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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the (a) availability of labour in maintenance roles and (b) potential effect of that availability on the time taken for council residential properties to be made available to people on the housing waiting list.

Since 2012, the number of households on local authority waiting lists has reduced by 37.5%.

There is high demand for social housing and even those with priority for social housing may have to wait before a home which meets their needs becomes available. Local authorities are responsible for managing their waiting lists.

We believe the most effective way of reducing social housing waiting list times is by increasing the supply of affordable housing.

Our new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. This builds upon the success of our £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, running to 2023, which will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes.