St Mungo’s response to the Social Housing Green Paper

St Mungo’s welcome the government’s recognition that social housing has a vital role to play in ensuring that everyone has a safe, secure and affordable place to call their own. However, we do not feel that the Green Paper is ambitious enough when it comes to increasing supply in order to achieve this. 

• Question 45: Recognising the need for fiscal responsibility, this Green Paper seeks views on whether the government’s current arrangements strike the right balance between providing grant funding for housing associations and Housing Revenue Account borrowing for Local Authorities 

No – they don’t strike the right balance.  

Since the social housing Green Paper was published, the Prime Minister has announced that the borrowing cap on councils will be lifted to allow them to build more homes. St Mungo’s welcome this announcement, which we hope will help increase the supply of much-needed social housing, including for those with a history of rough sleeping. However, lifting the borrowing cap for councils must be just the first step of reform, not the last. The government will need to provide significantly more funding to build new social housing, including through grant funding for housing associations, in order to help build the 90,000 homes for social rent every year for 15 years that are needed to meet demand.