“We do not believe there is any funding gap.” So said junior housing minister Baroness Scott last month, pressed by MPs on the housing select committee over the government’s troubled £11.5bn Affordable Housing Programme.

The social housing sector might take some convincing. Even if delivering fully, the government-funded programme, equivalent to around 30,000 homes a year, would produce just a fraction of the 145,000 new affordable homes assessed by researchers as necessary each year to meet need.

But the programme isn’t delivering fully. Housing associations are setting about a sharp contraction of development in the face of overwhelming economic, financial, and policy headwinds. It’s not a threat: The latest official data on affordable housebuilding show that grant funded starts of social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership properties collapsed by 60% year-on-year in England the first half of the 23/24 financial year.

The Baroness admitted that the affordable homes programme (AHP) – originally conceived to deliver up to 180,000 homes between 2021 and 2026 – will now deliver fewer homes than planned – but refused to say exactly how many. So, what is really about to happen to affordable housing delivery, and can anything be done to turn the situation around?

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