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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 24 November (HL Deb, col 2050), on what evidence the statement that "we are building more houses than ever before" was based.

The government’s policies mean that we have delivered nearly 900,000 new homes in England since 2010 and private new build housing starts are at their highest financial year level since 2007/08. Our planning reforms also mean that major planning applications determined on time are at the highest percentage on record. However, we acknowledge that we have not been building enough homes in England for decades and that we have more to do. The Autumn Statement set out £5.3 billion of investment to build more homes. We will set out a further comprehensive package of reform to boost housing supply and halt the decline in housing affordability in a Housing White Paper to be published in January.