Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 138
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)
Section 106 Agreements are legally enforceable obligations negotiated between a developer and the local planning authority as a condition of planning permission to provide complementary investment in the local community. These negotiations are complex and are often renegotiated throughout the development process. The most common contribution under a Section 106 Agreement is the provision of social or affordable housing. Infrastructure developments funded by Section 106 Agreements include highways, public transport, education, community and cultural facilities, and environmental mitigation for the development. The obligations may be provided by the developers ‘in kind’—by the developer directly building or providing the necessary infrastructure to fulfil the obligation, for example by building affordable homes—or in the form of financial payments. Section 106 Agreements raise revenue for infrastructure mainly associated with a particular planning decision and its acceptability, so tend to be most common with larger developments.
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".