Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of affordable housing levies on the (a) cost and (b) size of housing units in developments.

I interpret ‘affordable housing levies’ in this context to mean affordable housing policy requirements.

As set out in Planning Policy Guidance on viability, which can be found on gov.uk here, policy requirements for developer contributions should be informed by evidence of infrastructure and affordable housing need, and a proportionate assessment of viability that takes into account all relevant policies, and local and national standards, including the cost implications of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and section 106. Plan makers should consider how needs and viability may differ between site typologies and may choose to set different policy requirements for different sites or types of development in their plans.

The government intends to review the guidance on viability, and we are also committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions to ensure new developments provide necessary affordable homes and infrastructure. Further details will be set out in due course.

The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published on 12 December includes new Golden Rules for development on the Green Belt. Prior to development plan policies for affordable housing being updated in accordance with the revised NPPF, the affordable housing contribution required to satisfy the ‘Golden Rules’ is 15 percentage points above the highest existing affordable housing requirement that would otherwise apply to the development, subject to a cap of 50%. We estimate that under this model, the median Green Belt local planning authority affordable housing requirement will be 50%.