Chancellor announces £2bn cash injection to help build 18,000 affordable and social homes

A FRESH £2bn cash injection will help Britain build up to 18,000 social and affordable homes.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves today announced new funding to support residential developments set for competition by 2029.

Thousands of affordable homes will begin construction by March 2027, with ministers encouraging building firms to step forward with bids to ramp up housing supply.

Manchester and Liverpool will be among the areas targeted by Ms Reeves to increase the number of homes.

The Chancellor said: “We are fixing the housing crisis in this country with the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

“Today’s announcement will help drive growth through our Plan for Change by delivering up to 18,000 new homes, as well as jobs and opportunities, getting more money into working people's pockets.”;

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner added: “Everyone deserves to have a safe and secure roof over their heads and a place to call their own, but the reality is that far too many people have been frozen out of homeownership or denied the chance to rent a home they can afford thanks to the housing crisis we’ve inherited.

“This investment will help us to build thousands more affordable homes to buy and rent and get working people and families into secure homes and onto the housing ladder.”;

The announcement comes a day before Ms Reeves swings the axe at Whitehall spending in a desperate bid to balance the books at the Spring Statement.

With government borrowing higher than predicted and growth expected to plummet, she will tell the country that her headroom of around £10 billion from last year has been wiped out.

The Chancellor won’t announce changes to taxes in the Spring Statement, but has her sights set on the civil service with jobs in the tens of thousands primed for the chop.

On Monday leading economist Paul Johnson warned that taxes are at the highest level they have ever been.

The Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies claimed there had been a “historically extraordinary increase”; in levies, with no signs of slowing down for the remainder of the decade.

Sir Keir Starmer and the Chancellor have refused to rule out more brutal tax hikes in the next Autumn Budget.

Mr Johnson told the BBC: “I think the key fact is if you want serious money you have to do broadly speaking what the Chancellor did back in October – you have to raise one of the big taxes, and she decided to raise National Insurance.

“I think it is really important to be clear for those who are asking for increased taxes – this is the biggest period of raising taxes we have ever had, or at least we have had since the Second World War.

“They are rising by an extraordinary amount over this decade.”;