Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 10
6th Report - Environmental sustainability and housing growth
Published 16 Nov 2025
Environmental Audit Committee Environmental sustainability and housing growth All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Local authorities must ensure they have up to date local plans and environmental and climate planning policies. When combined, all local plans and policies should satisfy national environmental targets, allowing for flexibility as to how they meet these targets between areas, in reflection of unique and local environmental characteristics. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, should work together to audit all local plans once produced to ensure that, collectively, they add up to meet national house building and biodiversity targets. (Recommendation, Paragraph 59)
From: Environmental Audit Committee, 6th Report - Environmental sustainability and housing growth (HC 439), 16 November 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 13 March 2026 (deadline 16 January 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's inquiry and says it will "continue to implement our reforms to maintain environmental protection while accelerating housing growth", responding to each of the 39 recommendations in turn.
- On the presumption in favour of sustainable development, the Government is consulting on changes within the wider NPPF consultation published on 16 December 2025, and says it "will consider the responses received" before finalising a revised Framework.
- On whole-life carbon assessments, the Government "is not currently considering adopting the RICS methodology" as the UK industry standard, but will "keep it under review". It intends to "maintain a voluntary approach" to carbon accounting rather than mandate it.
- On ecological resource hubs, the Government agrees that ecological expertise is critical but does not consider separate hubs "currently necessary", and says it will keep this under review. It also states it has "no plans" for mandatory ecology and carbon training in planning qualifications.
- On taxation, the Government says it "does not plan to review council tax on the basis of embodied carbon". On VAT, it states that the Chancellor is responsible for decisions on tax policy, taken at fiscal events.