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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the timetable is for local authorities to bid to increase their borrowing cap in the financial year 2019-20 to build additional council housing.

At the Autumn Budget 2017, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that we will raise the Housing Revenue Account borrowing caps by a total of up to £1 billion. This will apply to areas of high affordability pressure with local authorities that are ready to start building new homes. Local authorities will be able to bid for increases in their caps from 2019/20 up to a total of £1 billion by the end of 2021/22. We will set out more details shortly.