​MPs calls on Sunak to build 90,000 social rented homes a year

MPs have called on the government to commit to building more affordable homes by setting a target of 90,000 social rented homes a year. 

The Levelling Up and Housing select committee has said the only way to solve the housing crisis is with a “significant increase in house building, particularly affordable housing”. 

“We therefore call on the government to recommit to delivering the affordable homes the country needs, particularly the 90,000 social rent homes we have previously concluded are needed every year,” the committee said in a report on reforming the private rented sector released today. The committee in 2020 called on the Boris Johnson government to commit to build 90,000 social rented homes a year. 

A separate group of MPs, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), has previously said the government is only aiming to build 33,550 social homes under the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme. The AHP programme initially targeted 180,000 homes a year of which half are for either social rent or affordbale home. This overall figure is now expected to be 157,000.

‘Reforming the Private Rented Sector’ has been released in response to the government’s white paper published in June last year that sets out the government’s vision for reforming the private rented sector. 

The Levelling Up committee MPs noted in their report the white paper does not “seek to address the structural cause of the affordability crisis, which is the chronic undersupply of housing”. 

They said: “The current high cost of private renting is rooted in the decades-long failure of successive governments to build enough homes. 

“Ultimately, the affordability crisis in the PRS, the source of many of the other problems in the sector, can only be properly solved by a significant increase in house building, particularly affordable housing.”

In the report, the committee highlighted there was a question over the sector’s “ability to deliver the necessary number of new homes, particularly given the enormous financial pressures on housing associations and local housing authorities”.

The Public Accounts Committee released a report at the end of last year saying the government would fall short of building its goal of 180,000 new homes through the 2021-2026 Affordable Homes Programme. 

Housing Today is calling on the government to properly recommit to its 2019 manifesto pledge of building 300,000 homes in England a year through its Fair Deal for Housing campaign.