In July last year we set out a detailed five-step plan to deliver a decade of renewal in social and affordable housing. The plan includes the biggest boost to grant funding in a generation, the establishment of an effective and stable regulatory regime, and action to rebuild the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest in new and existing homes. All that—alongside investment in existing stock—will help to ensure that councils and housing associations throughout the north-east can deliver more homes.
I am glad to see the Government focusing so much on building social housing, including some in my constituency, but it will also be important to maintain the stock once it has been built and to look at existing stock. Can the Minister say when the issue of rent convergence will be resolved?
The Government remain committed to implementing social rent convergence to support additional investment in new and existing social housing. We will announce a decision on how it will be implemented later this month, before the launch of the social and affordable homes programme. That decision will take into account the benefits to the supply and quality of social and affordable housing, and the impact on rent payers and welfare spending.