Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 151
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)
Several witnesses told us that a key factor not just making it difficult to build more homes, but in influencing the quality and size of new homes, was the supply and price of land. Many reports in recent years have considered these issues and made recommendations on how they might be addressed—including the 2004 review of housing supply and 2006 review of land use planning by Dame Kate Barker, and Sir Oliver Letwin’s independent review of build out, published in 2018. 232 The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s 2016 report, Building more homes , addressed and made recommendations on how to ensure more homes are built on public land and encourage more building by local authorities and housing associations. 233 The Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee’s report, The future of the planning system in England , published in June 2021, called for a review of the Green Belt. 234 In this section we focus on two areas with a focus on housing demand: brownfield development and development around train stations. Brownfield development
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".