Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what (1) amount, and (2) percentage, of the £3.2 billion funding announced for local authorities during the COVID-19 outbreak will be dedicated to support local authorities to secure self-contained accommodation and provide assistance to people sleeping rough and in night shelters.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The £3.2 billion of funding provided to local government is paid through a grant that is not ring-fenced, recognising that local authorities are best placed to decide how this funding is spent. This funding will?enable local authorities to respond to COVID-19 pressures across all?the services they deliver, stepping up support for services helping the most vulnerable, including homeless people.?This is in addition to £3.2 million in targeted funding for councils to support vulnerable rough sleepers.
More than 5,400?rough?sleepers?– over 90% of those on the streets?at the beginning of the crisis?known to local authorities have now been made offers of safe accommodation – ensuring some of the most vulnerable in society are protected from the pandemic.?This includes those rough sleeping or who have been living in accommodation with communal sleeping spaces such as night shelters.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to make permanent housing and support, including the Housing First model, the default option for people with complex needs who had previously been sleeping rough and who have been supported under the Everyone In initiative.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
More than 5,400?rough?sleepers?– over 90% of those on the streets?at the beginning of the crisis?known to local authorities have now been made offers of safe accommodation – ensuring some of the most vulnerable in society are protected from the pandemic. This includes those rough sleeping or who have been living in accommodation with communal sleeping spaces such as night shelters.
The Government allocated £28 million to pilot Housing First at scale in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and West Midlands combined authorities in May 2018. Our independent contractors for the evaluation, ICF, are making progress and the first interim process report is due to be published later this year. We will use this to inform any potential future decisions on roll out.
This funding is alongside significant investment including £112m across England in 2020/21 for the Rough Sleeping Initiative to help around 270 areas tackle rough sleeping across 2020/21. The funding is a 30% increase on the previous year and will be used to introduce and expand a range of measures, including housing support and housing-led solutions, as well as specialist support workers.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to assist libraries to loan more audio books and e-books during the COVID-19 pandemic; and what conversations, if any, they have had with the publishing industry about that issue.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Libraries across England have responded swiftly to the COVID-19 pandemic, adapting to meet their users’ needs. Although the physical doors are closed, library services have developed innovative and exciting digital ways to continue to provide services. This has included repurposing stock budgets to meet the increase in demand for e-books and e-audiobooks.
Arts Council England has provided £151,000 (around £1,000 per library authority) to supplement existing e-book funding. Publishers and aggregators have also responded positively. Two aggregators have offered to match the ACE investment where money is spent on e-audio items. Through conversations with the sector we also know that publishers are lifting restrictions to enable remote storytelling so that library Rhyme Times can continue online.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to prevent any increase in childhood deprivation.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government is committed to delivering a sustainable, long-term solution to poverty in all its forms. This requires an approach that goes beyond a focus on income and tackles the root causes of poverty and disadvantage, to improve long-term outcomes for families and children.
The evidence is clear about the importance of work, in particular full time work, in tackling child poverty and improving children’s educational outcomes. The absolute poverty rate (BHC) of a child, where both parents work full-time is only 4%, compared to 44% where one or more parents are in part-time work. Universal Credit helps by incentivising entry into work, offering smooth incentives to increase hours. We will therefore continue with our reforms to the welfare system so that it works with the tax system and the labour market to support employment and higher pay.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to (1) formally recognise, and (2) protect, the interests of future generations.
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
I refer my noble friend to the answer given to him on 28 October 2019 in response to Question HL10.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to formally recognise and protect the interests of future generations
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Accounting for the interests of future generations is a core consideration for the government. For example, in June 2019 the UK became the first major economy to legislate to end our net contribution to climate change by 2050. The government also has planned spending on childcare support of £6bn in 2019-20 and a further £4.6bn above inflation planned for schools by 2022-23.
The government currently uses the “Green Book” as a frameworks to potential interventions. In line with the Green Book, decisions on all government programmes, projects or policies must be informed by the costs, benefits and risks over the whole lifetime of the intervention, including where its impact will affect future generations.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion, and what amount, of the £250 million Culture Investment Fund will be allocated specifically to libraries
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Over £125m of this new funding will be invested in regional museums and libraries around the country over five years from 2020/21. The funding will be used to upgrade buildings and technology so public libraries across England are better placed to respond to the changing ways people are using them. Details of investment plans will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to increase literacy levels in England
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards, ensuring all children can read fluently and with understanding. The new national curriculum, introduced in 2014, has increased the focus on reading in the primary curriculum and has a focus on phonics. There is a substantial body of evidence that shows that systematic phonics is a highly effective method for teaching early reading.
The government introduced the light touch phonics screening check for year 1 pupils in 2012. The check is designed to assess pupils’ ability to decode and read words using phonics. Phonics performance is improving, with 82% of pupils meeting the expected standard in 2019, compared to 58% when the check was introduced.
Building on this success, in 2018 the department launched a £26.3 million English Hubs Programme. We have appointed 34 primary schools across England as English Hubs. The English Hubs Programme is supporting nearly 3000 schools in England to improve their teaching of reading through systematic synthetic phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. The English Hubs are focused on improving educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils in Reception and Year 1.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendations in the report by the World Future Council Unlocking the Trillions to Finance the 1.5°c Limit, published on 7 November 2017, concerning the role of central banks buying fossil fuel stranded assets on the condition that the money is invested in the renewable energy sector.
Answered by Lord Duncan of Springbank
The Government’s Green Finance Strategy sets out the Government’s approach to accelerating green finance. As set out in the Strategy, the Government welcomes the work of the Central Banks’ and Supervisors’ Network for Greening the Financial System, of which the Bank of England is a founding member.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to make an assessment of the level of investment in programmes to tackle rough sleeping that would result by imposing either (1) a one per cent stamp duty surcharge on non-resident property purchases, or (2) a three per cent stamp duty surcharge on non-resident property purchases; if so, when; and if not, why not.
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Government announced at Budget 2018 a new Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) surcharge of one per cent on non-residents buying residential property in England and Northern Ireland. This will help control house price growth and so help ensure those resident in the UK can get on the housing ladder.
A costing for how much the surcharge will raise will be produced at a future fiscal event once the final design of the surcharge has been confirmed. This costing will follow the usual process for analysing the revenue impacts of new tax measures, including being subject to scrutiny from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The Government remains committed to ending rough sleeping. The Chancellor announced £54m of new funding to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping in last week’s Spending Round. This takes total resource funding to £422m next year – a real terms increase of 13%.