Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

22. What steps he is taking to build more social and affordable homes.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

It is a privilege to be appointed as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor and former Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), for all she has done since the general election last year on workers’ rights, local government and building council homes? She made a real and lasting difference.

In July, the Labour Government published a five-step plan to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, and to transform the safety and quality of social homes. The affordable homes programme will deliver 110,000 to 130,000 affordable homes. Under the new £39 billion social and affordable homes programme, we have set an ambition of 300,000 new homes over 10 years. We will set targets after the initial bids.

[Paul Waugh]

I was lucky enough to grow up in a council house in Rochdale in a stable and secure home with an affordable rent, but sadly that is an opportunity and a childhood denied to far too many children in my constituency today. Why? Because under the last 10 years of the Conservative Government, the number of families on the housing list trebled. Does the Secretary of State agree that reducing the number of children in temporary accommodation should be not just the mission of this Government, but the moral mission of this Government?

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting this incredibly important issue and for always championing his constituents in Rochdale. He is quite right to highlight the appalling record of the Conservative party on temporary accommodation for families and children, and on homelessness and rough sleeping. Our drive to build more social and affordable homes will tackle its failure head-on. We will reduce homelessness levels and the need for temporary accommodation by providing more secure and affordable homes up and down the country, with a particular focus on social rent, including record numbers of new council homes.

[Andrew George]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his position and declare an interest as a volunteer member of the Cornwall Community Land Trust. The Secretary of State will be well aware that a perfect storm has hit the construction industry as far as the delivery of social housing is concerned: tender forecasts are not encouraging, Homes England’s scoring matrix is proving to be inflexible, and the cost-value ratio used by registered providers is not helping and is providing a disincentive to deliver in the most deprived communities. There are thousands of homes that community-led CLTs and others could be delivering now. Will the Secretary of State meet me and fellow members of the community-led housing sector? Otherwise, we will be waiting another five years to get shovel-ready affordable homes off the ground.

[Steve Reed]

I am always happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and others on issues as important as this. I had the pleasure of visiting Newlyn in his constituency not so long ago and some of those issues were made apparent to me by people living in the area. We announced top-ups to the affordable homes programme in the autumn and the spring, and in March we announced £2 billion as a downpayment for the new social and affordable homes programme, which is now open for bids. Homes England can and does vary grant rates on the basis of bids from social housing providers. Importantly, the available £39 billion covers a range of tenures, including community-led housing. I would expect and hope to see increases in the way that he has described.

[Tom Rutland]

The only way to solve the housing crisis is, as my right hon. Friend so articulately puts it, to “build, baby, build”. In my constituency of East Worthing and Shoreham, the median wage is £37,000, but the median house price has soared to more than 10 times that. What will the Government do to ensure that social and affordable homes are built for my constituents who desperately need them?

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this issue, and I am sorry he is not wearing the red cap I saw him wearing in Liverpool recently highlighting this very important issue. The Government have committed £39 billion to a new 10-year affordable homes programme that will deliver around 300,000 homes, with at least 60% for social rent—the most affordable tenure. We have committed to the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, and we are backing councils and housing associations to build at scale, so that communities such as his in East Worthing and Shoreham get the homes they need at costs that people can afford to pay.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

There are over 560 families on Gosport borough council’s waiting list for social housing, yet despite taking power a few years ago, the Liberal Democrat council has not built a single extra council house. Meanwhile, the complaints I get in my mailbag about the substandard quality of council accommodation grow more and more every single week. What is the Secretary of State doing to encourage such inadequate councils to build a greater quantity and better quality of council accommodation?

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Government have reintroduced home building targets that were scrapped by the previous Government. It is important that we have those targets and that they are achievable, and councils will be held to account to achieve them. I am working on an acceleration package to encourage more building in which local authorities will be key partners, and we will make announcements on that in due course. Of course, the hon. Lady will be aware of the changes we are making to drive up standards in council and other social housing, which we will insist are enforced and carried through.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It falls to me to open the bowling for the Opposition Front Bench, so I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment and welcome him to his place today.

The previous Government awarded the Mayor of London almost £9 billion of funding to build a total of 151,000 affordable homes in London. The second tranche of that money amounted to £4 billion, which was to build 35,000 homes between 2021 and 2026. To date, only 997 have been completed, with 443 of those homes being acquisitions rather than newly built. What plans does the Secretary of State have to hold the Mayor of London to account for this lamentable failure?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, but I think it is disingenuous to blame the Mayor of London for failings that were the fault of the previous Conservative Government and, I am afraid, current Conservative boroughs in London such as Bromley, which is a shocking 95% behind its house building target. We cannot tolerate that.

