Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 143
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)
While large developers welcome the flexibility of Section 106 Agreements and are well-placed to navigate the system, we heard their concerns about significant delays caused by the current process. 221 Some of these delays may be unavoidable—those that are an inherent aspect of the negotiation of planning obligations—but there are also avoidable delays. These can be caused by limited capacity, skills and resources within the local planning authority or even as a negotiation tactic. 222 Such delays have the most significant impact on SME housebuilders, who do not have the planning skills nor the capital to invest in housebuilding projects where the timelines and returns are uncertain. A Federation of Master Builders’ survey in 2020 found that 55% of respondents thought the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 Agreements rendered sites unviable, and thought “that Community Infrastructure Levy is arbitrary and unpredictable between different authorities” due to viability concerns and exemptions. 223 The Government’s proposals
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".