Housing
ngland is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis. A generation is locked out of homeownership, 1.3 million people are on social housing waiting lists and millions of low-income households have been forced into insecure, unaffordable and sub-standard private rented housing.
The main cause of the housing crisis is the failure, over decades, to build enough homes to meet demand and need. The Government’s plan to deliver 1.5 million safe and decent homes in the next four years has my full support. It has already taken decisive action to increase the supply of new homes, with bold reforms to the planning system.
I was elected on a manifesto that promised to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation. This will be vital to tackling homelessness. For this reason, I was pleased to note the £39 billion announced at the Spending Review for the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme. This represents the biggest long-term investment in social and affordable housing in recent memory and will help to deliver approximately 300,000 social and affordable homes by 2036. The goal is that 60% of the homes the programme provides will be for social rent.
The Renters’ Rights Bill which is currently progressing through Parliament will modernise the regulation of our country’s insecure and unjust private rented sector, levelling decisively the playing field between landlord and tenant. It will deliver on the Government’s commitment to transform the experience of private renting, including by applying a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector to drive up standards within it.
I am pleased that the Government is looking at the issue of homelessness carefully and is developing a new cross-government strategy. I support the approach being taken which seeks to move away from a system focused on crisis response, to taking a holistic approach to preventing homelessness in the first place.
I welcome that the Government has increased funding for homelessness services by £233 million, bringing the total to nearly £1 billion. The 2025 Spending Review protected that level of investment until 2028-29, and provides £100 million of additional funding for services from the transformation fund.
Everyone deserves to live in a secure, decent, and accessible home in which they feel safe. Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.