The previous Government choked off house building everywhere by scrapping house building targets and crashing the economy, sending mortgages through the roof so that people could not afford to buy new homes—of course, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), was a major cheerleader for the Prime Minister who carried that through. In the last four years of the previous Government, housing consents collapsed by one fifth. It is this Government who will take the steps to remediate that situation, this Government who will get 1.5 million new homes built and this Government who will work with local government partners across the whole country, including here in London, to ensure that the homes this country needs are built.

[Gareth Bacon]

The whole House will have heard that the Secretary of State has no plans to intervene on the Mayor of London. Under section 340 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, the Secretary of State has the power to direct the Mayor of London to review and revise specific policies of the London plan if they are seen to be hindering housing delivery. There are a plethora of policies—including an obsession with dual facing and twin staircasing and a bizarre aversion to corridors—that developers are united in saying are massively hindering development in the country’s largest city, which has the highest demand for affordable housing. The Secretary of State is holding all the cards and the purse strings. Why will he not intervene?

[Steve Reed]

First, I do recognise the challenges the hon. Gentleman has outlined. They should concern us all, and I thank him for raising them. He will be aware that we are making legislative changes right now, with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that is going through Parliament, to speed up the planning system that is holding back so many homes from being built. We will be tabling further amendments to the Bill to tackle some of the challenges the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

I am working with the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London on an acceleration package that targets London in particular. We will make announcements on that within weeks, and the hon. Gentleman will then see the action that we intend to take here in the capital city to ensure that home building continues apace. We will also be looking nationally, because every region of the country needs new homes built to meet people’s dreams of having somewhere affordable to rent or buy.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

In 2007, Ming Campbell launched the Liberal Democrats’ campaign for not just affordable but decent homes for our military. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his position. Will he join me in congratulating the forces families who backed my amendment to provide them with a decent homes standard, and will he agree that they deserve nothing less?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I agree that the changes that have been made—we have managed to come to a consensus on this—are very important and will make a big difference to forces families and veterans, which we all want to see. I congratulate and commend the hon. Gentleman on working cross party to ensure an outcome that will be satisfactory to everybody who is concerned about this issue, as he is.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

2. What information his Department holds on the proportion of people granted asylum status living in the private rented sector.

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[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

7. What steps he is taking to support the building of social housing in rural towns and villages.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

The £39 billion social and affordable homes programme will support a wide range of social and affordable housing, including council housing, supported housing, community-led housing and, of course, rural housing. The Government will also consider how planning policy can better promote rural affordable housing through our work on national policies, which will be brought forward for decision making later in the year.

[Ben Maguire]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response. Cornwall has been given an ambitious annual target of 4,400 homes, and I sincerely hope that a large proportion of those will be for the 25,000 Cornish families on the housing waiting list. I meet so many constituents in social and private housing who have been left high and dry by dodgy developers who go into liquidation before they can deliver vital infrastructure, such as roads and sewerage works. Will the Secretary of State please meet me to discuss the enforcement tools that local authorities need to properly hold those developers to account?

[Steve Reed]

I certainly recognise the problem that the hon. Member describes; it is an issue in North Cornwall and right across the country. On the developer contribution, we are looking at how we can strengthen enforcement, so that where commitments are made, they are delivered on, and local communities are not stranded and left high and dry because the vital infrastructure to support the homes never appears.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to bring long-term empty homes back into occupation.

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[Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to support local authorities to build social housing in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

The Government have taken decisive action to improve the capacity of all local authorities, including those in Buckingham and Bletchley, to build more social housing, including through our new £39 billion social and affordable homes programme, the new 10-year social housing rent settlement, and right-to-buy reform, so that we can reverse the decline seen under the previous Government.

[Callum Anderson]

The on-time, on-budget delivery of 183 new council homes for local families on the Lakes estate in Bletchley is a good demonstration of what Labour can achieve in local government. Is my right hon. Friend willing to visit Bletchley over the coming weeks and months to discuss how further investment from the social and affordable homes programme could help ambitious, pro-housebuilding councils like Milton Keynes to go even further for local people?

