Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential effect on inequality in communities of a prevalence of low wages in areas of high value housing as part of his work on the levelling up agenda.

The Government's levelling up missions will spread economic opportunity through investment in R&D, skills, connectivity and business finance. The missions and actions to make neighbourhoods safer and ensure decent homes, including in the private rented sector, will address key barriers which contribute to and entrench poverty.

The White Paper emphasises the Government's commitment to creating a fair and just housing system that works for everyone. This is essential for spreading opportunity and levelling up. This includes supporting more first-time buyers to move onto the housing ladder, delivering more homes that are genuinely affordable, radically improving housing quality and reducing homelessness.

For those who need it most, support is available through Discretionary Housing Payments, the Homelessness Prevention Grant, and the £500 million Household Support Fund, of which £421 million will go to help vulnerable people in England with the cost of essentials over the winter period.

This Government has invested heavily in supporting low-income households with their housing costs, with £29 billion spent on housing support alone last year.