The government has made a welcome proposal to increase planning application fees in order to boost council planning departments. But we suspect the funding will not be enough to make up for a decade of under-investment. And is there a guarantee, without ring-fencing, that even the extra money likely to be raised will go where it needs to?

There are also concerns that the proposed planning reform programme, far from being pro-new homes as originally envisaged, will give so much weight to anti-development voices as to actually make it harder to build. We will look at how the government can reconsider this balance of measures.

As housing secretary Michael Gove has pointed out, we have never built 300,000 homes a year without the social housing sector stepping up and delivering at scale.

However, the largest housing associations are now diverting investment into existing stock to make safety and energy performance improvements.

Is it time to increase social housing grants, both in volume and in grant rate per home? This would reduce the reliance on leveraging housing association balance sheets.

Should the government also explore measures such as VAT reductions on decarbonisation work and extending the use of loan guarantees – under which the government underwrites housing association debt to make it cheaper – to help lower borrowing costs, meaning more money can go on delivery? Providing certainty about social housing rent-setting rules after 2025 would also be welcome.

In 1988 SME builders constructed 39% of homes in England and Wales. By 2020 this had plummeted to 10%. Many argue that more needs to be done to get smaller housebuilders building again.

One of the biggest issues cited by housebuilders is access to land, with the planning system often a barrier. Should we look at ways of speeding up the process of planning for smaller sites, perhaps through including in-fill sites in local plans?

Environmental rules governing pollution levels in watercourses in protected habitats are holding up the development of an estimated 100,000 homes, but the government has done little to tackle the source of the problem: farming practices and water treatment infrastructure.

Water and farming regulators could be tasked with ensuring that developer contributions can be used to upgrade water treatment works, where that would significantly aid pollution levels, and incentivise modern farming practices. Natural England could ensure that councils are given fair warning where pollution is suspected, to avoid lengthy planning hiatuses in future.

The Section 106 system of planning contribution – under which developers agree to a proportion of homes in a development being affordable as a condition of planning approval – is a key route for investment into housing delivery. Around half of housing association development is funded through this route and it is becoming an important mechanism for institutional investment also.

In the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, the government is proposing to replace this mechanism with an infrastructure levy. The new system should also deliver as much – and ideally more – affordable homes both on and off site as the present system, as well as supporting infrastructure for new communities and towns.

The UK housebuilding industry has agreed to pay £2bn through the “developer pledge” to remediate its own blocks. It is also paying the £2.5-£3bn residential property tax and the £3bn Building Safety Levy. In many cases individual companies will be paying to fix problems that were not of their making. This estimated total cost of £8bn will hit housing supply.

Everyone agrees that leaseholders should not pay for the failures of the industry and past regulation. But, in the name of fairness and making sure UK housebuilders do not become uncompetitive against overseas firms, the government must urgently find ways of ensuring that other parts of the industry, such as product manufacturers, also contribute.

Affordable housing delivery has become more reliant on housing associations raising debt against their stock. They can only do this efficiently if they are confident their asset base will remain stable.

How can we best ensure the proposed Right to Buy for housing association tenants is sufficiently funded to ensure that the full cost of the discount and building an adequate replacement home are met?