Member

I think it is important to acknowledge the new crisis and resilience fund, which I believe is worth £1 billion this year—but in a sense we can add that to the list of the costs of this policy. I would like to ask the Minister whether discretionary housing payments, which I believe were also £1 billion, are additional new money. Does she deem that this will actually be sufficient? We are also told that housebuilding will solve this: “We need more homes, especially social homes”, and so say we. But I think we must be living in la-la land if we think that supply is going to change quickly enough to impact on rents and house prices. We hear this repeated time and again, yet I have seen academics saying that this will never happen and that it is actually a policy con trick. Supply takes years to affect rents, if at all. People cannot wait years—children cannot wait years. Even in a better market, we would still need LHA, which is essential for people on the lowest incomes, and linked to rents. People cannot pay today’s rent with tomorrow’s houses. Affordability is collapsing now.