Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the average increase in monthly private rent in Warwick and Leamington constituency in the period between 2022 and 2023.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Rental data at constituency level is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they plan to reduce the rates of deaths of despair in the North East, which has over double the rate of London; and what assessment they have made of using rates of deaths of despair to assess progress on levelling up.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery (SSMTR) Grant is the mechanism by which local authorities receive Drug Strategy funding to increase substance misuse treatment service capacity and the quality of interventions people receive. The SSMTR Grant is made available to local authorities on the condition of maintaining existing funding through the Public Health Grant.
Details of the SSMTR Grant and the Inpatient Detox (IPD) Grant allocations for the North East are set out below.
| 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2022-23 to 2024-25 |
SSMTR | £7,051,992 | £13,677,970 | £24,787,253 | £45,517,215 |
IPD | £727,295 | £727,295 | £727,295 | £2,181,885 |
DHSC is also providing £1,157,212 in funding to three local authorities in the North East (Middlesborough, Newcastle and Durham) to improve access to drug and alcohol treatment services for people who sleep rough or who are at risk of sleeping rough.
On 11 September 2023, the Government published a Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, with over 130 actions that we believe will make progress towards our ambition to reduce the suicide rate within two and a half years. The Strategy includes an intention to write guidance for local areas to support them to align their own strategies with the national strategy.
On 4 March 2024, we announced that 79 organisations up and down the country, including some in the North East, have been allocated funding from the £10 million Suicide Prevention VCSE Grant Fund. These organisations, from local, community-led through to national, are delivering a broad and diverse range of activity that will prevent suicides and save lives.
The Levelling Up White Paper set out 12 missions, including the health mission, focused on improving Healthy Life Expectancy and narrowing the gap between local areas where it is highest and lowest.
We are supporting people to live healthier lives, helping the NHS and social care to provide the best treatment and care for patients and tackling health disparities through national and system interventions such as the NHS’s Core20PLUS5 programme.
We are monitoring progress on a range of behavioural risk factors and underlying drivers of health, which are likely to impact on the health mission. We continue to use metrics that are publicly available and routinely updated to measure the levelling up missions, chosen to show as comprehensive a picture across the UK as possible. We are committed to developing this data picture and improving understanding of health disparities at a local level.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current backlog in local authority audits; and what plans they have to deliver all outstanding audit opinions by their proposed deadline of 30 September.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government has been clear that the significant backlog of local audits in England is unacceptable. It is taking action to deal with this backlog and put the system on a sustainable footing. On 8 February DLUHC, with local audit system organisations, issued a Joint Statement setting out a clear package of measures to meet these challenges, alongside the launch of DLUHC and National Audit Office consultations.
We proposed a statutory backstop date of 30 September 2024 for the publication of audited accounts for all years up to and including 2022/23. This will enable local authorities and firms to focus on the most recent accounts as quickly as possible. Five years of further backstop dates would allow assurance to be gradually rebuilt. The Government also recognises that important questions concerning systemic challenges must be addressed.
The Government is carefully reviewing consultation responses and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Southwark (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made regarding the 12 targets set out in the Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper, published on 2 February 2022.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
As set out in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, the Government will publish an annual report on mission progress, this will detail the progress that has been made against the 12 missions set out in the Statement on Missions in January 2024.
Levelling Up is a long-term ambition, but we are already making headway. 64% of England’s population and 90% of the North are now covered by a devolution deal. We have met the 5G element of the digital connectivity mission early, achieving 5G coverage for the majority of the population with 72% of premises having outdoor access to a 5G signal. The disparity in employment rates between regions has reduced and productivity has grown faster across many Northern cities than London.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many of the recommendations made by the Law Commission in its report on leasehold enfranchisement, entitled Commonhold and the right to manage, published on 21 July 2020, have been incorporated into the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill delivers the most impactful of the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, which will make it cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease, and the Right to Manage. This includes increasing the non-residential limit to 50% to give more leaseholders the right to take over management and changing the rules to make each party pay their own process and litigation costs, saving leaseholders many thousands of pounds.
The Government has and will continue to set out its position on leasehold reform as part of the continued progress of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to tackle forfeiture of leasehold properties.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill delivers the most impactful of the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, which will make it cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease, and the Right to Manage. This includes increasing the non-residential limit to 50% to give more leaseholders the right to take over management and changing the rules to make each party pay their own process and litigation costs, saving leaseholders many thousands of pounds.
The Government has and will continue to set out its position on leasehold reform as part of the continued progress of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he last met the Law Commission to discuss leasehold reform.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill delivers the most impactful of the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, which will make it cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease, and the Right to Manage. This includes increasing the non-residential limit to 50% to give more leaseholders the right to take over management and changing the rules to make each party pay their own process and litigation costs, saving leaseholders many thousands of pounds.
The Government has and will continue to set out its position on leasehold reform as part of the continued progress of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of 5G masts on trends in the levels of local house prices.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Permitted development rights have been developed for telecommunications infrastructure. In 2022 the Government made changes to permitted development rights to enable 5G deployment and help extend mobile coverage, following consultations on both the principle and technical detail of changes.
Alongside these changes, the Government published a new Code of Practice for Wireless Network Development in England. This details considerations that operators should follow when deploying infrastructure, including how infrastructure should be sited. It also covers how they should consult with interested parties throughout the development process, particularly with local residents, and the circumstances where a greater level of community engagement should be considered.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate he has made of the number of rough sleepers in England.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The annual autumn snapshot statistics remain our official and most robust measure of rough sleeping on a single night given they are independently verified and are published in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The most recent snapshot showed the number of people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2023 is 3,898.
The Government also collects monthly management information from local authorities, which is published on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to help reduce the number of families living in temporary accommodation.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 23003 on 30 April 2024.