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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the building of homes for social rent from the 7,000 built in 2019 to help address the waiting list of more than 1.1 million households.

Local authorities have freedom to set their own criteria determining who qualifies for social housing in their district, through changes introduced in the Localism Act 2011. However, they must ensure that reasonable preference (overall priority) for social housing is given to certain categories of people in housing need, including homeless households, people living in overcrowded housing, and those who have medical and welfare needs.

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade.

This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. The new programme will deliver more than double the social rent than the current programme, with around 32,000 social rent homes due to be delivered.