Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 55
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
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)
There were two important areas where the Committee did not take evidence but merit further investigation. First, there has been an increase in short-term lets through sites such as Airbnb. The Community Planning Alliance highlighted that the “Airbnb phenomenon” is adding affordability and availability problems, noting that “many cities (not just in the UK) are seeking to control the number of houses taken out of the local market.” 105 Between April 2016 and May 2019, the number of active listings on Airbnb tripled, from about 76,000 to more than 225,000. 106 Second, there are concerns about unoccupied homes: there were 479,000 empty homes in England in 2020. Local authorities in Yorkshire and the Humber tend to have a higher proportion of empty homes, as well as coastal areas and the South West. Quality and conditions
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 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".