Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to take steps to require Homes England to maintain a formal publicly available register of directors of regulated housing associations.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Housing associations are independent organisations regulated by the independent Regulator of Social Housing and board members are responsible for ensuring that the provider’s business is effectively managed. The Regulator’s statutory objectives include ensuring that registered providers of social housing are financially viable and properly managed, and perform their functions efficiently and economically. The Government expects housing associations to take a responsible approach that delivers value for money for tenants and taxpayers.
To deliver its objective, the Regulator has published a Governance and Financial Viability Standard, which sets out a number of requirements on private registered providers (including housing associations). This includes a requirement that providers:
The Regulator also has powers to direct private registered providers on the preparation of their annual accounts. Under this Direction, the accounts should contain information on board remuneration and the salary of the highest paid director and chief executive officer.
A list of all registered providers is available (attached) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/current-registered-providers-of-social-housing. Information on Directors of companies is available from Companies House, and on the trustees of registered charities from the Charity Commission.
The Secretary of State is not able to direct the Regulator on the governance arrangements of housing associations, and the Regulator has no plans to change the current approach.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to take steps to require all housing associations to publish details of director attendance at meetings in their annual reports.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Housing associations are independent organisations regulated by the independent Regulator of Social Housing and board members are responsible for ensuring that the provider’s business is effectively managed. The Regulator’s statutory objectives include ensuring that registered providers of social housing are financially viable and properly managed, and perform their functions efficiently and economically. The Government expects housing associations to take a responsible approach that delivers value for money for tenants and taxpayers.
To deliver its objective, the Regulator has published a Governance and Financial Viability Standard, which sets out a number of requirements on private registered providers (including housing associations). This includes a requirement that providers:
The Regulator also has powers to direct private registered providers on the preparation of their annual accounts. Under this Direction, the accounts should contain information on board remuneration and the salary of the highest paid director and chief executive officer.
A list of all registered providers is available (attached) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/current-registered-providers-of-social-housing. Information on Directors of companies is available from Companies House, and on the trustees of registered charities from the Charity Commission.
The Secretary of State is not able to direct the Regulator on the governance arrangements of housing associations, and the Regulator has no plans to change the current approach.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to take steps to require Homes England to publish clear governance standards for housing associations to enforce strong independent director representation and responsibilities in line with those applying to public companies.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Housing associations are independent organisations regulated by the independent Regulator of Social Housing and board members are responsible for ensuring that the provider’s business is effectively managed. The Regulator’s statutory objectives include ensuring that registered providers of social housing are financially viable and properly managed, and perform their functions efficiently and economically. The Government expects housing associations to take a responsible approach that delivers value for money for tenants and taxpayers.
To deliver its objective, the Regulator has published a Governance and Financial Viability Standard, which sets out a number of requirements on private registered providers (including housing associations). This includes a requirement that providers:
The Regulator also has powers to direct private registered providers on the preparation of their annual accounts. Under this Direction, the accounts should contain information on board remuneration and the salary of the highest paid director and chief executive officer.
A list of all registered providers is available (attached) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/current-registered-providers-of-social-housing. Information on Directors of companies is available from Companies House, and on the trustees of registered charities from the Charity Commission.
The Secretary of State is not able to direct the Regulator on the governance arrangements of housing associations, and the Regulator has no plans to change the current approach.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of new homes built in the UK in the financial year 2016–17; and, of those, how many were (1) the conversion of houses into flats, and (2) the conversion of shops and offices into homes.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Estimates of the number of new homes completed, net conversions between houses and flats, and net change of use between non-domestic and residential are available for England, in 2016-17.
Annual housing supply in England amounted to 217,350 net additional dwellings in 2016-17, up 15 per cent on 2015-16.
The 217,350 net additions in 2016-17 resulted from 183,570 new build homes, 37,190 gains from change of use between non-domestic and residential, 5,680 from conversions between houses and flats and 720 other gains (caravans, house boats etc.), offset by 9,820 demolitions.
18,887 of the net additions from change of use were through ‘permitted development rights’ (full planning permission not required). These comprised 17,751 additional dwellings from former offices, 330 from agricultural buildings, 106 from storage buildings and 700 from other non-domestic buildings
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not publish a similar series on net supply of housing, although house building estimates are published by the devolved administrations. A time series showing demolitions and conversions in Scotland is also available, please see below the link.
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/ConDem
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Help to Rent projects and their capacity to help local authorities meet their obligations under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Help to rent projects play an important role in enabling homeless people to access the private rented sector. We are considering how best to take forward mediated access in the context of our overall homelessness prevention approach.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the scale of commercial property investment by some local authorities in recent years; and whether they plan to commission a risk analysis of the financial security of such investments in the event of a decline in property values or an upward trend in interest rates.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Over the past two years the scale and nature of commercial activity has increased significantly. When entering into borrowing or investment decisions, local authorities are required to have regard to a series of statutory codes. Officials have been monitoring developments in this area and are working with the sector to update the control framework with the aim of improving risk management and transparency of decision making.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to audit the emergency plans of local authorities to ensure that they are up–to–date and robust.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Government currently does not plan to audit local authorities’ emergency plans. Local authorities, as category 1 responders under the Civil Contingency Act 2004, are subject to the full set of civil protection duties and are best placed to develop appropriate emergency plans based on local risks and needs.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government which elections for mayors of combined mayoral authorities will definitely take place in May 2017 and which others may take place in May 2017 depending on the progress of legislation.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Legislation has been made for combined authority mayoral elections to take place in May 2017 in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Sheffield City Region, Tees Valley and the West Midlands. In addition, with certain other areas the Government has agreed devolution agreements, the implementation of which would include the holding of mayoral elections in May 2017; these areas are Greater Lincolnshire, the West of England, and East Anglia, where in this last case local leaders are evolving the agreement into two distinct deals – one for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and one for Norfolk and Suffolk.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their current estimate of the total number of new homes that will be completed in the UK after May 2020.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
My Department does not publish forecasts of net additions.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the total number of new homes that will be completed in the UK between May 2015 and May 2020.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
My Department does not publish forecasts of net additions.