Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-10-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2015 to Question 11946, if his Department will provide additional funding for local authorities to assist them in building new homes; and if he will make a statement.

Brandon Lewis

The Government provides an annual settlement to local authorities in England to fund delivery of key local services. Since 2013/14 authorities have retained any council tax raised on new homes built. In addition, the Coalition Government introduced the New Homes Bonus, which has to date allocated some £3.4 billion of funding to local authorities to recognise delivery of over 700,000 homes and over 100,000 long term empty properties returned to use.

The 2012 Housing Revenue Account self-financing settlement gave local authorities the freedom to plan their housing businesses in the long term. In the 3 years between 2012/13 and 2014/15 councils built 3,630 local authority dwellings. 2014 saw the highest number of council housing starts for 23 years (2,630 dwellings). In 2015/16 and 2016/17 we are also providing 36 local authorities with almost £222 million of additional borrowing headroom to develop over 3,000 additional homes.

Future spending priorities will be determined through the Spending Review process currently underway.