Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - 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 responses to their social housing green paper consultation; and when they intend to publish their conclusions on the future of social housing.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The consultation on the Green Paper, ‘A new deal for social housing’, closed on 6 November 2018. We received a large number of responses and are currently analysing these, along with the feedback from eight engagement events which we held with social housing residents around the country, seven roundtables with social housing landlords, and meetings with a variety of stakeholders.
We are very grateful for the input that residents, landlords and other stakeholders have provided throughout this process.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to publish the 2017–18 Devolution Annual Reports as required by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Government intends to publish the 2017-18 Devolution Annual Report shortly.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - 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 responses to their consultation on the use of receipts from the sale of homes under Right to Buy; and when they will publish their conclusions.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The consultation responses are being carefully analysed and the Government is actively considering its policy response. This is an important issue and we want to get the policies right. The Government’s response will be published in due course.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support first-time buyers on low to middle incomes who are unable to afford a deposit whilst paying rent.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Government-backed schemes including Help to Buy - Equity Loan, Help to Buy ISA and Lifetime ISA have helped over 500,000 households into home-ownership since 2010. The Autumn Budget 2018 provided an additional £7.2 billion for a new Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme to run from April 2021 to March 2023, which will exclusively help first time buyers. In addition to this the Stamp Duty relief for first time buyers introduced at the Autumn Budget 2017 will help over one million households over the next 5 years.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to publish additional planning guidance to supplement the definition of affordable housing set out in the glossary of the revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 24 July 2018, to ensure that it specifies affordable rent to buy.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Rent to buy is identified as a type of affordable housing in the revised National Planning Policy Framework. We intend to update planning guidance on affordable housing in due course.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that councils can make use of any additional flexibility made possible by the removal of the cap on councils' borrowing against their Housing Revenue Account assets to finance the construction of new homes without undue bureaucracy.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Autumn Budget announced the complete abolition of the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap with immediate effect. Following consultation, we have issued a determination that revoked the previous determinations specifying local authority limits on indebtedness, and as a result local authorities can now borrow for housebuilding in accordance with the Prudential Code. We want to see local authorities seize this opportunity and build a new generation of council housing.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to make any changes to the New Homes Bonus scheme in the next financial year.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Local Government Finance Settlement Technical consultation noted that the Government was not consulting on further changes to the New Homes Bonus for 2019/20 allocations but that the level of the baseline for growth, below which new allocations of the New Homes Bonus are not made, would be reviewed prior to the announcement of provisional allocations for 2019/20. As outlined in the Technical consultation, any changes to the baseline in 2019/20 will be announced at the time of the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - 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 extent of the current delays in the production of written reports by the Building Research Establishment following BS8414 tests on the performance of external fire cladding systems; and what are the implications of these delays for fire safety in the UK.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Government is not aware of any delays in the production of written reports by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) or any other commercial laboratories. Officials from the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government are in regular contact with building owners and the wider construction industry to identify anything that might prevent remediation of buildings with potentially unsafe ACM cladding systems.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of non-disclosure agreements that have been agreed between building owners and contractors relating to the correction of poorly installed cladding systems on high-rise buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The government does not hold information on or records of non-disclosure agreements between private building owners and contractors.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 30 April (HL6940), which organisation performed the original fire safety tests as specified in BS 476–22:1987 or BS EN 1634–1:2014 on the Manse Masterdor fire doors and gave authorisation that those fire doors could be made available for general sale.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Information on fire doors from Grenfell Tower is part of the Metropolitan Police on-going investigations and it would not be appropriate for us to comment while investigations are under way.