Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 66
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)
Figure 8 shows the number of new social housing completions (for social rent and affordable rent) as well as the number of homes lost through Right to Buy sales and the number of replacements (since 2012). It shows how much of the social housing stock has been sold through Right to Buy and how councils struggle to replace the stock lost through such sales. 124 The Campaign to Protect Rural England raised a particular concern about rural communities where the current replacement rate for social housing is one new home built in a rural area per eight homes sold, which leaves “limitations on the number of options available for those on low incomes who are seeking social rented housing in rural areas.” 125 Figure 8: New social housing completions Source: Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Live Tables on Affordable Housing’: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply [accessed 19 November 2021]
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".