Burnham’s council housing promise has a £16-billion problem
Key Points
- The National Housing Bank launched in April 2026 with £16 billion in capacity
- Fiscal rules block the bank from straightforwardly funding council-owned homes
- Burnham promised the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period
- England has 434 dwellings per 1,000 people against an OECD average of 487
- The NHB targets £53 billion in private investment over 10 years
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”, but think tank the Resolution Foundation warns the government cannot actually deliver it.
The National Housing Bank launched in April 2026 as a subsidiary of Homes England, England’s housing and regeneration agency, with £16 billion in capacity.
That splits into £10.5 billion for loans and equity and £5.5 billion in guarantees, and sits alongside Homes England’s £27 billion in grant capital for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme plus a further £3 billion for infrastructure and land, a combined £46 billion housing platform.
The NHB operates through financial transactions, loans and equity stakes that count favourably against the Government’s debt measure because the state acquires an asset in return.
However Council houses work differently: when a local authority builds and owns homes, the spending scores against the fiscal rules in full.
What the bank can and cannot fund
The Resolution Foundation warns bluntly that what the NHB cannot do within the fiscal rules, at least not straightforwardly, is boost the supply of houses built and owned by councils rather than broader social housing owned by housing associations.
The think tank notes it remains unclear which of the two Burnham’s promise actually refers to.
The bank offers seven core debt products, including low interest loans for registered providers of social and affordable homes, plus three equity products investing multiples of at least £50 million in vehicles delivering more than 3,000 homes, generally on commercial terms.
History adds a further complication. The Office for National Statistics reclassified housing associations into the public sector in 2015 after the government forced rent cuts on them, adding £60 billion to public debt overnight, and only returned them to the private sector in 2017 after ministers legislated to relinquish control.
Any Burnham programme that leans too hard on housing associations risks repeating that episode.
A puffling among PuFins
England needs the homes regardless of who owns them. In 2020, England had 434 dwellings per 1,000 people, below the OECD average of 487 and comparably sized Denmark on 497 and France on 590.
The NHB aims to mobilise £53 billion of private investment over 10 years, £5 for every £1 of its own loan and equity money.
The Resolution Foundation describes the institution as “a puffling by comparison” with established bodies like the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund, warning that recruitment, corporate governance and risk management systems will constrain its impact in the short term.
Burnham has pledged to keep the existing fiscal rules. Unless he changes them, funds council housing through conventional capital spending, or quietly redefines his promise as housing association homes, the £16 billion bank built to deliver his housing agenda cannot fund the one thing he named.
