{"value":{"id":100320,"askingMemberId":4138,"askingMember":null,"house":"Commons","memberHasInterest":false,"dateTabled":"2014-10-22T00:00:00","dateForAnswer":"2014-10-27T00:00:00","uin":"211623","questionText":"To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what was spent on the Decent Homes Programme in each year since 2005.","answeringBodyId":7,"answeringBodyName":"Department for Communities and Local Government","isWithdrawn":false,"isNamedDay":true,"groupedQuestions":[],"answerIsHolding":false,"answerIsCorrection":false,"answeringMemberId":4009,"answeringMember":null,"correctingMemberId":null,"correctingMember":null,"dateAnswered":"2015-02-23T00:00:00","answerText":"

The last Administration failed to meet its Decent Homes target. It pledged in 2000 that: “We... are committed to ensuring that all social housing is of a decent standard within 10 years” (DETR, Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All: The Housing Green Paper, April 2000, p.11). But 16 per cent of local authority homes were not decent by 2010.

That last Government also cut the Decent Homes programme by £150 million in July 2009, cannibalising the housing programme to pay for other policies. I also observe the last Prime Minister planned to cut back housing investment, remarking before the general election: “Housing is essentially a private sector activity. Let's be honest about this... I don't see a need for us to continue with such a big renovation programme” (BBC Newsnight, 30 April 2010).

However, the Coalition Government is investing £2.3 billion from 2011 to 2016 to improve the quality of existing social housing through the Decent Homes programme and large-scale voluntary transfer gap funding The funding is for clearing the backlog, and therefore is less than under the last Administration – as by intention, there should be an increasingly smaller number of homes to pay to refurbish.

The table below shows spending since 2005.

£ million

2004-05

£578

2005-06

£864

2006-07

£814

2007-08

£1,005

2008-09

£1,017

2009-10

£1,079

2010-11

£756

2011-12

£494

2012-13

£563

2013-14

£631

2014-15

est. £532

NB. The figure for 14-15 contains £15 million funding for South Tyneside which was brought forward from the 2015-16 allocation.

The number of non-decent local authority dwellings across England has fallen from 292,000 in 1 April 2010 to 146,000 in April 2014, with a forecast of a further fall to 113,000 by April 2015. This shows clear progress in refurbishing these homes.

","originalAnswerText":"","comparableAnswerText":"","dateAnswerCorrected":null,"dateHoldingAnswer":"2014-10-27T00:00:00","attachmentCount":0,"heading":"Social Rented Housing","attachments":[],"groupedQuestionsDates":[]},"links":[{"rel":"self","href":"/Questions/100320","method":"GET"}]}