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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the publication of the White Paper <i>Fixing our broken housing market</i>, whether they will allow local authorities to build council housing or work with partners to provide other forms of social housing, rather than make provision for starter homes, if that is the demonstrable local need.

As our Housing White Paper made clear, we want local authorities to deliver starter homes as part of a mixed package of affordable housing that can respond to local needs and local markets. In keeping with this approach to deliver a range of affordable homes, rather than a mandatory requirement for starter homes, we intend to amend the National Planning Policy Framework to introduce a clear policy expectation that housing sites deliver a minimum of 10 per cent affordable home ownership units. It will be for local areas to work with developers to agree an appropriate level of delivery of starter homes, alongside other affordable home ownership and rented tenures.