Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how the proposed new infrastructure levy to replace section 106 agreements will operate.

In the Planning for the Future White Paper we propose that the existing parallel regimes for securing developer contributions, the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and section 106 planning obligations, are replaced with a new, consolidated ‘Infrastructure Levy’.

The new Levy will raise at least as much value as is currently captured through CIL and section 106. We are exploring a number of different options for setting the Levy, including but not limited to a single national rate. The rate charged will depend on the approach taken. We will assess a number of different options for the setting of the Levy rates, in order to establish optimal approach.

The new Levy will be charged on the final value of a development and will include a value-based minimum threshold below which the levy is not charged, to prevent low viability development becoming unviable.