Select committee: Built Environment Committee

Conclusion 150

1st Report - Meeting housing demand Published 10 Jan 2022
Conclusion (the committee's words)
A ny new system to replace Section 106 Agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy should provide safeguards to ensure that the resources raised are spent on the delivery of affordable homes or necessary infrastructure early on in the development and are tied to identified needs. We are concerned that the new Infrastructure Levy could have some of the same disadvantages as the Community Infrastructure Levy. Land availability and land costs

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".

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error