Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neil Parish and Dominic Raab

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

5. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of affordable homes in rural areas.

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

More than 119,000 affordable homes have been delivered in rural communities since 2010. Homes England has invested £142 million in the rural affordable homes programme schemes in the past four years, which is around 9% of total spend.

[Neil Parish]

I very much welcome those figures on affordable homes. There are redundant farm building sites, which could be classed as brownfield sites. If they were, that would release a lot more land for affordable homes. Will the Minister consider that, please?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have introduced a requirement for each local authority to publish registers of brownfield land. More than 90% of local authorities have done so, and the information to date suggests that nearly 16,500 brownfield sites covering 26,000 hectares have already been identified in England alone.