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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Young of Cookham on 23 November (HL Deb, col 1937), (1) what assessment they have made, and will make, of successfully bringing small builders back into the housing market, (2) how many small building companies have been involved in the project, and (3) where the small building firms are located.

£1.7 billion of investment for Accelerated Construction was announced at the Autumn Statement. This will see up to 15,000 homes started on surplus public sector land this Parliament.

We are currently undertaking detailed project scoping. Further details about the programme will be made available on completion of this work.

Furthermore, the recently launched £3 billion Home Building Fund, running to 2020-21 provides development and infrastructure loan finance, with £1 billion of this targeted at small and custom builders which the Department intends to deliver 25,500 new homes by 2020.