Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how newly built student accommodation is recorded in his Department's data set entitled Housing supply: net additional dwellings; whether each block of such accommodation counts as one unit or as a number of units corresponding to the number of students it accommodates; what steps his Department takes to ensure consistency in applying rules about recording student and other communal accommodation as net additional dwelling; and how many student accommodation units are included in his Department's most recent estimate of the number of net additional dwellings.

Consistency in applying the definitions, which can be found at the following links, is maintained by detailed guidance for local authorities who complete the data returns and through data validation and communication with the data providers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/net-supply-of-housing

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/dwelling-stock-data-notes-and-definitions-includes-hfr-full-guidance-notes-and-returns-form