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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal that rural areas should be exempt from section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as recommended by the Institute for Public Policy Research in their report A new rural settlement: fixing the affordable housing crisis in rural England, published in June.

The revised National Planning Policy Framework was published on 24 July 2018 and sets out the government’s planning policies for England and how these are expected to be applied.

This includes policy that provision of affordable housing should not be sought for residential developments that are not major developments, other than in designated rural areas where policies may set out a lower threshold of 5 units or fewer. The national planning policy framework also states that in rural areas planning policies and decisions should be responsive to local circumstances and support housing developments that reflect local needs.

Further to this we have set out a new approach to viability. This will mean that developers know the contributions that they are expected to make and local communities are clear about the infrastructure and affordable housing they will get.