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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing use of empty residential units held as investments for housing people on local authority social housing waiting lists.

Local councils are best placed to determine how best to increase their stock of social housing. We have given councils powers to manage empty homes in their districts and we encourage councils to publish their empty homes policies.

We are committed to investing in social housing. Our new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. This builds upon the success of our £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, running to 2023, which will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes.