Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 142
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)
Witnesses told us of limitations to the Section 106 system in terms of how the Agreements are reached and administered and how the resulting money is spent. On many sites, local planning authorities do not to receive the agreed Section 106 obligations as developers routinely submit ‘viability assessments’, support a claim that an existing Section 106 obligation is economically unviable and should be overturned. These viability assessments and the subsequent negotiations are not made public, as the developers argue that they contain commercially sensitive information. The Local Government Association has said that councils often do not have sufficient skills and capacity to evaluate viability appraisals, while the large developers are well resourced. 219 This increases the risk of development for both the developers and the council, as it is not certain what the final Section 106/ Community Infrastructure Levy contribution for the site will be. Local planning authorities have reported a slowing in the delivery of Section 106 Agreements, with 51% of authorities receiving 50% or less of the planning obligations negotiated two years previously (up from 36% in 2016/17). 220
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".