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<p> </p><p>The Coalition Government has put in place a range of measures to get Britain
building again, fix the broken housing market and help hard-working people get the
home they want.</p><p>Action taken includes wide-ranging planning reform through National
Planning Policy Framework; introducing self-financing for stock holding local authorities;
new incentives to deliver housing growth through the New Homes Bonus; as well as the
Government's broader long-term economic plan to tackle the deficit left by the last
Administration and keep interest rates down. I would note:</p><p>· We have already
delivered 420,000 new homes since 2010;</p><p>· New orders in residential construction
have risen to their highest level since 2007 according to the Office for National
Statistics;</p><p>· Housing starts are at their highest since 2007 according to DCLG
figures;</p><p>· The number of first time buyers is at its highest since 2007 according
to the Council for Mortgage Lenders;</p><p>· Repossessions are at their lowest since
2007, according to the Council for Mortgage Lenders; and</p><p>· New home registrations
rose by 30 per cent in 2013 in England, the highest since 2007, and are up 60 per
cent in London, according to the NHBC.</p><p>In relation to specific programmes:</p><p><em>Affordable
housing</em></p><p>Over 170,000 affordable homes have been delivered in England since
April 2010.</p><p>Our Affordable Homes Programme will deliver 170,000 homes over the
current spending review period (2011-2015) levering in £19.5 billion of public and
private funding. We have announced a new ‘Affordable Rent to Buy' scheme which will
deliver affordable homes through a recoverable fund. The new Affordable Homes Programme
for the next spending period, will lever in up to £23 billion in public and private
funding to deliver 165,000 homes from 2015 to 2018.</p><p>The Affordable Housing Guarantee
Scheme is worth up to £3.5 billion (with further lending capacity held in reserve
according to demand) and supported by up to £450 million grant funding in England.
Up to 30,000 additional affordable homes will be underway by December 2017. Affordable
Housing Finance Plc was awarded the licence for the Affordable Housing Guarantee Scheme
in June 2013. The first eight housing associations to be approved to borrow through
the scheme were announced in January 2014, who will raise over £400 million of debt
to facilitate the delivery of over 4,000 new affordable homes. We also announced a
European Investment Bank loan facility worth £500 million. More borrowers will follow.</p><p>The
Right to Buy Scheme, allowing eligible social tenants to buy their homes at a discount
has achieved almost 24,000 sales since April 2010, with the majority (16,200) since
we reinvigorated the scheme in 2012. A total of 2,845 council properties were sold
between October and December last year, a 42 per cent increase on the same period
in 2012. The reinvigorated Right to Buy ensures, for the first time, that the receipts
from the additional sales, that is those over what was forecast prior to the change,
are reinvested in helping to fund new homes for affordable rent. So far, £300 million
has been generated from additional sales and already over 2000 homes have been started
on site or acquired since April 2012.</p><p><em>Self-financing for local authorities
</em></p><p>In 2012 the Government reformed the council house finance system, introducing
self-financing for those local authorities that still own and manage their own housing.
This system of self-financing has given local authorities greater freedoms and flexibilities
to manage their housing and many are now starting to use those freedoms to build new
council housing.</p><p>To further increase the supply of housing locally, the Government
has made available £300 million of additional Housing Revenue Account borrowing as
part of the Local Growth Fund to help those authorities that need additional borrowing
and want to deliver new affordable homes quickly. We are looking to local authorities,
who need additional borrowing, to bid for that increase by 16 June 2014 and for schemes
that would help to deliver 10,000 new affordable homes.</p><p><em>Home ownership schemes
(Help to Buy)</em></p><p>Since April 2013, the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme has
offered buyers a 20 per cent equity loan that can be used towards the cost of buying
a new build homes, allowing people to buy with a 5 per cent deposit. There were over
30,000 reservations and 19,394 completed loans across England by the end of March
2014, with funding for up to 74,000 sales by March 2016. Alongside this, the Help
to Buy: NewBuy scheme has also supported a further 5,173 households to purchase new
build homes by the end of March 2014. The Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme was extended
through the 2014 Budget announcement to 2020 to help 120,000 more households purchase
a new build home.</p><p>The FirstBuy scheme was announced in the Budget 2011 to help
support 10,000 first time buyers on the property ladder. The scheme was replaced in
April 2013 with Help to Buy. There were 11,522 FirstBuy sales to the end of 2013;
moving forward, this is now effectively part of Help to Buy.</p><p>Since the end of
last year, the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee scheme is providing up to £12 billion
of Government guarantees to support people to buy with a 5 per cent deposit. Over
2,500 homes have (by the end of January 2014) been bought through this route. The
three Help to Buy schemes complement each other, and their success can be taken in
the whole.</p><p><em>Private rented sector</em></p><p>The £1 billion Build to Rent
programme, which provides development phase finance, is supporting new high quality
development purpose built for private rent and is on track to create up to 10,000
new homes. The programme received £1.4 billion of bids under Round One, this round
of funding is currently expected to support 15 developments which will provide nearly
2,600 homes across England in locations which presently include Durham, Liverpool,
Manchester and London. Five contracts to the combined value of over £74.5 million
have already been agreed which will deliver over 1,000 new homes for private rent;
construction has already started in Southampton (Centenary Quay) and Manchester (Three
Towers); more contracts will follow.</p><p>Bidding for Round Two of the Build to Rent
Fund was significantly oversubscribed receiving 126 bids to the value of around £3
billion. 36 projects on the shortlist from Round Two are now going through a competitive
due diligence process, with successful bids receiving funding to deliver thousands
of new homes. A list of all shortlisted bids has been placed in the Library. The shortlist
is over-programmed, meaning not all shortlisted projects will receive funding. Shortlisting
and due diligence are the first stages of the Build to Rent approval process. The
Homes and Communities Agency will continue to work with bidders until exchange of
contracts in order to ensure value for money for taxpayers.</p><p>In addition to direct
funding, the Government's Private Rented Sector Taskforce is continuing to build the
private rented sector as an investment market and have identified £10 billion of domestic
and foreign investment available in the private rented sector.</p><p>The Private Rented
Sector Guarantees scheme will provide a government guarantee for up to £3.5 billion
debt (plus an additional amount held in reserve) for borrowers investing in new build
private rented sector homes across the UK. The guarantees will use the UK Government's
hard earned fiscal credibility to help lower the cost of borrowing and incentivise
investment in the sector. DCLG is open for business to issue direct guarantees and
is actively discussing potential applications with a number of borrowers looking to
invest in large scale developments. On 18 March, we also launched a procurement inviting
bids from the market to be our delivery partner for Private Rented Sector Housing
Debt Guarantees, with the aim of maximising take up of guarantees including for small
and medium enterprises. My Department will be evaluating bids to perform the role
in due course.</p><p><em>Infrastructure and development finance</em></p><p>The Get
Britain Building investment fund has been provided over £500 million of finance to
unlock smaller stalled sites. As at February 2014, it has helped kick start 11,893
new homes on stalled sites.</p><p>The Growing Places Fund is providing £770 million
to deliver the infrastructure needed to unlock stalled schemes that will promoted
economic growth, create jobs and build homes. The fund has been fully allocated to
Local Enterprise Partnerships and the devolved administrations to fund local projects.
