The justification is clear: over the past three years the rate of increase in rents for social tenants was twice that of private tenants. Since 2012-13 the increase in social rents has been 9.1%, and 4.8% for private tenants. It seems not unreasonable to reset the baseline—if I can put it that way—to reflect the experience in the rental sector of people in the country. I would be interested to hear from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East whether the Labour party will share our enthusiasm for the cut in rent for social tenants of 1% a year, when it has been increasing above inflation. It is an important move.
We want to encourage home ownership and build homes that people can afford to buy. We are extending Help to Buy, which has already helped 100,000 people to buy their own home. In autumn we will introduce the new Help to Buy individual savings account, and we will give more than 1 million housing association tenants the right to buy. The Budget and the productivity plan that the Chancellor published on Friday will free up brownfield land for development, speed up the planning system, and deliver thousands of new homes for aspiring homeowners.