Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 153
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)
To help offset some of these problems, the Government has introduced funding to support development on brownfield land: The Home Building Fund will provide £2.95 billion of loan funding supporting small and medium enterprises, custom builders and modern methods of construction to build housing, including some on brownfield land The £400 million Brownfield Housing Fund has been allocated to seven mayoral combined authorities, enabling 26,000 new homes on brownfield land The £75 million Brownfield Land Release Fund will accelerate the release of local authority-owned brownfield land for housing in areas not eligible for the Brownfield Housing Fund (£25 million is ringfenced for self- and custom-build projects may be on brownfield and greenfield sites that meet gateway criteria) The Housing Infrastructure Fund has allocated £4.3 billion for provision of infrastructure for housing projects, including some on brownfield. Half of the projects funded have 50% or more of the housing area on brownfield. 237
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".