Government needs to find extra money for social housebuilding, PAC deputy chair says

“On the grounds that she’s being much more flexible about what she considers to be capital investment, housing, as far as I’m concerned – and I hope the sector makes its point very strongly indeed – is an investment in the future of this country.”

For one of his “challenges” to the government, Mr Betts said: “Are you going to put more money into social housebuilding? Because I don’t think you’ll hit the 1.5 million without it.”

He also said the 1.5 million homes target is “very stretching”, but that even reaching 1.3 million or 1.4 million would be a “success”.

“I think as long as we get the numbers upwards very significantly, as long as we get to somewhere near 1.5 million, with a view to three million in the course of two parliaments, I think that will be a considerable success,” Mr Betts added.

The MP, who is a former chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, said one of his other concerns around meeting the target is the government’s delay in publishing the housing strategy.

“I do think we’re now 25% into this parliament, to have the housing strategy still delayed is not a great place to be,” he stated.

Housing secretary Steve Reed recently told MPs that the government’s long-awaited housing strategy may be delayed until after Christmas.

Another of Mr Betts’ challenges is for the government to change its land value capture policies, particularly for the upcoming new towns. He said that the principle of landowners getting an increase in the sale price of land when it is built on for housing is “nonsense”.

He continued: “Let’s think back to new towns – and we are going to build some new towns – those new towns were only built because the land was not paid for at hope value, it was paid for at existing market value, before the planning permission for new towns was given. That is what we should be doing again.

“It’s right that landowners should get a small uplift, but they shouldn’t be getting three, four, five times the value of land when it’s turned from grazing sheep and growing corn into building homes.

“And that’s something that the government has sort of indicated they might do, but in the recent new towns proposals, that isn’t actually mentioned.”

On planning reform, Mr Betts told attendees that the government expects councils to have local plans in place to set the framework for where homes are needed.

“But that is a massive challenge, considering the vast majority of local authorities currently don’t have an up-to-date local plan,” he said.

Given that the government has changed the methodology for calculating housing need, many local plans “are going to have to be redone by councils”, according to Mr Betts.

He also said combined mayoral authorities – six of which will be allocated billions under the new SAHP – do not have sufficient planning expertise at present.

“It will take quite a long time to recruit the necessary people at a time when there’s a shortage of planners,” Mr Betts added.