Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

10 most recent Written Questions

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 6 February 2020 to Question 11599 on Buildings: Insulation, whether the Government has plans to mandate building owners to proactively share information on cladding; and what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on including that step in the forthcoming Bill on fire safety.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The Home Office will bring forward legislation shortly to put beyond doubt that building owners and managers of all multi-occupied residential buildings must assess the risks from cladding and front doors to individual flats under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This legislation will:

• require building owners to review their fire risk assessments to comprehensively cover all common parts of these buildings.
• affirm that fire and rescue services can take appropriate enforcement action, in particular supporting the remediation of buildings with unsafe cladding in high rise buildings
• provide the firm foundation required for taking forward recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase One report (accepted in principle by the Government in October 2019), which called for new legal duties on building owners for high-rise residential buildings around inspection and information sharing with Fire and Rescue Authorities. A consultation on Home Office proposals is due to be issued in the spring.

Additionally, the forthcoming Building Safety Bill will put a requirement on dutyholders to ensure accurate and up-to-date building safety information is available and accessible to those who need it. A Mandatory Occurrence Reporting system will be established by the Building Safety Regulator, and dutyholders will be required to report any structural safety or fire safety related event which is perceived by them to represent a significant risk to life, in buildings within the scope of the new regime.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of first time buyers that have purchased a property through a shared ownership scheme in each year since 2015.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The Department does not collect this information.

The total number of new shared ownership properties completed since 2015-16 can be found in Live Table 1007bC here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much additional funding has been allocated to flood-hit areas in the UK since November 2019.

Answer (Mr Simon Clarke)

As result of the November 2019 flooding, the Government announced the activation of the flood recovery framework to support those communities most significantly impacted in England. My Department is still assessing the full extent of the flooding and will be releasing funding to eligible local authorities shortly.

Claims under the Bellwin Scheme in respect of the November flooding incidents in England are also being assessed for payment – the deadline for local authority claims was 17 February 2020.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much additional funding was allocated to flood-hit areas in the UK in the six months following the 2015 Boxing Day floods.

Answer (Mr Simon Clarke)

Following Storms Desmond and Eva, the Government quickly identified that the immediate priority was to respond to the urgent needs of those affected and government paid out almost £300 million to help householders, communities and businesses to get back on their feet. Furthermore, government supported repairs to vital transport links, including getting the A591 in Cumbria open ahead of schedule, as well as improving flood defences and providing match funding for charity appeals.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much in cash terms has been spent from the Towns Fund.

Answer (Mr Simon Clarke)

The £3.6 billion Towns Fund will support an initial 100 Towns Deals across England. £1 billion of the Towns Fund will be made available to the Future High Streets Fund. These Funds are part of the government’s plan to level up our regions and create a more united country, one where people throughout the UK can benefit from our shared prosperity.

In December we paid out £16.4 million in capacity funding to local authorities from the initial 100 towns to support the development of a Town Deal Board and Investment Plan for each of the shortlisted towns in their area.

We have also to date spent £20.4 million from the Future High Street Fund on capacity funding, resourcing and to support policies that we have announced such as the High Streets Task Force. This includes spending on heritage high streets delivered through the Architectural Heritage Fund and Historic England.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of first time buyers that have purchased a property through the Help to Buy scheme in each year since its inception.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The number of first time buyers that have purchased a property through the Help to Buy : Equity Loan scheme in each year since its inception in 2013 can be seen in the table below. Data for 2019 is not included as it is not complete:

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many homes have been purchased through the Help to Buy scheme in North East Bedfordshire constituency in each of the last six years.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The number of homes purchased through the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme in North East Bedfordshire in each of the last six years are in the table below. Data for 2019 is not included as it is not complete.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many houses have been built on land formerly part of the government estate since 2010; and what proportion of those houses are classed as affordable housing.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

New performance data on both the 2011-15 and 2015-20 Public Land for Housing programmes was published on Thursday 6 February 2020. It showed that over 51,000 homes have been delivered on public sector land sites released through both programmes. We do not hold data on what proportion of those homes built are affordable, however, the Department records the number of affordable homes that are planned. Full details are provided in the performance data release which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-land-for-housing-programme-2015-to-2020-data-release-february-2020 . Once a site has been sold by a department, the allocation of affordable housing is agreed between local authorities and developers on a site by site basis.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 27 Janaury 2020 to Question 6180 on High Rise Flats: Insulation, whether it is the responsibility of the designated responsible person to issue an EWS1 form to leaseholders in privately-owned residential buildings in cases where that form is required as part of the valuation process.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The EWS1 form was produced by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) on behalf of industry. Government expects building owners to share all relevant information and reports about their building with leaseholders.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many homes he estimates will be sold under shared ownership schemes in (a) 2020, (b) 2021, (c) 2022 and (d) 2023.

Answer (Christopher Pincher)

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including shared ownership, and has made £9bn available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022 to deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes. We have committed to renewing the Affordable Homes Programme and to reforming shared ownership to make it fairer and more transparent.

We do not hold estimates for the number of shared ownership homes that will be sold in future years.