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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reasons his Department returned £817m of housing funding to HM Treasury; and if he will make a statement.

In line with standard practice where funding cannot be spent, within a financial year, it is returned to the Treasury. This is part of good budget management within the Department, and in line with established processes. Underspends are not unusual. For comparison, in 2009-10, the Department underspent by £504 million in total.

Overall, funding for housing has been substantially increased, with an additional £15.3 billion of investment in housing over the next 5 years. This includes an extra £2 billion for Affordable Housing, taking the programme to £9 billion. In 2017/18, we have also invested an additional £1.5 billion in our Help to Buy scheme, supporting thousands of first time buyers to move into their first home. We will be investing over £10 billion in that programme in the next 3 years.