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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to increase the provision of social housing in England.

We want to explore how local authorities can build high quality sustainable communities. We are looking to strike housing deals with councils to support ambitious and innovative plans for additional homes in high demand areas, including pro-development councils that wish to build more council housing. We are making good progress and will announce further details in due course.

We are clear that boosting affordable housing supply is a Government priority. To support this, at Autumn Statement 2016 we announced an £1.4 billion expansion of the Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme (SOAHP) 2016-21 which increased the overall budget to £7.1 billion. So far we have delivered nearly 333,000 new affordable homes since 2010, including 240,000 affordable homes for rent.

As the Secretary of State announced on 19 September, we will bring forward a Green Paper on social housing in England. This will be a wide-ranging, top-to-bottom review of the issues facing the sector, including quality and safety, tenant rights and voice, and wider issues of place, community and the local economy.