Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 145
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)
The proposals were originally for a mandatory nationally set value-based flat rate charge, but the department has since indicated that the rates will be set locally. The proposed new Infrastructure Levy would be charged as a fixed proportion of the development value above a threshold, and would be levied at the point of occupation, to be charged on the final value of a development. Councils would be allowed to borrow against Infrastructure Levy revenues in the interim to facilitate infrastructure investment. We heard that the proposals in the White Paper do not provide enough detail on how the levels will be set and delivered and that the Government was going to need to address how the proposals would work in practice. 226 The Minister noted areas where the Government has taken concerns on board, including on the need for any new levy to be more localised than under the proposals in the White Paper. 227
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".