Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many properties they estimate are owned by rogue landlords.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The government does not hold data on the number of properties owned by rogue landlords. Councils are encouraged to maintain intelligence on the housing stock in their area. Government has recently made available £2 million in funding for innovative and targeted projects, including to help local authorities improve local intelligence on the quality of local private rented sector stock to ensure efficient and targeted enforcement operations.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of private rented properties left vacant since councils were allowed to levy council tax on such properties compared to previously; and what assessment they have made of the impact any increase in the amount councils may levy will have on the number of such properties.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Since 2013, local authorities have had the discretion to charge up to 100 per cent Council Tax on any empty property and to levy a council tax premium of up to 50 per cent on properties that have been empty for two years or more. The Government has recently introduced legislation which will allow local authorities to increase the Council Tax premium; to 100 per cent on homes empty for 2 years or more from April 2019; to 200 per cent on homes empty for more than five years from April 2020 and up to 300 per cent on homes empty for more than 10 years from April 2021. The Government does not collect data that identifies vacant private rented properties and has not undertaken an assessment of the impact any changes in Council Tax levels might have on such properties.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the findings of the independent review of the disabled facilities grant have not been published; whether they intend to publish it; and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I welcome the independent review of the Disabled Facilities Grant, which was jointly commissioned by my Department and the Department of Health and Social Care. The review reported over the summer and we intend to publish it in due course.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, in the light of their statement reported on 19 August that “work is under way on 70 per cent of social housing with unsafe cladding”, to ensure that such work (1) is commenced on the remaining 30 per cent, and (2) is carried out on non-social housing.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Remediation start dates will vary depending on a number of factors including the extent of the work needed. This work cannot be done overnight – and it must be done properly. To help expedite the process the Government has agreed to fully fund the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on residential social housing buildings, 18m and above owned by local authorities and housing associations, with costs estimated at £400 million. For the private sector, the Secretary of State has written to private building owners that do not have any remediation plans in place, urging them to follow the lead from private companies already doing the right thing, by getting on with the task of remediating and not passing on costs to leaseholders.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many social housing properties have been sold under the Right-to-Buy Scheme since 2010; and how many of those sold have been replaced by (1) local authorities, and (2) housing associations.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
There have been 93,859 Right-to-Buy sales since 2010, of which 72,042 sales have been local authority properties. In the same time period 128,050 new homes have been provided for social rent.
In 2012 the Government made changes to the Right to Buy scheme, increasing the maximum discount caps. An estimate of the expected sales without these increases to the discount cap had been calculated for the purposes of calculating the local authorities’ self-financing payments. Any Right to Buy sales above these projections are considered ‘additional’ and are subject to the one-for-one additions policy, which is a commitment to provide dwelling at affordable or social rent for each additional Right to Buy dwelling sold.
Under the Right to Buy one-for-one replacement policy, local authorities have three years from receiving receipts arising from additional Right to Buy sales to incur a specified level of expenditure on one-for-one replacement. If a local authority does not incur this level of this expenditure, a proportion of the receipt is transferred to Homes England (HE) or the Greater London authority (GLA), who use these recycled Right to Buy receipts to deliver starts and acquisitions.
As part of the one-for-one Right-to-Buy replacement commitment Local Authorities have delivered 16,012 replacements and recycled receipts used by HE and the GLA has delivered 1,899 replacements.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of Grenfell Tower residents who have accepted publicly funded accommodation, are in (1) temporary, and (2) permanent accommodation; and of those, what percentage live in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The latest data from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) shows that, as of 18th June, 52 households from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk are living in temporary accommodation, which represents 26 per cent of the total number of households from Grenfell Tower and Walk who have accepted either temporary or permanent accommodation. Of this number, 36 households are living within RBKC, which represents 69 per cent of those living in temporary accommodation.
83 households are living in permanent accommodation, which represents 42 per cent of the total number of households from Grenfell Tower and Walk who have accepted either temporary or permanent accommodation. Of this number, 71 households are living within RBKC, which represents 86 per cent of those living in permanent accommodation.
All residents have been housed in temporary accommodation locally if that is their preference, and in acquiring permanent properties, the Council focussed on identifying local properties so that survivors can remain in the area over the long-term if that is what they wish.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they plan to take to protect leaseholders from being required by freeholders to pay excessively large sums for remedial work to ensure the safety of multi-storey housing accommodation.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Secretary of State announced on 4 December that the department is providing additional funding to the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE), an arm’s length body which provides free initial legal advice to leaseholders, to advise on fire safety issues.
Just as social landlords are not seeking to pass on costs for cladding remediation, in the private sector we believe that the morally right thing to do is for landlords to not pass these costs onto leaseholders.
The Department is keeping the situation under review.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost to local authorities of the new requirement to comply with a social care providers scheme linked to payments for sleep-in care; and whether the new burdens doctrine will apply to such costs.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Work conducted by the Government during the summer highlighted the risk posed to the social care sector as a consequence of historical liabilities associated with "Sleep-in" shifts. The Government is exploring options to minimise the impact on the social care sector, including holding discussions with the European Commission. On 1 November 2017, in recognition of the extraordinary circumstances affecting the social care sector, HMRC introduced the Social Care Compliance Scheme. This is an interim enforcement scheme designed to facilitate a solution to the issue of National Minimum Wage underpayment for sleep-in shifts in the social care sector.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they estimate has been realised since 2010 through the sale of council housing under right to buy; and what was the total of the discounts accorded to purchasers exercising that right.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Nearly £4.8 billion has been generated from Right to Buy sales receipts since 2010. Table 692, details quarterly Right to Buy receipts received by Local Authorities since 2012.
(https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales)
Prior to 2012 figures on receipts are available in Table 682 - Social Housing Sales: Annual Financial Data on Right to Buy sales for England.
(https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales)
Table 682 also contains the average discounts that tenants received when purchasing their home under the Right to Buy.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the amount raised by councils in England under the empty home premium in each year since its introduction; what was the average house price in England in each of those years; what comparative assessment they have made of the amounts raised under the premium and house price rises; and whether they intend to review the maximum amount that councils in England may charge.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Data on the amount raised by councils under the empty homes premium is not collected by the Department.
The average house price in England is published by the Land Registry in conjunction with the Office for National Statistics, and can be found (attached) at the following link
http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi?utm_medium=GOV.UK&utm_source=datadownload&utm_campaign=tool&utm_term=9.30_11_04_17
Billing authorities already have discretion to impose a premium of up to 50 per cent on the council tax due on long-term empty properties, and there are no current plans to review that arrangement. The Department has not made any comparative assessment of the amounts raised under the premium and house price rises.