Asked by: Lord Fink (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the emergency loan fund established by the government of Scotland to support small and medium-sized housebuilders; and what plans they have to set up a similar fund for housebuilders in England.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Continuing to build the homes the country needs is a priority for the Government and we have been supporting the sector through various measures to bolster confidence and retain capacity. In addition to the broader business support packages announced by the Chancellor, including the Bounce Back Loan and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan schemes, the £2.5 billion Home Building Fund (Short Term Fund), first launched in 2016, also remains open to new borrowers. The fund is targeted at small and medium builders that have been unable to access lending via the market and will help viable development schemes progress. We have also made available £1 billion of guarantee support to SMEs through the ENABLE Build scheme.
We will continue to engage regularly with all parts of the housing industry to understand and monitor the impact of Coronavirus.
Asked by: Lord Fink (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the national Homes for Heroes campaign; and what plans they have to support it.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has made £9bn available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022 to deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including Social Rent, Shared Ownership and Rent to Buy. A mix of different tenures is vital to meet the needs of a wide range of people, and allow the sector to build the right homes in the right places.
Building on this, we announced at Budget 2020 that we are investing £12bn to build affordable homes between 2021/22 and 2025/26. This will be the biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade.