House Builders Association Newsletter 2025 – Issue 23

This fortnight Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivered her budget, with some modest reforms for businesses and the construction sector, whilst putting up taxes on landlords, expensive houses and making pension contribution relief less generous. Alongside the announcement the OBR, Britain’s fiscal watchdog, predicted the rental sector would shrink in the long term, pushing up rents. Aside from money, the government has started outlining planning reform, and its response to amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill proposed by members of the House of Lords.
Created: 1 December 2025
Last Reviewed: 1 December 2025
Contents
2025 Budget
OBR’s economic and fiscal forecast, November
Rising cost of building houses
Planning and Infrastructure Bill – update
Planning reform: the next steps
Local Plan examinations – revoking the duty to co-operate
Local Plan Update
Homes England forms JV to build 2,250 homes in ‘underinvested areas’
Making the Oxford-Cambridge Corridor “Europe’s Silicon Valley”
New Towns – Update
Modular manufacturing – update
Appointments and departures
The Economy
The Market
Biodiversity Net Gain NFB survey
CITB Homebuilders Employer Network
HBA Housebuilders survey

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2025 Budget

On 26 November the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, presented her 2025 Budget to Parliament.

The Treasury’s press release said: “The Chancellor was clear the Budget makes fair but necessary choices – but those choices are for a purpose: building a stronger, fairer country.”

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