MP presses Chancellor to help pension schemes invest in more affordable housing for Cumbria

On the floor of the House of Commons yesterday, Cumbrian MP Tim Farron challenged the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to incentivise pension schemes to fund more affordable house building in the county.

It comes after Pension Insurance Corporation announced it would invest £500m over the next five years to build around 1,000 affordable homes in London.

Speaking during Treasury oral questions in Parliament, Tim said: “Encouraging news that Pension Insurance Corporation recently announced that it was going to invest in helping support 1000 new affordable homes in this city.

“Does he agree that pension funds could be a very important source of capital for funding for developing social rented housing around the country such as Eden Housing, South Lakes Housing, Westmorland and Furness Council, for example.

“And would he agree to look at the rules to bring in greater incentives for pension companies, pension investment funds to invest in affordable housing across the country?

In response, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “We are already working on proposals in that very area.

“And what I would say to him is that broadly speaking, we have one of the most robust and resilient pension fund sectors in the world, but we are doing a lot of work to remove the barriers to them investing back in the UK.

“And things like affordable housing, infrastructure, our growth businesses are areas of great potential.”