£16bn National Housing Bank launched

MHCLG has announced £16bn of “new” public investment within a National Housing Bank pledged to offer support for the construction of more than 500,000 new homes and £53bn of private investment.

The Bank is a new subsidiary of Homes England, set up to be “publicly owned and backed with £16bn of financial capacity, on top of £6bn of existing finance to be allocated this Parliament,” said the Ministry of Housing.

The move will enable Homes England to “issue government guarantees directly and have greater autonomy and flexibility to make the long-term investments that are needed to reform the housing market and deliver strong returns,” said MHCLG.

The Ministry added: “It will be able to act as a consistent partner to the private sector, bringing the stability and certainty that housing developers and investors need to make delivery happen. It will also support SMEs with new lending products and enable developers to unlock large, complex sites,” the latter including via infrastructure finance from £5bn of grand funding.