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Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I am happy to write to the noble Earl with much more detail than I can bring to mind on my feet. There has been a significant amount of investment in low-cost housing to enable people to buy as well as to rent. Particularly in recent times, there has been the opportunity for local authorities, after some while, to build new council homes for rent. I might be wrong on this statistic, but something like 70,000 affordable homes will be built this year and next. I will write to the noble Lord with much more detail. This is not only to deal with the decent homes standard and to make sure that existing housing is brought up to a decent standard. There is an extensive new-build programme, with particular focus on affordable housing both for purchase and for rent. In the current economic climate, it has been particularly difficult to move forward on that, which is why the Government have promoted shared equity schemes as well as another scheme whose name escapes me. I will write to the noble Earl on that.