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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of trends in the level of rent arrears owed to social housing providers on their ability to invest in new homes.

The Regulator of Social Housing's quarterly survey for April to June 2022 (which is based on regulatory returns from private registered providers and private registered provider groups who own or manage more than 1,000 homes) reports that mean current tenant arrears stood at 3.6% at the end of June 2022. The equivalent figures for June of 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 3.5%, 4.0% and 3.5% respectively.

The quarterly survey also reports that, in the 12 months to June 2022, £12.4 billion was invested by private registered providers in the acquisition and development of housing properties. This compares to £11.6 billion in the year to June 2021, and £11.1 billion in the year to June 2020.

The Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS) for 2020/21 show total arrears for current tenants at 4.5% of the total rent roll. The same figure for 2019/20 is 4.0% and for 2018/19 it is 3.7%. Meanwhile, the local authority sector delivered (including new builds and acquisitions) 6,811 homes in 2018/19, 7,910 homes in 2019/20 and 7,119 homes during the pandemic in 2020/21.

We have given councils a range of tools to support them to deliver more social housing, including greater freedom in how they can spend the money they receive from Right to Buy sales on replacement homes and the removal of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap in 2018 enabling local authorities to borrow for building.