DJ I'm not sure if you are avoiding answering the question or if I just don't get your point. London has 12% of the population-ok. The more relevant statistic would seem to be that 18% of the nation's households are in social housing. Therefore, London's fair share would be to have 18% of its own housing stock for social housing. According to the report at the link below, London has close to 25% of its housing stock devoted to social housing. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/research/london/events/HEIF/HEIF2_06-08/TheRoleofSocialHousinginTheLondonEconomy/socialHousingsCurrentRoleinLondon.pdf While some might argue that housing costs in London mean that more social housing is needed here for low income and key workers, this is not borne out by the facts. According to the statistics, only about a third of those in social housing in London work including those working part-time. Social housing is not primarily for working people. As Loz says, private rents and house prices are a question of supply and demand. The more new social housing that is built on sites that could otherwise have been used for private housing, the more upward pressure will be put on private rents and house prices. Social housing (particularly for key workers) should be provided for all that need it but at a justifiable amount for each city given the impact it has on the private sector housing costs. DJ can you please justify your claim there is enough housing for everyone on the waiting list? According to Empty Homes, there are 74,000 empty homes in all of London http://emptyhomes.com/statistics-2/. There are 880,000 people / 350,000 households on the waiting list for council housing in London http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/national-housing-federation/article/nhf-social-housing-waiting-lists-rise-in-22-london-boroughs-. Again, the question isn't if we need more social housing but if we need more in London and so far no one has said anything to suggest why London should have more than its fair share of social housing. Social Housing is indeed provided by the tax payer though this is totally irrelevant to the question at hand. The history of how social housing was developed and funded historically is more complex than you state DJ. More importantly, the construction of new social housing would need to be funded by tax payers as the rents collected for social housing is not sufficient to keep up with servicing council housing's existing debt, repair needs and administration costs according to this consultation report. http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/1290620.pdf. Overall, the system does not have the means to fund additional social housing. It will be need to be developed by the private sector or by the tax payer. Either way, it needs to be built, but decisions on how and where need to rational given limited resources. I'm all for funds raised from the sale of council homes being earmarked for developing new council homes, but that just leaves the total unchanged rather than developing new housing.