Member

I will make one final point to support the case—one which has not been made before. If you are on the housing waiting list, the number of new social homes is relevant, and the more the better. But someone in housing need is eight times more likely to be rehoused through a re-let than through a new build. Increasing the number of re-lets is a key ingredient for helping those in need, and a new re-let can be secured at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time of a new build. Focusing our social housing on those in greatest need, to use the Government’s own words, means a good, hard look at how social housing is used at the moment and, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, asking whether life tenancies are the answer to a question from a different era.