I will not detain colleagues to that extent, but I am grateful for the confirmation that I can continue. The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) is keen to make a comparison. The fundamental thing that we are trying to do at the moment is weigh up a series of very challenging economic circumstances, recognising the context of housing supply, which has been a challenge for the entirety of my life. We recognise that we have to make progress for the very reasons that right hon. and hon. Members have outlined over the course of the debate. It is so important to do so, given that housing supply affects and impacts the lives of real people.
Let me comment on individual contributions. The hon. Member for Slough, opening the debate, emphasised the importance of the property-owning democracy, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I hope we can make progress on that and also address some points made by other hon. Members. He also said that there should be greater clarity on the affordable housing programme going forward. Although I am not able to give that in today’s debate, we have said that we will come back in the spring with further clarity about what is happening; there is not a huge amount of spring left, so I hope it will not be too much longer before my housing colleagues in the Department will do so. I anticipate the Department being able to provide further information to the hon. Member and others in the coming weeks.
The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) raised a number of points about the inherent challenges in the housing market and of trade-off. During my brief tenure as the Housing Minister back in the autumn, we had a debate in this very place about some of the issues, and she spoke then with regard to Coventry specifically. I cannot talk about Coventry individually, but I will put on record, if hon. Members allow me, the progress that has been made in the past 13 years. I realise that many colleagues will not necessarily want to point to that, but it is important for balance that we do.
Two million homes have been built in this country since 2010, and almost 1 million people—over 800,000—have been helped into ownership through schemes such as help to buy. Some 630,000 new affordable homes have been built. Last year, the registered supply of new homes increased over the previous year by approximately 10%, and I believe that the last five years have seen some of the highest rates of property building for 30 years.
A number of colleagues raised home ownership. Crucially, after a pretty linear fall from the mid-2000s under Governments of all parties, home ownership has started to increase again for the first time in a number of years. The increase is incremental—the rate is up from 62.5% in 2016-17 to 64.3% in 2021-22—but it is a movement back in the direction of empowering people to own their own properties and obtain all the consequent benefits.