Prisk hints at budget housing boost

Housing minister Mark Prisk has hinted strongly that new measures to support the housing market will be unveiled in next week’s budget.

Prisk, speaking at the Home Builders’ Federation’s spring policy conference, said he was “confident the government could do more” to help the private sector housebuilding industry construct more homes, and that the coalition government was “very committed to helping you do that.”

“What that [help] will be and what form that will take is an issue that it’s better I don’t paddle around in if I still want to be housing minister by the time of next week. It’s about helping thousands of people in housing need,” he said.

The government has already launched a range of measures including mortgage indemnity guarantee scheme, Newbuy, the subsidising of open market sales through the FirstBuy initiative, and attempting to speed up the release of surplus public sector land.

Asked whether the government had done enough to help the housebuilding industry recover from recession, he said: “I think we’re making progress, and broadly we have the right measures in place. Whether there’s further improvement on some of those measures we’ll have to wait for the chancellor to set out. I think there are opportunities to make progress but I will allow the chancellor to make his own comments [in the budget next week].”

Prisk also announced the appointment of Andrew Stanford, managing director and founder of property consultancy Stanford Mallinson, to head a task force set up to accelerate the growth of the private rented sector.

Prisk said a competition, run by the Homes and Communities Agency, to offer £200m to back new build private rented schemes, had been “heavily over-subscribed.”

The housing minister, who was appointed following the reshuffle in September 2012, added that the government would shortly be making an announcement on changes to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) designed to address concerns of the industry over the scheme.

He said: “The CIL is a challenge, it has some problems in it. My colleague [planning minister] Nick Boles is shortly to set out details of this that should help you – we’re aware of these issues.”

The CIL is a charge levied by local authorities to capture the infrastructure costs associated with developments. Housebuilders have raised concerns over the level of CIL charges expected by some local authorities, and the possibility that the regulations may allow councils to charge CIL twice on the same development if changes are made to a planning application.