Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what financial support his Department is providing to first-time house buyers.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
This Government is committed to helping to make the dream of homeownership a reality. Since spring 2010, over 774,000 households have been helped to purchase a home through Government-backed schemes including Help to Buy and Right to Buy. The Government operates a range of relevant schemes which make home ownership more affordable.
More detail on all of these schemes and others including Right to Buy and discounted sales is available on the Government's home ownership website at: www.ownyourhome.gov.uk. The website also contains details of eligibility requirements so that people can identify the scheme most appropriate to their needs.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of a transition phase for the future homes standard, so that new developments that receive planning consents before 2025 can continue to build to existing standards.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We have listened to calls for a swifter and more certain pathway to 2025 and our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard has been accelerated. We therefore intend to consult on this in Spring 2023 and introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, ahead of full implementation of the Future Homes Standard in 2025. A full impact assessment on the Future Homes Standard will be carried out ahead of implementation and published online.
As part of the consultation, we will consider what transitional arrangements are appropriate. Transitional arrangements are important as they provide all developers with certainty about the standards they are building to, and assurance that they should not have to make material amendments to work which is already underway when new Regulations came into force.
The Government recently introduced an uplift to the Building Regulations as a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard. As part of the uplift, transitional arrangements were put in place which mean that if a developer submitted an initial notice, a building notice or full plans application to the local authority prior to the new Regulations coming into effect, on 15 June 2022, provided work then starts on the building by 15 June 2023, then work on that building is permitted to continue under the previous standards. Monitoring the impact of the uplift and the associated transitional arrangements will be a key consideration in setting the transitional arrangements for the Future Homes Standard.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will bring forward the consultation period on the technical specification for the future homes standard to 2023, to provide industry with more time to meet the 2025 implementation date.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We have listened to calls for a swifter and more certain pathway to 2025 and our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard has been accelerated. We therefore intend to consult on this in Spring 2023 and introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, ahead of full implementation of the Future Homes Standard in 2025. A full impact assessment on the Future Homes Standard will be carried out ahead of implementation and published online.
As part of the consultation, we will consider what transitional arrangements are appropriate. Transitional arrangements are important as they provide all developers with certainty about the standards they are building to, and assurance that they should not have to make material amendments to work which is already underway when new Regulations came into force.
The Government recently introduced an uplift to the Building Regulations as a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard. As part of the uplift, transitional arrangements were put in place which mean that if a developer submitted an initial notice, a building notice or full plans application to the local authority prior to the new Regulations coming into effect, on 15 June 2022, provided work then starts on the building by 15 June 2023, then work on that building is permitted to continue under the previous standards. Monitoring the impact of the uplift and the associated transitional arrangements will be a key consideration in setting the transitional arrangements for the Future Homes Standard.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to publish an impact assessment of the future homes standard.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We have listened to calls for a swifter and more certain pathway to 2025 and our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard has been accelerated. We therefore intend to consult on this in Spring 2023 and introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, ahead of full implementation of the Future Homes Standard in 2025. A full impact assessment on the Future Homes Standard will be carried out ahead of implementation and published online.
As part of the consultation, we will consider what transitional arrangements are appropriate. Transitional arrangements are important as they provide all developers with certainty about the standards they are building to, and assurance that they should not have to make material amendments to work which is already underway when new Regulations came into force.
The Government recently introduced an uplift to the Building Regulations as a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard. As part of the uplift, transitional arrangements were put in place which mean that if a developer submitted an initial notice, a building notice or full plans application to the local authority prior to the new Regulations coming into effect, on 15 June 2022, provided work then starts on the building by 15 June 2023, then work on that building is permitted to continue under the previous standards. Monitoring the impact of the uplift and the associated transitional arrangements will be a key consideration in setting the transitional arrangements for the Future Homes Standard.