National Housing Federation hails 'transformative' £39bn investment in low-cost homes

 National Housing Federation hails 'transformative' £39bn investment in low-cost homes

Following the news that the government intends to allocate billions of pounds to social housing, we're hearing from the chief executive of the National Housing Federation - a trade association.

Kate Henderson tells our colleagues on the Today programme that the £39bn investment is "transformative".

It shows the government understands the importance of affordable homes, which is not just about having somewhere to live, but can also lower the welfare bill, boost the economy, and create jobs, she says.

While Henderson calls the policy "hugely positive to see" in the long term, she admits that in the short term things are still "really tough".

She says we are now facing a "record level of overcrowding" and a huge number of people on waiting lists for affordable housing. Things won't be fixed overnight, Henderson says, but she believes the policy should "give hope" to address the housing crisis.

This is a day of massive significance for all of us, because this is when the chancellor will unveil her plans for government spending right up until 2029.

And when Rachel Reeves does so, she'll be trying to carry off quite a delicate balancing act because she'll be operating on two different time frames.

In the medium and long term, she's going to be very positive and will talk about tens of billions of pounds of investment in lots of different projects. Just this morning, we're learning that includes a £39bn investment in social housing over the next 10 years.

Over the much shorter time frame, things are going to be tougher. Government spending is going to go up in real terms - that means above inflation - for each year that we're talking about here.

But the bulk of that is going to be swallowed by health spending and defence spending. And that means in lots of other areas of spending, things are going to be quite tight.

That's why there's been such intense haggling between the chancellor and all of her cabinet colleagues over the last few months. It's the results of those negotiations that we're going to see today.