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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many (a) affordable homes, (b) social housing units and (c) council housing units have been commissioned in each of the last five years.

The number of new starts-on-site per year and local authority for social rent, affordable rent and London affordable rent homes can be found in live tables 1006S, 1006aS and 1006bS respectively through the following link https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply.

In the last five years the number of new affordable homes starts-on-site by local authorities was as follows:
3,093 in 2015-16;
5,910 in 2016-17
5,706 in 2017-18
5,834 in 2018-19
7,458 in 2019-20

Please note that this figure includes all tenures, including those for affordable homes for sale, such as shared ownership. These totals can be derived from the open source data also found in the link above. Information for 2015-16 is not directly comparable with subsequent years as it only includes information on units funded by Homes England or the Greater London Authority.