that the local population is likely to need over the plan period. It is for the local authorities and housing associations as registered providers (landlords) to decide what types of housing stock they want to deliver.

In order to plan properly, local authorities need to properly understand how many homes they need to build in their area. It is for local areas to make evidence-based decisions on the total number and type of homes needed in their area as part of their plan-making process