Director of External Affairs Emma Ramell highlights the need for the Government to look beyond planning reform and address wider barriers to housing delivery, including stalled affordable homes and a lack of support for first-time buyers.

“Why does it take so long to build anything in the UK?” This is the question Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer asked on LinkedIn earlier this week. Unfortunately, it soon proved to be rhetorical as Starmer swiftly concluded that it was the “outdated planning system that’s slowing us down.”

This post was quickly followed by the announcement of a new government-built AI tool to help digitise and accelerate the planning process by freeing up “thousands of hours for planning officers to focus on decision-making to speed up house building”.

Few would disagree that the planning process needs modernising, and so taken at face value, it is seemingly a sensible and pragmatic decision. Despite this, it was nevertheless a frustrating reminder of the Government’s overreliance on planning as the primary lever for increasing housing delivery.

To be clear, this is not to diminish the efforts the Government has made on planning since taking office almost a year ago. From changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and a consultation on alleviating policy burdens for ‘medium-sized’ sites to digital innovations like the new AI tool, there’s no doubt that reforming both planning policy and process is essential to getting more homes built.

However, the Government must also act on the wide range of other issues that are continuing to stall housing delivery if it is serious about achieving its ambitious housing target.

Section 106 Affordable Housing

There is a case to be made from the flurry of announcements on Affordable Housing in the Spending Review that the Government is beginning to look beyond planning.

The Chancellor announced the introduction of a new £39 billion, 10-year Affordable Homes Programme (2026–2036), a 10-year social rent settlement (CPI + 1%), and £2.5 billion in low-interest loans for social housing providers.

While the devil will be in the details (it’s worth noting that early analysis by the Financial Times and the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicates the £39bn settlement is less generous than it first appears), these commitments should give Registered Providers (RPs) confidence to plan long-term and boost their capacity for new development. This is something the HBF has consistently supported in collaboration with our colleagues across the affordable housing sector.

While these announcements may deliver benefits in the medium to long term, they are unlikely to resolve the immediate challenges developers face - namely, the thousands of uncontracted Section 106 affordable housing units, the 100,000 private market homes that are delayed as a result, and, in some cases, completed but unoccupied new homes.

The lack of bids for S106 Affordable Homes led over 90 members of the HBF to sign a letter to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook last month, urging the Government to issue a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) and a letter to Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) before the Summer Recess. Here, the aim is to encourage LPAs to take a more flexible approach to cascade mechanisms in S106 agreements and to respond constructively to requests for renegotiating existing agreements.

Despite what some might argue, this isn’t about removing affordable housing obligations from developers. Rather, it’s about creating the flexibility to ensure homes can be delivered, whether that is through alternative tenures or, as a last resort, financial contributions, when an RP cannot be secured.

Yes, this is politically difficult. But without such action, the Government’s housing delivery ambitions will slip further out of reach.

First-time buyers: still left behind

Another area where the Government seems to be offering only partial answers is support for first-time buyers (FTBs).

Weak demand in the housing market, especially among FTBs, continues to pose a significant challenge for home builders. After all, FTBs are vital to driving overall housing demand, giving developers the confidence to build at scale and sustain a consistent pipeline of new homes.

While the Spending Review confirmed that the UK-wide Mortgage Guarantee Scheme will be made permanent in July, the impacts of the existing scheme on new housing supply have been negligible. Consequently, there is little reason to think that this situation will change under a permanent scheme.

With affordability challenges and mortgage constraints making it increasingly difficult for aspiring homeowners to take their first step onto the property ladder, and the lack of a government support scheme for FTBs for the first time in 60 years compounding these challenges, there is a desperate need for the Government to introduce a new equity loan scheme.

A recent HBF report, Broken Ladder: Stairway to Never, found that under current conditions, only the top 30% of earners were able to buy. For a government supposedly keen to position itself as the party of home ownership, it is a situation that it cannot afford to ignore.

What next?

While the Government may be starting to show a willingness to broaden its approach beyond planning reform, it has done so in ways that are relatively safe and politically palatable.

However, the Government is yet to demonstrate an appetite to address the full range of barriers that are hindering housing delivery, particularly where doing so will involve difficult trade-offs and political risk.

With the Spending Review complete, the Government’s next major opportunities to prove its determination to deliver 1.5 million new homes will be the Long-Term Housing Strategy and the Autumn Budget.

Whether the Government rises to the occasion remains to be seen, but as an industry, we will be watching closely.