Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 19
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Paragraph 136
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Whatever the nature of planning reforms, the Government’s proposals should ensure there is community engagement with the planning system. Engagement is necessary to ensure communities are on-board with changes in their local area and to prevent backlash. Digitalisation will help with transparency and engagement, but paper notices should also continue to ensure the system is inclusive. We also heard evidence that Neighbourhood Plans enable deliberation at the hyper-local level and have helped identify where more homes can be built.
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, paragraph 136, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".