Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that signatories of the developer remediation contract are taking responsibility for buildings where they are a contractor.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Publicly available data on the developer contract can be found here.
The Department encourages developers to discuss challenges and successes with the oversight team. Best practice examples are shared with other developers as appropriate.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has made an estimate of the number of weeks to obtain planning permission for building safety remediation works following the transition to a new Building Safety Regulator on 6 April 2024.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Building regulations approval is separate from planning permission.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in his Department in the last three financial years.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is determined to uncover fraud in the public sector and is proud of its record.
As part of this, the Government established the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). In 22/23 the PSFA set a target of delivering £180 million of savings to the taxpayer. In fact the PSFA far surpassed this within the first 12 months by preventing and recovering £311 million. As it enters its second year, the PSFA has a target of achieving £185 million of savings for the taxpayer.
The Government has also announced an additional £34 million to deploy cutting edge tools and Artificial Intelligence tools to help combat fraud across the public sector, saving £100 million for the public purse. This is in addition to existing partnerships between PSFA and the tech sector.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many audits conducted by his Department from April 2023 to March 2024 under the Developer Self Remediation Terms have required the developer to undertake corrective action in relation to (a) Building and (b) Post-remediation Qualifying Assessments.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Publicly available data on the developer contract can be found here.
The Department encourages developers to discuss challenges and successes with the oversight team. Best practice examples are shared with other developers as appropriate.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that developers who began work under Self Remediation Terms before 6 April 2024 continue to make progress on that work.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Publicly available data on the developer contract can be found here.
The Department encourages developers to discuss challenges and successes with the oversight team. Best practice examples are shared with other developers as appropriate.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that best practice under the developer remediation contract is (a) captured and (b) shared.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Publicly available data on the developer contract can be found here.
The Department encourages developers to discuss challenges and successes with the oversight team. Best practice examples are shared with other developers as appropriate.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what information his Department published on the treatment of jointly owned properties under the Building Safety Act's leaseholder protections, prior to his Department's Call for evidence: Jointly owned properties, published on 21 March 2024.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Building Safety Act can be found here: Building Safety Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department took to increase levels of housebuilding in Birmingham in 2023.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Department has consistently set the conditions for the building of homes – and building them in the right places, including the revision of the NPPF in December 2023 and the Written Ministerial Statement on a long-term plan for housing in February 2024. Beyond that, Birmingham City Council is responsible for setting the plan for building the houses the city needs.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what proportion of his Department’s (a) advertising and (b) marketing expenditure was on (i) local newspapers in print and online, (ii) national newspapers in print and online, (iii) social media, (iv) search engines, (v) broadcast and on-demand television and (vi) other channels in the most recent year for which data is available.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The data requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the impact of Stewart Milne Homes Northwest England (Developments) entering administration on building safety remediation in England.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
If the Hon Gentleman has specific concerns, we would be happy to receive them.