Chancellor Rishi Sunak heralded increased investment in housing
through the Affordable Housing Programme, a new £1billion Building
Safety Fund to remediate unsafe non-ACM cladding, an immediate
reversal in the recent increase in the PWLB interest rate for
social housing and more money to help tackle rough sleeping.
Conspicuous by its absence was any announcement on greater
flexibilities in the use of Right to Buy receipts or any specific
resources to support councils in retrofitting the housing stock to
assist in reaching the Government's carbon neutral targets.
In summary, the key points of the Chancellor's announcements on
social housing were as follows:
Affordable
Housing Programme (AHP)
- A £12 billion investment in the Affordable Housing Programme to
build affordable homes - the Government say this will be the
biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade and is
expected to bring in around a further £38 billion in additional
investment.
- This new 5-year investment in the AHP from 2021 will deliver
additional affordable housing, help people to own their own home,
and build social rent homes to help families and those most at risk
of homelessness in areas of the country where affordability
pressure is most acute.
- The Budget gives no further details of the full delivery
details of the new programme, the amount of homes it will deliver
and the tenure split, which MHCLG officials say will be announced
in due course.
- At this stage there is no information on how much of this new
money will be available for social rented housing and the council
house building programme.
Building
Safety Fund
- To ensure the homes that people are living in are safe, the
Government is establishing a new £1 billion fund to remediate
unsafe non-ACM cladding on residential buildings over 18m and just
below. This fund will be available to address the problem of unsafe
cladding in both the private and social sectors.
- This is in addition to the £600 million the Government has already made
available to remove ACM cladding from social housing and
private residential buildings.
- The criteria for accessing this funding has not yet been
announced but ARCH understands from MHCLG officials that the fund
will only be available to remove unsafe cladding and will not be
available for other fire safety works such as replacement of fire
doors or retrofitting sprinkler systems. Furthermore, the funding
will only be available to building owners who cannot afford to fund
these works through other means, but it is as yet unclear how this
will be assessed. MHCLG officials simply say that the Government
expects building owners who have already committed to fund remedial
works without passing on the costs to leaseholders to stick to
these commitments so the Government can prioritise this funding on
those for who cannot afford the cost, creating a barrier to
remediation and safety.
Public Works
Loan Board (PWLB)
- In October 2019 HM Treasury raised the interest rate on new
loans from the PWLB, because a surge in borrowing by a
minority of local authorities risked exhausting the PWLB's lending
budget. The Budget announced a reversal of this change reversing
the interest rate increase but only for borrowing for social
housing.
- The Government has launched a consultation on proposals to reform the PWLB
lending terms to prevent a repeat of this situation,
consulting on methods of targeted intervention to stop local
authorities diverting PWLB loans into investment assets.
- HRA rates were lowered for new PWLB loans from 12 March.
Homelessness/Rough
Sleeping
- The Chancellor announced an additional £145 million, on top of
the £236 million announced at the end of February, to offer 'move
on' accommodation for up to 6,000 rough sleepers and those at
immediate risk of rough sleeping and an additional £262 million for
substance misuse treatment and recovery services.
- This means in 20/21 the Government are providing £492 million
to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping - a £124 million increase
in funding from 19/20.
- The Chancellor also announced a new £46 million
cross-Government programme to help people facing multiple
disadvantage. MHCLG say this programme will ensure around 5,000
people with multiple needs get joined-up help from a range of local
services, including health, probation, job centres and local
authorities.
ARCH Policy Adviser Matthew Warburton has produced a more
detailed Briefing Paper on the Budget for ARCH
members.