Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 148
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 were told that more thought should be given to how a levy paid at the point of occupation addresses the Government’s concern that infrastructure comes too late in the build out process. Jonathan Manns, Executive Director of UK and Monaco at Rockwell Property, gave an example: “A new road would be required to make a development acceptable. However, the money for that road would come in only when the tax is paid when the homes are sold. You would presumably be in a situation where you are asking local authorities to borrow against anticipated future receipts from a tax, which requires local authorities to make assumptions about what those receipts will be, but also in effect requires them, as opposed to the developer, to carry the development risk for the scheme, which opens up risks such as: what if the developer does not build out the entire site, or what if the values that are achieved are not as were anticipated?” 231
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".