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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether a calculation of housing affordability (a) in general and (b) in the private rented sector for (a) key workers, (b) people receiving the National Minimum Wage and (c) people receiving the National Living Wage is included in all of his Department’s policy planning for recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department commissioned the Household Resilience Study – a follow-up to the English Housing Survey, conducted in 3 waves between June 2020 and May 2021. The research collected includes affordability data from owner-occupiers, mortgagors, and both privately and socially renting tenants.

The study explored numerous measures of affordability, such as proportion of income spent on rent or mortgage, and ease in keeping up with heating costs or other household bills. The data received through the Household Resilience Study includes information on keyworker status and can be broken down by income levels.

Findings from the Household Resilience Study, alongside regular engagement with stakeholders, are used to inform policy decisions across the department, including relevant areas of post-pandemic recovery planning. Monitoring of renters’ financial resilience through the study has informed the additional £65 million of funding, announced in October, to support renters with arrears recover from the impact of the pandemic.

The latest findings from the Household Resilience Study Wave 3 can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/household-resilience-study-wave-3.