[Steve Reed]

I am sure that it will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend that I wholeheartedly welcome the delivery of 183 new council homes in his constituency. I fully agree that the Lakes estate demonstrates the ambition of Milton Keynes city council to build the homes that its communities want and need. I also value such councils’ support in helping the Government to meet our ambitious housebuilding targets, which include targets for the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in this country in a generation.

[Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)]

13. What steps he plans to take to ensure that new housing developments in Cheadle constituency have adequate access to infrastructure.

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[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T1.   If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

My No. 1 priority is to get Britain building again: we will build, baby, build. That means putting Britain on a path to end the moral stain of homelessness and rough sleeping that doubled under the previous Conservative Government; growing our economy with good, secure jobs and rising incomes in every region of Britain; and putting the key to home ownership in the hands of more people across our country. Under the Conservatives, the British dream of home ownership became a nightmare and out of reach, but with this Labour Government, it will become a reality once more.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My constituents in Oldham East and Saddleworth were delighted to learn that Oldham has received a £20 million award from the Pride in Place programme. Will the Secretary of State expand on the transformational change that the award will mean to places like Oldham, where Government support was decimated under the Conservatives? In particular, what difference will be made by local people having a say in how the money will be spent?

[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, for her work in supporting disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Oldham and her strong support for the Pride in Place programme, which offers a significant amount of long-term flexible funding and support to areas like Oldham. Best of all, it is local people who will take the decisions about what the investment needs to look like to make a real difference to their high streets, public services and public transport, so that they can take back pride in the place they belong.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Nobody but nobody believes that 1.5 million homes will be built under this Government. Although the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), spent a lot of time at the Dispatch Box, she did not answer the question about whether the Treasury will be asked to scrap stamp duty. We know that 2.8 million people said that they would consider downsizing if stamp duty were abolished, freeing up family homes of all sizes. She would not answer, so I ask the Secretary of State directly: will he ask the Treasury to scrap stamp duty—yes or no?

[Steve Reed]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman was a strong supporter of Liz Truss when she stood for leadership of the Conservative party, but surely he cannot have forgotten what she did: she made multibillion pound unfunded spending commitments that crashed the economy, and sent wages down and prices, mortgages and rents skyrocketing. The last thing this country needs is tens of billions of pounds of more unfunded commitments, crashing the economy again and destroying people’s dreams of home ownership—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are lots of Back Benchers who wish to speak and this is topical questions. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Sir James Cleverly]

I asked for a simple yes or no, but the right hon. Gentleman struggled to give that. The truth is that we have outlined exactly where the money could come from and we have made it clear that if those on the Labour Front Bench have the guts to take on their Back Benchers, they will have the support of Conservative Members in making the expenditure cuts that are needed. The London School of Economics has estimated that £16,000 of economic activity comes with every house purchase, so if he will not agree to cutting stamp duty, will he at least agree to not putting up property taxes?

[Steve Reed]

I have to say again that the right hon. Gentleman’s devotion to Trussonomics is admirable, particularly given that we have already seen it fail once. We heard from the shadow Chancellor that the Conservatives would put up income tax if they won the general election. They put it up to the highest level since the second world war; we are not going there.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

T3.   Tory cuts to local authorities cruelly caused lasting damage to many communities. What a contrast to the Government’s Pride in Place programme awards to Park End and Thorntree in Middlesbrough, which will change lives for the better. Does the Secretary of State agree that 100% council tax equalisation and a new children’s formula are essential elements to fully deliver for those communities that were totally overlooked by the Conservatives?

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[Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

South Shore in my constituency is one of the most deprived areas in the country. It has just been named by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, which outlined 34 mission-critical neighbourhoods, as No. 1 for hyper-local need. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can improve South Shore in Blackpool?

[Steve Reed]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his concerns.

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

What commitment can the Minister give to my constituents in Thurmaston, Syston, Queniborough and nearby villages who wish to remain in the county of Leicestershire and have services provided in Leicestershire that they will not against their wishes be absorbed into the city of Leicester, as advocated by Labour’s city mayor in the context of local government reorganisation?

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was never intended to be used by local authorities as an addendum to planning enforcement. The Secretary of State may well have seen recent media reports about this issue. Will he undertake to look into it and to issue guidance to local authorities, explaining that while they have many tools at their disposal, the Proceeds of Crime Act is not one of them?

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, and I am happy to arrange a meeting with the appropriate Minister so that he can share his concerns and we can come to a resolution.