Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

The anecdotal feedback is very much that this has been a successful enterprise. We will have our report come November, and the Electoral Commission’s interim report in June and full report in September. We are prepared to learn lessons, but our evaluation from anecdotal feedback is that it has been a successful roll-out.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to increase the provision of social rented housing.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

The Government are committed to increasing affordable housing of all kinds, which is why we are investing £11.5 billion, through the affordable homes programme, to deliver tens of thousands of homes for rent and sale right across the country.

[Karin Smyth]

The availability of social rented and affordable housing is the No. 1 issue that my constituents contact me about. Although Bristol’s Labour council is building more social homes for the future, the Government’s decision to scrap targets means that neighbouring authorities are not rising to the challenge. What analysis has been conducted by the Department on the impact on local housing supply of the Government’s decision to water down its housing targets?

[Rachel Maclean]

I would like to gently correct the assertion that the hon. Lady made about watering down housing targets. The Government are committed to building 300,000 houses across the country. We are building them in the right places, with community support. We understand the importance of social rented housing, and that is why we made a commitment in our levelling-up White Paper to ensure that more are built with the £11.5 billion of Government funding that her Labour-run council is no doubt benefiting from.