Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to understand how the building of 1.5 million new affordable homes is likely to impact on the number of empty homes; and what precautions are in place to prevent the number of empty homes rising.

The government wants to see more empty homes brought back into use. But the sheer scale of the housing crisis demands historic levels of housebuilding, which is why we have committed to building 1.5 million homes over this Parliament.

The government does not publish correspondence relating to the location of empty homes in the UK. Statistics on empty properties in England are published annually and can be found on gov.uk here (attached).