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

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total number of empty houses for each of the past three years.

As set out in publicly available information, statistics on vacant dwellings in England (as reported for the purposes of council tax) for each of the past three years are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1. All vacant dwellings¹ and Long-Term vacant dwellings² England, 2021 to 2023.

Source: Council Tax Base (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/council-taxbase-statistics) and also published in Live Table 615 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants)

¹ These are defined as empty properties as classified for council tax purposes and include empty properties liable for 100% council tax and empty properties that receive a council tax exemption, discount or premium.

² These are defined as properties liable for council tax that have been empty for more than six months and that are not subject to Empty Homes Discount class D or empty due to specific flooding events.