Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 100
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)
We heard that delays in securing planning permission have a significant impact on SMEs who, unlike the big developers, are often not able to use funds raised from one site to fund another and lack internal capital. The Home Builders Federation said: “Over the past 30 years, the process of obtaining planning permission has become riskier, costlier, and more complex.” They added: “While larger companies can mitigate risk across dozens of sites in some cases, small firms encountering delays on one or two sites will be the difference between a year of growth and a year of contraction.” 173 As we discuss in Chapter 5, appeals processes are increasingly being used, especially in areas with no local plan. The Home Builders Federation said: “For SME developers in particular, the expensive and drawn-out appeals process can cripple the balance sheet and cash-flow, delay important business decisions and stifle opportunities for growth and housing.” 174
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".