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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the time period for the spending of the £7.2 billion on housing announced in the Autumn Statement.

The government’s announcement of £7.2 billion to support the construction of new homes at the Autumn Statement is part of the new National Productivity Investment Fund. The Fund will add £23 billion in high-value investment from 2017/18 to 2021/22.

Within the £7.2 billion envelope, the government will provide an additional £1.4 billion to deliver an additional 40,000 affordable housing starts by 2020/21. The Autumn Statement envelope also includes borrowing by housing associations from private sector sources as a result of the additional investment. The government will also invest £1.7 billion by 2020/21 to speed up house building on public sector land. Finally, the government announced a new Housing Infrastructure Fund of £2.3 billion by 2020/21 which will deliver up to 100,000 new homes. Further details on how this fund will be allocated to local authorities will be set out in due course.