MPs to probe ‘stagnated’ social and affordable housing delivery

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee announced today it will investigate the effectiveness of the government’s current approach to boosting the provision of social and affordable rented housing.

This will include looking at funding for promoting new building projects and what more can be done to “encourage local authorities and housing associations to increase provision”.

According to the committee, only 3% (90,000) of the 300,000 homes the government is aiming to provide per year by the mid-2020s will be social housing, to be built by councils.

Charity Shelter claims that more than three million social homes will need to be built in the next 20 years to address needs. At 150,000 homes per year, that is nearly double the government’s current target.

The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Clive Betts, said the building of new social and affordable rented homes had “stagnated” in the past 10 years.

He added: “We have launched this new inquiry to understand how effective the government’s current housing strategy will be in meeting demand for social housing in the long term.

“Social housing has been left to drift for too long and we must ensure that there are coherent long-term strategies to remedy this.”

The committee is inviting submissions to the inquiry, with a deadline of 12 July.