Mr. Barry Quinlan:

I will bring Mr. Nicholson in again at the end on the detail on the serviced sites fund.

Regarding the regulations, I will bring that back. I can see exactly where the Deputy is coming from on that. There is a move to move it. As I said, it is the optimal in primary and regulations. The rationale for that is really around operations. We have had much interaction with local authorities in terms of people being able to access mortgages and so on in order to be able to buy. I take the Deputy's point that they are extremely important so I will bring that back. It is a fair point so we will endeavour to try to do that.

Regarding the change itself, it is very much linked, as I mentioned at the outset, to individual affordability and what is affordable for an individual in terms of buying a home that a local authority can make available. There are many inputs into that but it ends up with an individual who we want to help to buy and a local authority-led unit that it is able to deliver. There is much discussion around costs and so on and the Department is again looking at those closely following the SCSI report. The lower one can get the unit cost of delivery then people will be able to buy. We are trying to get the best value and the lowest cost for homes that are to be provided for purchase and rental.

Regarding the individual, it is very much targeted towards people who would not qualify or be eligible for social housing but would have an affordability difficulty in being able to buy or rent a home. That is the general approach we are taking in trying to make units affordable for individual households. We found that the legislation, as drafted, made it difficult, particularly when the macro-prudential rules came in after the 2009 Act. In fact, one could have a situation where somebody is eligible but is not able to access the mortgage required to buy the home. It is really about being able to operate in practice.

The final question was around the shared equity scheme. The Government decided to fund that for this year so that units could be delivered. That had to be done in budget 2021. I, along with Mr. Nicholson and the team, are mandated to work with other stakeholders. We work closely with the Department of Finance and the retail banks and engage with Homes England and others on various schemes. As regards the detail of that, much work has gone on and much interaction has happened. However, at this stage we have not brought those final proposals to the Minister for agreement in terms of interest rates, how they might change over time and the interaction with the help-to-buy scheme. The proposals are very developed and we want the scheme introduced as early as possible this year, so we will be bringing them to the Minister in the next number of weeks, but they are just not quite there yet. They are ongoing.

As regards interaction with the LDA, with the publication of the LDA Bill, we work very closely with the LDA in a number of ways on what it can do. It is very important that it understands the various schemes as they are developed and rolled out. We are making sure it does and will engage with the schemes. We facilitate as much as possible in the Bill that the LDA can participate with local authorities and others in delivery of the units under the various measures.

I will bring Mr. Nicholson in on the specifics of the serviced site fund.