The chair of a cross-party committee of MPs has called on ministers to demonstrate how the housebuilding support package announced yesterday will increase affordable housing supply in London.

Florence Eshalomi, responding to the announcement yesterday that affordable housing requirements on private sites in the capital will be lowered from 35% to 20%, said “it is a matter of serious concern” that “London’s affordable housing target has effectively been cut.”

Eshalomi, who chairs the housing, communities and local government committee, says: “The government should set out how this temporary reduction will increase the number of affordable units delivered overall.