Building reported that Stunnell told a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference that the announcement was due before Christmas.
“There will be a major announcement on that that I’m not authorised to talk about,” he said.
And it emerged that Council housing received a £100m boost thanks to a cut in interest rates for local authorities leaving the housing revenue account (HRA) subsidy system.
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Stunnell also told the conference that housing developments are to be vetted to ensure they are as eco-friendly as developers and social landlords claim, Inside Housing reported.
The Communities and Local Government department has set up a committee to ensure sustainability standards are being met and will begin testing new builds later this year.
“What the research is showing is that we’re setting standards [for] zero carbon homes which when you test the buildings are just not being delivered,” Stunell said.
“We have to make a really determined push to make sure the standards that we say we build to are actually the standards we build to.”
All homes built from 2016 should be zero carbon, although the government altered its proposed definition of this earlier in the year to include homes that meet level 5 as well as level 6 of the code for sustainable homes.
Ministers also made clear their focus on stimulating infrastructure. This included Treasury secretary Danny Alexander’s announcement of a £500m “growing places” fund to kickstart stalled local infrastructure projects.
On transport, Norman Baker, the transport minister, said light rail would be boosted following research showing that it was a cheap and low-carbon form of economic stimulus.
Baker said: “Light rail presses many of the right buttons – it is popular with the public, clean and low in carbon. I want light rail to grow.”
He announced there would be a forthcoming “tram summit” and a consultation on managing potential conflicts between utilities and light rail.
