George Osborne’s announcement of cuts and changes to social housing raises more questions than it answers, Shadow Housing Minister Alison Seabeck told Tribune.
Mr Osborne said affordable housebuilding funding would be cut by 60 per cent to 2014-15, a total of £4 billion. The Government plans to build 150,000 affordable homes over the same period, funded by raising new social home rents to around 80 per cent. Some 50,000 affordable homes were built last year.
Ms Seabeck is to put down questions asking how many people are expected to take up tenancies on the new terms and how much income the Treasury expects to get. “If people can’t afford to take up the new tenancies the whole thing starts to fall apart”, she said.
The National Housing Federation estimates that the average rent of a three-bedroom social flat will rise from £85 a week to £250 as a result, which it called “staggering”.
