The Scottish Government said more than £1.75 billion would be allocated to councils in a major commitment to stimulate investment in affordable housing.

It said the commitment came as figures published on Tuesday showed the highest levels of activity in the affordable house-building sector in Scotland since the early 1980s.

In 2018-19, Scottish local authorities will share £532 million.

This figure will rise to £591 million in 2019-20 and £630 million in 2020-21.

Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said the commitment would support the Scottish Government’s ambitious commitment to delivering 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.

Stewart said: “We are ensuring Scotland has homes that are high-quality, efficient and affordable.

“Today, we are announcing to local authorities how much money they’ll have to invest in affordable housing until the end of this Parliament.

“It means they can plan these new affordable homes now — with the certainty that the funding will increase year-on-year.

“This is also an important signal to the house-building sector in Scotland and demonstrates our commitment to the industry and the estimated 14,000 jobs our affordable housing supply programme supports each year.”

New statistics showed a level of activity in the affordable housebuilding sector not seen since the early 1980s, with 10,276 affordable homes approved in 2016-17 — a 29% increase on the year before.

About 7,000 of these were for social rent new house building.

In the same year, 9,308 affordable homes were started, an increase of 21% on 2015-16, and 7,336 were completed — up by 13%.