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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support SME builders in order to diversify the housebuilding sector.

Small and medium sized housebuilders are essential to meeting the government’s housing ambitions and supporting local economies. The government is acting to support SME housebuilders by increasing their access to land, providing further financial assistance and easing the burden of regulation.

To that end, the new £16 billion National Housing Bank, which launched on 1 April, is designed to unlock £53 billion of private investment and support the building of over 500,000 new homes including through loans and financial support for SMEs. We have also doubled the ENABLE Build Guarantee scheme to boost SME access to finance.

We are making more Homes England land available to the sector through SME-only land sales with less bureaucratic sales process.

We have also committed to simplifying the planning system with proposals for a new medium site size definition with corresponding policy and regulatory easements to help SME housebuilders thrive and grow.

The government continues to engage closely with SME developers and representative bodies to better understand the barriers they face and ensure the sector can play a greater role in delivering new homes.