The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has
launched a new inquiry to examine the long-term delivery of
social and affordable rented housing.
The Government has set a target of delivering 300,000 new homes
per year by mid-2020. However, current expectations mean that as
little as 3% of this target could be social homes built by local
authorities. Housing charity Shelter has warned that over 3
million new social home would need to be built over a 20 year
period to address social housing need. Amounting to 150,000 new
social homes per year this is significantly higher than the
Government’s current plans.
The new inquiry will investigate the effectiveness of the
Government’s current strategies to boost social and affordable
rented housing provision. This will include the adequacy of
funding levels, as well as programmes and incentives for key
stakeholders, such as local authorities and housing associations,
to stimulate delivery.
The Committee will also look at the challenges facing different
areas of the country and consider what lessons can be learnt from
successful schemes in other countries.
Launching the inquiry, Committee Chair said:
“Over the last decade the construction of new social and
affordable rented homes has stagnated. The number of new homes
built in this sector has slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a
year, while at the same time demand becomes greater and greater.
“The Government has accepted that there needs to be much more new
housing built each year, but it is possible that only 3% of its
target of 300,000 new homes a year will be social homes built by
local authorities.
“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. We will examine how
far current funding levels will promote new building projects,
and what more can be done to encourage local authorities and
housing associations to increase provision. Social housing has
been left to drift for too long and we must ensure that there are
coherent long-term strategies to remedy this.”
Terms of reference
The Committee is inviting submissions on:
- How can the Government ensure the sustainable delivery of
social and affordable rented housing to meet long-term need and
contribute to the Government’s overall housebuilding targets.
- What levels of central government funding will be required
to support this delivery over the next 10 years.
- How effective existing government incentives and programmes
are and what further incentives should the Government provide
to key stakeholders to stimulate delivery.
- Are supply subsidies the best way of supporting delivery,
or should other approaches be considered?
- What the role of (a) local authorities – as enablers and
providers, (b) Homes England (c) housing associations and (d)
other providers should be in that long-term delivery.
- How does the Government ensure long-term provision (a)
meets the needs of tenants and (b) is adequately regulated.
- How can the Government’s approach to delivery best meet the
different needs of individual regions and area.
- What lessons can be learned from alternative approaches to
social and affordable rented housing delivery in other
countries and jurisdictions.
The deadline for written submissions is 12 July
2019. Submissions can be made on the Committee’s website
here.
ENDS
HCLG Committee: MP (Chair) (Labour), MP (Conservative), MP (Labour),
MP (Labour), MP (Conservative),
MP (Conservative), MP (Labour), Mr MP (Conservative), MP (Conservative), (Labour) and (Labour).
