Residential Accommodation: Empty Homes

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard various statistics from different questioners. I would like to know what the Government’s figure is, not for percentages but for the absolute number of empty houses in England. The Select Committee on the Built Environment gave an estimate of nearly half a million in its report a couple of years ago. Surely there should be a tremendous incentive on the Government, with their 300,000 target, for making more homes available to speed up this process massively, bearing in mind that it is not just that empty houses are a gross waste of resources when there are huge numbers on the waiting list but that empty houses do not just frequently blight near neighbours but can sometimes blight a whole neighbourhood. It really is time that the Government—in their own interests, I suggest—got on with this.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments and question. The number I have here in the file for England is 248,633 empty homes by the definition of six months empty.