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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of planning changes implemented since 2010 allowing the construction of affordable homes.

I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 1 September 2014, Official Report, columns 1-2W. Through our reforms of the planning system and other measures to fix the broken housing market, we have seen planning permission granted for 240,000 homes in the year to September 2014.

Almost 217,000 affordable homes have been delivered in England since April 2010, and our Affordable Homes Programme will deliver 170,000 homes over the current spending review period (2011-2015), levering in £19.5 billion of public and private funding. At the recent Autumn Statement we announced this Government would extend the capital expenditure for affordable housing to 2020.This means that we plan to deliver 275,000 affordable homes in the next five years, the fastest such rate of build out in over two decades