The Chancellor will find an extra £1 billion for new schools and social homes

The extra spending on schools will take spending on next year’s school building program to £1.4 billion.

Its cash injection aims to put the 10-year recovery program unveiled by Boris Johnson in 2021 on track to deliver the originally promised 50 new schools a year.

So far, only 23 schools have completed them. While many more projects are underway, even more pre-construction projects are in budget impasses due to industry-wide cost inflation.

There are currently 518 projects participating in the program, including many schools where RAAC has been found to be unsafe, brittle concrete.

Detailing some of her plans for this weekend ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, Reeves also said she had pledged an extra £500 million to deliver 5,000 new affordable homes.

The cash would complement the existing affordable homes program and comes ahead of the Government’s housing strategy, which is due to be detailed in the spring.

Measures to increase affordable housing build alongside plans to reduce Right to Buy discounts in order to protect existing social housing stock and reach a five-year agreement on social housing rents.

The Chancellor said: “We must tackle the housing crisis in this country. It has created a generation cut off from the real estate market, divided communities and stunted economic growth.

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

Over the weekend, the government also confirmed £128 million of funding to build new homes on complex brownfield sites.

This will be allocated:

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