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The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, delivered his first Budget Statement to the House of Commons today.  Among the key points of most interest to the Royal Institute of British Architects are:

 

• Small and medium sized firms are to be encouraged to procure 30% of public sector business in the next five years, through the creation of an advisory committee
• Funding to be made available for the Green Home Service to advise consumers on how  they can reduce carbon emissions, waste and water consumption
• An ambition for all new non-domestic buildings to be zero-carbon from 2019 and for all new homes to be zero-carbon from 2016. All new public buildings are to be zero-carbon from 2018.
• Extending the stamp duty land tax exemption from zero-carbon homes to new flats, retrospectively from the first of October 2007
• The Government aims to increase housing supply and affordability. The housing Corporation is undertaking an £8.4billion pound investment over the next three years,  the largest investment programme in its history
• The Government has committed to achieving the delivery of 200,000 new homes on surplus public sector land by 2016. The budget announces that the Government has firmly identified many these sites
• The Government is introducing measures to reform the tax incentives for developing Brownfield land, to make them more environmentally sustainable.
• Reference made to pre-existing policies on reducing energy emissions from the household sector and the existing housing stock.

 

Responding to the statement, RIBA President Sunand Prasad said:

"We welcome many of the items in the Chancellors budget statement as they connect well with the RIBA's own manifesto. I hope that the Government's aim to engage small and medium sized firms in public procurement programmes, signifies the beginning of a sea-change in how all public buildings are delivered. We want the best designers irrespective of practice size to be involved in creating our future schools, clinics and other public buildings.

"We are happy to see ambitious target for carbon reduction being applied across all building types, however much work needs to be done to define just how provided the details are clarified in follow-up regulation we know that the construction industry will deliver.  

"We welcome the £8.4billion investment in affordable housing, it is essential to get real  value from this investment, the principles of good design must be upheld by those involved in the design construction and management of social housing: not to do so would be to waste taxpayers money."