The Home Builders Federation’s 2026 Autumn Budget representation to Government sets out the home building industry’s key policy priorities for increasing housing delivery, supporting economic growth and improving access to home ownership.

Our submission calls for the removal of fiscal barriers to housebuilding, action to reduce to cumulative regulatory and policy costs impacting the visibility of new homes, measures to support first-time buyers and strengthen the demand for new build homes, and reforms to address long-standing delivery challenges. These include strengthening local authority planning capacity, tackling planning delays and resolving long-standing dysfunction of the Section 106 Affordable Housing market that continue to constrain the delivery of new homes.

Key priorities

We are asking the Government to focus its action to address opportunities and challenges across six key areas.

1. Support first-time buyers and strengthen effective demand for new homes

• Introduce a new 20% equity loan scheme for first-time buyers, supported by a developer contribution, which would help to support households into homeownership and deliver new homes.
• Publish the Government’s independent evaluation of the Help to Buy scheme.
• Restore the first-time buyer Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) thresholds that applied before April 2025, as well as undertaking a broader review of the economic impact of the tax.

2. Reduce the cumulative cost burden on the development of new homes

• Cancel the Building Safety Levy (BSL), which is due to come into effect in October. Our analysis of the BSL indicates that the Levy is unjustified and disproportionate.
• Introduce a moratorium on further policy costs, taxes and levies on home building, alongside an urgent cross-government review of the cumulative cost burden on new development. In recent years, additional costs have been introduced by multiple government departments, often without sufficient consideration of their combined impact on development viability and housing supply.

3. Remove fiscal barriers to housing delivery

• Ensure reforms to Land Remediation Relief make the Relief simpler, more certain and more effective in improving the viability of brownfield development.
• Introduce a clear and consistent national framework for the application of council tax to newly-built homes, where properties are only judged substantially complete at the point a building control completion certificate is issued.
• Review the application of the Economic Crime Levy to residential developers, including whether incidental sales and marketing activity for residential Joint Ventures (JVs) should bring house builders within scope.

4. Unlock Section 106 Affordable Housing delivery

• Make cascade mechanisms a standard feature of Section 106 agreements and allow developers of medium-sized sites to elect to make a financial contribution in lieu of on-site Affordable Housing provision.
• Reform the VAT “golden brick” rules to enable earlier and simpler zero-rated land transfers for social and affordable housing.

5. Give the planning system and local government the capacity to support housing delivery

• Increase long-term funding for local planning authorities to allow councils to recruit and retain permanent planning staff, rather than relying on short-term or project-based solutions.

6. Support skilled jobs in the home building industry

• Ensure the Growth and Skills Levy is flexible, works for employers of all sizes, and supports different types of routes into the industry.

Download HBF's 2026 Budget Submission

Download our Budget representation in full to review the context, data and insight behind our 2026 Autumn Budget representations, including industry analysis and research.