Press release: PM: We must get back to building the homes this country needs

The number of new homes delivered each year has been increasing since 2010, but the Prime Minister will say there is more we can do to build the homes the country needs.

Speaking ahead of a visit to a housing development in Barnet, North London today (Thursday 16 November), which coincides with the publication of new statistics on housebuilding, Theresa May said:

“For decades we simply have not been building enough homes, nor have we been building them quickly enough, and we have seen prices rise.

“The number of new homes being delivered each year has been increasing since 2010, but there is more we can do.

“We must get back into the business of building the good quality new homes for people who need them most.

“That is why I have made it my mission to build the homes the country needs and take personal charge of the Government’s response.

“Today I am seeing the work now underway to put this right and, in coming weeks and months, my Government will be going further to ensure that we build more homes, more quickly.

“This will be a long journey and it will take time for us to fix the broken housing market – but I am determined to build a Britain fit for the future.”

Later today Communities Secretary Sajid Javid will deliver a speech on housing at the Temple Meads Quarter in Bristol to reinforce the government’s approach to back housing of all tenures, including more social housing.

The Communities Secretary is expected to say:

“The generation crying out for help with housing is not over-entitled. They don’t want the world handed to them on a plate. They want simple fairness, moral justice, the opportunity to play by the same rules enjoyed by those who came before them.

“Without affordable, secure, safe housing we risk creating a rootless generation, drifting from one short-term tenancy to the next, never staying long enough to play a role in their community.

“Our Housing White Paper in February set out our broad vision. It described the scale of the challenge and the need for action on many fronts. Since then we’ve been putting it into action, laying the foundations for hundreds of thousands more homes.

“But there are many, many faults in our housing market, dating back many, many years. If you only fix one you’ll make some progress, but not enough. This is a big problem and we have to think big.”

He will announce that the Government is taking housing associations’ debt off the balance sheet, ensuring housing associations have a stable investment environment to build more homes.

This builds on the Government’s ongoing work to tackle the challenges in the housing sector including:

• Increasing the affordable housing budget by an additional £2 billion to over £9 billion, to deliver more homes at social rent and potentially leverage investment from housing associations and councils of up to £5 billion;
• Setting a long term rent deal for councils and housing associations in England from 2020 – helping support them build more homes;
• Creating the £3 billion Home Building Fund last year to build more houses across England. Over £1.7 billion has now been committed, and will mean over 100,000 new homes built across England;
• Publishing the Housing White Paper which set out the Government’s plans, including ensuring councils release more land for housing, and giving them new powers to ensure that developers actually build homes once they’re given planning permission to do so;
• Introducing schemes like Help to Buy to support people who are struggling right now – this has already helped over 130,000 more families with the deposit they need to buy their own home. We have now invested a further £10 billion in Help to Buy to help a further 135,000 households by 2021; and
• Meeting big and small developers, local authorities and housing associations to ask them to all play their part in increasing the number of homes being built. The Prime Minister and the Communities Secretary recently held a meeting with developers and housing associations in Downing Street to discuss actions needed to remove the barriers they are facing in building new homes.

Since April 2010, around 346,000 affordable homes have been delivered, including 240,000 for rent. More than twice as much council housing has been built since 2010 than in the previous 13 years.