Abena Oppong-Asare urges earlier funding for affordable homes in England

Abena Oppong-Asare, the Labour chair of the Commons housing committee, urged the government on 9 October 2026 to allocate more of England’s £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme during this parliament. Her appeal follows housing associations’ claim that additional funding for unsuccessful bids could support 41,000 more homes outside London over 10 years. Those homes have not been approved under the programme.

Oppong-Asare called on Chancellor John Healey to use the upcoming budget to commit a significant share of the funding sooner and prioritise homes let at social rent. ‘Families stuck on social housing waiting lists need to see action now,’ she said, according to the Guardian. The question for ministers is when to allocate money already planned across the programme’s 10-year life, and whether to fund more of the bids submitted by housing associations.

How much affordable housing funding has been allocated?

The £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme was announced in the government’s June 2025 Spending Review, according to the National Housing Federation. The government says its principal aim is to increase the supply of affordable homes, particularly homes for social rent. The federation’s programme guidance says it aims to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes over 10 years, with at least 60% for social rent. Those are programme goals rather than a count of completed homes.

In an August policy paper, the government said initial strategic partnership allocations totalled £9.58bn for 33 providers outside London. It said the awards would support tens of thousands of homes, nearly two-thirds of them expected to be for social rent. The Ministry of Housing subsequently told the Guardian that nearly £10bn had already been allocated to support more than 70,000 council, social and affordable homes across England. These figures describe planned delivery backed by allocations, not homes already built.

What is behind the 41,000-home estimate?

The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said members could build an additional 41,000 homes outside London over 10 years if the government provided more funding. It said 25,000 could be for social rent and that an additional £5.3bn would be needed. The estimate reflects bids for which associations say they did not receive all the funding requested; the underlying calculation for individual bids was not available in the published material reviewed for this article.

Associations said they could begin work on 15,000 of the proposed additional homes within three years if funding were provided. That is a statement about potential starts, separate from the 10-year estimate and from the homes covered by existing government allocations. Federation chief executive Kate Henderson said providers with ready sites and track records had missed out on funding. The government, for its part, said Homes England assessed bids in a competitive process.

What happens to the remaining programme funding?

The government’s policy paper says it intends to prioritise social rent homes, particularly council homes, in future allocations, while continuing to accept bids from other providers. For London, it said the Greater London Authority intended to offer at least £6bn to providers and that the capital could receive up to £11.7bn over the programme’s lifetime. The federation says applications for individual projects remain possible through Continuous Market Engagement, although the initial strategic partnership bidding round closed on 15 April 2026.

The need for affordable housing is substantial: the government’s August paper reported almost 180,000 children living in temporary accommodation, including more than 100,000 in London. That figure describes the wider housing pressure; it does not show how many households would receive one of the homes proposed in the disputed bids. The programme also includes £2.5bn in low-interest loans for new social and affordable housing, according to the federation, which said further details were expected before the end of 2026.

It remains unclear whether the chancellor will bring any allocation forward in the upcoming budget, or approve more funding for the associations’ bids. The federation’s 41,000-home figure depends on additional funding and delivery over a decade. For now, the confirmed development is Oppong-Asare’s call to change the timing and priorities of a programme whose later allocations have yet to be decided.