The Chancellor will find more than £1 billion for new schools and social housing

The additional spending on schools will increase spending on the school building program to £1.4 billion next year.

Her cash injection is intended to get the ten-year reconstruction programme, which was unveiled by Boris Johnson in 2021, back on track towards the originally promised fifty new schools per year.

Only 23 schools have been completed so far. While many more projects are under construction, even more are in budget impasse before construction due to industry-wide cost inflation.

There are currently 518 projects in the program, including many schools identified as having dangerously crumbly RAAC concrete.

Outlining some of her plans this weekend ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, Reeves also said she was committed to releasing an additional £500 million to deliver a further 5,000 new affordable homes.

The money would complement the existing Affordable Homes Program and comes ahead of the government’s housing strategy, which will be set out in detail in the spring.

Measures to increase affordable housing are accompanied by plans to reduce Right to Buy rebates to protect existing social housing stock and deliver a five-year rent scheme for social housing.

The Chancellor said: “We need to solve the housing crisis in this country. It has created a generation locked out of the real estate market, torn communities apart and slowed economic growth.

“We are rebuilding Britain by ramping up house building and delivering the 1.5 million new homes we so desperately need.”

The government also confirmed £128 million in funding this weekend to deliver new homes on complex brownfield sites.

This is assigned to:

• £56 million at Liverpool Central Docks for a scheme to deliver 2,000 homes in North Liverpool, along with office, retail, leisure and hotel facilities.
• £25 million to create a new fund with Muse Places and Pension Insurance Corporation to deliver 3,000 energy efficient new affordable homes across the country
• £47m to local authorities to tackle pollution in rivers, which has halted house building. This funding could support the delivery of up to 28,000 homes that cannot currently be built due to restrictions.