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Funding of £15.3bn 'to raise delivery to 300,000 a year'
The chancellor has announced £15.3bn worth of new measures to intervene in the housing market in an effort to deliver 300,000 homes annually by the mid-2020s.
In his Autumn Budget this afternoon, Philip Hammond’s most expensive single measure on housing was providing £8bn of “financial guarantees to support private housebuilding and the purpose-built private rented sector”.
The new funding will bring the total spend on housing to £44bn over the next five years in a variety of capital, loan and guarantee based programmes.
However, he mentioned no similar renewal of the successful guarantees scheme for affordable housing.
Mr Hammond also announced another £2.7bn for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, bringing it to a total of £5bn, a capital grant programme intended to help councils build infrastructure to unlock homes in the areas of greatest housing demand.
This afternoon’s funding announcements also included a £630m small site fund, which the chancellor said would “unstick the delivery of 40,000 homes”, £400m for estate regeneration and £1.1bn “to unlock strategic sites including new settlements and urban regeneration schemes”.
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The existing government scheme to guarantee loans to housing associations, Affordable Housing Finance (AHF) is due to end next month, and Mr Hammond did not mention any new measures to replace it.
Nor was there any discussion of Sajid Javid’s public call for £50bn of government borrowing during the next five years, or a similar proposal pitched by housing associations to Number 10.
In his response, Jeremy Corbyn welcomed some of the government’s proposals, but called for “a large-scale publicly funded housebuilding programme”.
This story will be updated.
KEY BUDGET MEASURES AT-A-GLANCE
- Investment of £44bn in housebuilding in capital funding, loans and guarantees over the next five years to boost supply of skills, resources and land
- Commitment to be building 300,000 homes a year by mid-2020s
- £1.5bn package of changes to Universal Credit announced. This includes the scrapping of the seven-day waiting period at the beginning of a claim, making a full month’s advance available within five days of a claim for those that need it and allowing claimants on housing benefit to continue claiming for two weeks
- Lift council borrowing caps in "high-demand areas"
- A £125m increase over two years in Targeted Affordability Funding for Local Housing Allowance claimants in the private sector struggling to pay their rent
- New money into Home Builders Fund
- Extra £2.7bn for Housing Infrastructure Fund
- Invest £400m in estate regeneration
- £1.1bn on unlocking strategic sites
- Stamp duty for first time buyers on properties worth up to £300k will be axed, while the first £300k on properties worth up to £500k will also be scrapped
- Three new Housing First pilots announced for West Midlands, Manchester and Liverpool
- Councils to be given the power to charge 100% council tax premium on empty properties
- Government will launch a consultation to barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector
- £38m for Kensington & Chelsea Council for mental health and counselling services, regeneration projects in areas surrounding Grenfell Tower and a new community space
- Invest in five new garden towns
- £125m increase in Targeted Affordability Funding for Local Housing Allowance claimants in the private sector struggling to pay rent