Progress updates in June 2013 reported that £652 million of capital funding had been
allocated to 305 projects across England. Local Enterprise Partnerships expect these
projects to create 4,900 businesses, 94,000 jobs and 27,000 houses. A further update
will be published in due course.</p><p>The £474 million Local Infrastructure Fund
is helping to unlock large scale housing developments. To date, we have unlocked 15
sites capable of delivering almost 80,000 homes through a combination of financial
and non-financial support. We are currently working to unlock a further 13 stalled
schemes to deliver up to 40,000 new homes. In addition to the capital investment,
we have made available £13 million of capacity funding to support local authorities
in fulfilling their local housing ambitions.</p><p>The 2013 Autumn Statement also
announced a further £1 billion to unlock development on large housing sites and a
Prospectus inviting bids was published on 14 April. During the Easter Recess, we also
published the Local Growth Fund (Housing Infrastructure) prospectus. This sets out
the detail on how to access the £50 million part of the Local Growth Fund in 2015-16.
It is designed to help speed up and restart housing developments between 250 and 1,499
units that have slowed down or stalled.</p><p>The 2014 Budget announced further funding
for driving up housing supply including a £525 million Builders Finance Fund to provide
development finance for small sites to support the construction of 15,000 new homes;
the prospectus has also recently been published.</p><p>The Budget announced the intention
to create an Urban Development Corporation for the Ebbsfleet area to accelerate the
construction of a garden-city style development which will unlock up to 15,000 homes
– with up to £200 million capital being made available. We have also published a prospectus
to support further locally-led garden cities.</p><p>A new Estate Regeneration Fund
of £150 million of recoverable investment will help kick start and accelerate the
regeneration of some of our most deprived estates. And we will work with the Greater
London Authority to support the regeneration of Brent Cross and unlock 11,000 homes
at Barking Riverside.</p><p>We have also taken steps to scale back economically unrealistic
Section 106 agreements, such as from the last Administration's housing bubble, which
result in no housing development, no regeneration and no community benefits.</p><p><em>Self-build</em></p><p>The
£30 million investment fund for Custom Build Homes is currently assessing loan funding
of £22.6 million with the potential to deliver 270 homes. At the 2014 Budget, we announced
that the Government will consult on a new ‘Right to Build' to give self builders a
right to a plot from councils, a new £150 million investment fund to help provide
up to 10,000 serviced building plots, and announced will we look to extend Help to
Buy equity loan to custom builders. We have also exempted self-build from the Community
Infrastructure Levy and we are consulting on a similar policy change for Section 106
tariffs.</p><p><em>Empty homes</em></p><p>This Government has provided £235 million
of funding which aims to bring up to 12,000 homes back into use by March 2015.. This
is part of a wider package of measures to get empty property back into productive
use, in contrast to the last Administration's policy of wholesale demolition. The
numbers of empty homes in England have fallen to a 10-year low, and the number of
long-term vacant properties has fallen by around a third since 2009.</p><p><em>Public
sector land</em></p><p>The Public Sector Land Programme has identified land with capacity
for over 100,000 homes which we aim to release to the private sector by March 2015.
At the end of December 2013, we had released land capable of delivering 68,000 homes
to be built.</p><p>Through the Strategic Land and Property Review we have identified
scope to generate £5 billion of receipts from government land and property between
2015 and 2020. This will put land and property into the hands of those who can exploit
them for commercial purposes – creating opportunities for housing and economic development.</p><p>This
was part of a series of measures to support brownfield development, as outlined in
more detail in the answer of 3 April 2014, <em>Official Report</em>, House of Commons,
Column 780W.</p><p><em>Improving the home buying process</em></p><p>To help reduce
costs for buying a home, we have scrapped the last Administration's Home Information
Packs which duplicated costs and were not trusted by buyers.</p><p>There is more to
do, but I hope this illustrates how this Government's long-term economic plan is helping
build more houses, help people move on and up the housing ladder and clean up the
mess left by the last Administration.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
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