Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the value was of planning obligations agreed to in each year since 2010-11; and what proportion of that value was attributed to (a) direct payments, (b) affordable housing and (c) other types of contributions.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government does not hold data for every year since 2010-11. In March this year we published a study on “The Incidence, Value and Delivery of Planning Obligations and Community Infrastructure Levy in England in 2016-17”. This found that last year Section 106 obligations with estimated value of £5.1 billion had been levied. This included affordable housing contributions worth an estimated £4 billion. £75 million of this was delivered through commuted sums, and the remainder was delivered in-kind.
Excluding affordable housing and land, s106 obligations to the value of £613.1 million were levied in direct contributions, and obligations to the value of £72.1 million were levied in in kind contributions.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that local government pension funds can invest in areas such as new build shared ownership.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Under the Investment Regulations 2016, administering authorities in the Local Government Pension Scheme are no longer constrained by central prescription on how their assets are invested provided investments are in the best interests of scheme members. They now have much greater freedom to invest, subject to local democratic control and appropriate safeguards, and significant investment in new housing has already been made.
Our Housing White Paper encourages further investment more widely in housing, including shared ownership, through creating a stable financial environment in which to invest.
As a result, pension schemes are increasingly regarding housing as an appropriate investment. The pooling of local government pension funds will increase opportunities for their assets to be used to support infrastructure projects, including housing. This could generate promising returns for scheme members while maintaining value for money for national and local taxpayers.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that there is adequate private investment in shared ownership accommodation.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
We believe that Shared Ownership has an important role to play as part of a diverse and thriving housing market and since 2010 around 54,000 new Shared Ownership homes have been delivered.
We continue to work with the sector and lenders to ensure that Shared Ownership continues to be attractive to investment and have made a number of changes to support this, including expanding the Affordable Homes Programme from £7 billion to over £9 billion, standardising eligibility for buyers and extending funding for development to private providers.