UK Inquiry Tracker

Starter Homes

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 17 Sep 2020 Closed: 25 Mar 2021 Parliament page

In April 2015, the Conservative Party manifesto committed to “200,000 Starter Homes, which will be sold at a 20% discount and will be built exclusively for first-time buyers under the age of 40”. The November 2015 Spending Review subsequently provided £2.3 billion to support the delivery of 60,000 Starter Homes, … Read more In April 2015, the Conservative Party manifesto committed to “200,000 Starter Homes, which will be sold at a 20% discount and will be built exclusively for first-time buyers under the age of 40”. The November 2015 Spending Review subsequently provided £2.3 billion to support the delivery of 60,000 Starter Homes, of the 200,000 previously announced. Between 2015 and 2018, government’s policy towards Starter Homes shifted. In May 2018, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning stated that the government had spent an estimated £250 million of the Starter Homes Land Fund, but in July 2018, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) clarified that it had spent £250 million buying land to build affordable properties from two funds, the Starter Homes Land Fund and the Land Assembly Fund, with work under way to get the land ready for development, but that building had not yet started – and not one home has yet been built. The Government now has an “ambition” to build 300,000 new homes a year from the mid-2020s – but despite the hundreds of millions of pounds spent, the fate of the 200,000 Starter Homes pledged in the 2015 Conservative manifesto is unclear. Key findings of the NAO report on the Starter Homes project : - No Starter Homes have been built to date. The funding originally intended for Starter Homes has instead been spent on acquiring and preparing brownfield sites for housing more generally, some of which is expected to be affordable housing - MHCLG expected to introduce the legislation and planning guidance required for Starter Homes in 2019 but it is yet to lay the regulations in Parliament. - The Department no longer has a budget dedicated to the delivery of Starter Homes. After the 2015 manifesto pledge, the housing white paper in 2017 shifted housing policy. The original target of 200,000 Starter Homes morphed into a target to help 200,000 households into home ownership through a range of government-backed schemes. - The November 2017 Autumn Budget reallocated the funding earmarked for Starter Homes to the £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme and the Land Assembly Fund (LAF). - Between 2015-16 and 2017-18, the Department spent almost £174 million preparing sites originally intended for building Starter Homes – though no Starter Homes have been built on that land. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, the Department spent £151 million under the Starter Homes Land Fund (SHLF), but that spending also has not supported the building of Starter Homes. Instead, the Department used the SHLF to acquire and remediate suitable land, to then sell on to developers. In July of this year, after the UK’s Covid lockdown exposed and exacerbated the shortage of affordable housing in the UK, the Government announced new, sweeping reforms to the building planning regulations. It is not clear how this impacts or interacts with the Government’s previous targets, allocated and re-allocated, and spent funding, intended to build affordable new homes. In October, the Committee will question senior MHCLG officials on what is happening with plans to address the affordable housing crisis. If you have evidence on the issues raised in this inquiry please submit it here by Thursday 15 October. Show less

6 Recommendations

14 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

1 Letter

1 Event

Activity timeline 4 events

13 Jul
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence from Gordon More, Interim Chief, Executive Homes England, re Public Accounts Committee: Starter Homes Inquiry – Affordable H…

24 Mar
2021

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty first report from Session 2019-21

9 Dec
2020

Report published

Thirty-first Report - Starter Homes

22 Oct
2020

Oral evidence

Stater Homes

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

22 Oct 2020

View on parliament.uk

Stater Homes

Jeremy Pocklington · Ministry of Defence Nick Walkley · Homes England Tracey Waltho · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Thirty-first Report - Starter Homes	HC 88	9 Dec 2020	20	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

20 results

2 Recommendation Accepted

Thirty-first Report - Starter Homes

The Department’s reliance on developer contributions to fund First Homes is a complex mechanism lacking...

The Department’s reliance on developer contributions to fund First Homes is a complex mechanism lacking transparency and risks less money being available to local authorities for housing and infrastructure. First Homes differ from Starter Homes as they will be sold … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the recommendation and states it has published modelling on the policy's effect on developer contributions. It has also developed a legal framework for the secondary resale market with HM Land Registry, which will be publicly set out in due course.

HM Treasury

Starter Homes

Activity timeline 4 events

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Recommendations & Conclusions

The Department’s reliance on developer contributions to fund First Homes is a complex mechanism lacking...

We are disappointed that the Department remains unable or unwilling to clarify how it will...

We welcome Homes England’s commitment to provide us with regular updates on its progress delivering...

The long-term success of the Department’s housing policies depends on it being able to engage...

On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence...

The November 2015 Spending Review provided £2.3 billion to support the delivery of 60,000 of...

Homes England forecasts that around 36% of homes (2,370 of the total 6,600 planned homes)...

We asked the Department about the similarities between the new First Homes policy and the...

The Department told us that this was not going to be a quick policy to...

The Department explained that the First Homes discount will be funded through contributions from developers.24...

We have previously challenged the Department on its detailed plans and projections for how it...

We were disappointed that the Department remained unwilling to clarify how it will achieve this...

The Department explained how its reforms to the planning system were intended to speed up...

We asked the Department what it now meant when it referred to ‘affordable’ housing, particularly...

Homes England told us that the number and proportion of affordable homes planned for the...

First Homes, and previously Starter Homes, are aimed at people who want to own their...

The Department and Homes England told that they were trying to encourage the building of...

We asked the Department how it would ensure that its approach delivered the right kind...

We queried why student accommodation and converted offices count, in the Department’s statistics, as new...

Homes England recognised that success in delivering housing would rely on close working with local...

Government Response AI assessment · 19 of 6 classified

Correspondence 1 letter