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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of including housing costs in the Indices of Multiple Deprivation on benefit areas with higher housing values.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published the English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (IoD25) on Thursday 30th October 2025. All resources can be accessed online here - English indices of deprivation 2025 - GOV.UK

As part of the IoD25 release, the Department updated its measures of deprivation in line with recommendations from its 2022 user consultation - Indices Futures: Updating the English Indices of Deprivation (IoD) - consultation - GOV.UK - and broader stakeholder engagement. This includes accounting for housing costs within specific domains.

Full detail on the Indices methodology can be found in the IoD25 Technical Report online here - English indices of deprivation 2025: technical report - GOV.UK. Further analysis and interpretation of the data is available in our Research Report online here - English indices of deprivation 2025: research report - GOV.UK.