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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to deliver 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s.

The Government is committed to building the homes this country needs. This will help to get more people on the housing ladder, support local economic growth, and create stronger and more sustainable communities.

We are making strong progress towards delivering our ambition to build 300,000 homes a year, and to build 1 million homes over the course of this parliament. From April 2019 to March 2020 around 244,000 homes were delivered - the highest level for over 30 years and the seventh consecutive year that net supply has increased.

COVID 19 stoppages inevitably had an impact on housebuilding, but government took swift action to support the sector through this period, including a stamp duty land tax holiday and issuing developers with guidelines on operating in an effective and safe manner. Housing completions have started to rebound; ONS figures show that the first two quarters of 2021 saw completions 67% higher than in the same period of 2020.