Labour chair of housing committee calls for urgent funds for affordable homes in England

Oppong-Asare said families on social housing waiting lists needed to ‘see action now’. Photo : Collected

The Labour chair of the Commons housing committee is urging John Healey to bring forward billions of pounds of planned spending on social and affordable homes in England, after housing associations said they were ready to build tens of thousands more.

Abena Oppong-Asare called for the chancellor to allocate money from the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) as soon as possible, rather than after the election as planned.

Housing associations have said they could build an additional 41,000 homes outside London over the next 10 years if they had more government funding.

They said the extra units would help the government get closer to its target of building 1.5m new homes across this parliament – though the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, recently admitted that it would be difficult to achieve.

Oppong-Asare said: “The government should use the upcoming budget to increase the building of social homes by ensuring a significant proportion of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme is allocated during this parliament.

“Families stuck on social housing waiting lists need to see action now. I urge the chancellor to ensure a significant sum of the £39bn SAHP is allocated during this parliament and that truly affordable social rent homes are prioritised as part of this package.”

Healey’s predecessor, Rachel Reeves, announced the £39bn 10-year fund last year, having changed the government’s borrowing rules to allow her to borrow more for capital projects.

The money was due to be spent on a mix of council houses and a number of other types of affordable housing, including affordable rents and shared ownership schemes.

Before he became prime minister, Andy Burnham had said the scheme should be reallocated entirely to social rent housing.

But when the first £10bn was allocated under his government in August, it went to a mix of councils and housing associations outside London to spend on a variety of types of subsidised homes.

Ministers said the money would help build 70,000 new homes. But housing associations said they could have built an additional 41,000 – including 25,000 for social rent – if the government had given them all the money for which they bid.

They said they could start construction work on 15,000 of those in the next three years – though some associations have come under fire for selling their homes to the private sector.

The National Housing Federation (NHF), which represents housing associations, said ministers would have to allocate an additional £5.3bn from the programme to build the extra homes.

Ministers have said they are planning to allocate £6bn to London immediately. But of the remaining £13bn, they said they planned to hand out “significant sums” in the second half of the scheme, which would come after the next election.

Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the NHF, said: “Housing associations submitted bids with plans to build tens of thousands of affordable homes, but many organisations with sites ready to go and proven track records did not receive the funding needed to deliver these homes.

“With additional investment now, it is possible to help transform the lives of families in urgent need of an affordable home.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing said: “We’ve already announced nearly £10bn of allocations from the Social and Affordable Homes Programme so we can start building more than 70,000 council, social and affordable homes across England.

“Our record investment will help families trapped in temporary accommodation or stuck on housing waiting lists into safe, secure homes.”