Thank you for contacting me about social housing.
It is vital the Government works to build more homes, including social and affordable homes. This is why I am broadly supportive of the Government’s overarching ambition to build 1.5 million new homes. However, any new homes must be the right homes delivered in the right places, especially for a priority like social and affordable homes.
Unfortunately, it is clear that the Government will not meet their promise. Figures from the independent Office for National Statistics show that the Government’s record is significantly worsening after housing starts fell in the third quarter of 2025, the number of dwellings completed in the three months through September 2025 dropped and that, when all that is taken together, England is set for the lowest number of annual completions for over a decade.
Moreover, figures from November 2025 show that, with the lowest number of additional homes for nearly a decade, the Government has left itself on track to fall well short of the target, and projected to not even build 1 million homes. This is in sharp contrast to the 2.5 million new homes delivered by the last Government, including nearly 1 million homes during their final term in office and 750,000 affordable homes. It is vital that the Government is honest with communities about the viability of the manifesto pledge that it campaigned on.
On top of this, according to the IFS, the recent Spending Review, which promised more funding for the affordable homes budget, “is less generous than on first appearance” with funding hardly different to present levels.
More widely, under the last Government, 800,000 people bought their first home through schemes such as Help to Buy and the stamp duty relief. This Government has not even shown that it has the aspiration to match that, because they have cut a lot of the products that turbocharged first-time buyers getting on to the housing ladder.
I believe that it is only by making housing more affordable that we can help people leave temporary accommodation and move into secure, long-term homes of their own. That is why the last Government also allocated over £11 billion to the Affordable Homes Programme from 2021 to 2026, providing more affordable and social housing for sale or rent across the country.
Unfortunately, however, I am unable to make Shelter's event on the 20th April.
Thank you again for contacting me.