Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the Housing Infrastructure Fund has been spent to date on (1) road infrastructure, (2) active travel infrastructure, including pavements and cycle paths, and (3) other types of infrastructure.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The department does not break down Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) spending on types of infrastructure. £4 billion has been allocated for local authorities in England to support infrastructure projects, which will seek to unlock 324,000 homes. The Fund enables local authorities to deliver the infrastructure their communities need – including new roads, leisure and healthcare services, digital and power networks, and schools, to encourage more housebuilding without overstretching facilities.HIF schemes are often complex and deliver multiple items of infrastructure. Disaggregating these to determine exactly which infrastructure categories individual items were part of would require detailed analysis and therefore could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many responses they received to the consultation on street vote development orders, which ran from 22 December 2023 to 2 February 2024.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Over 250 responses were received, and they are currently being analysed.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they first knew that the Building Safety Act 2022 removed protection from remediation costs from qualifying leaseholders who extended their lease.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are giving to shared-ownership leaseholders in buildings requiring remediation.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Qualifying shared ownership leaseholders are protected from all cladding remediation costs. Additionally, where capped contributions for non-cladding and interim measure costs are required, they are reduced in proportion to their equity stake in the property. Where the landlord is associated with the developer, the landlord has an obligation to pay for all costs associated with the remediation of all defects and any associated interim measures.
All leaseholders can benefit from the funding available for cladding repairs for buildings over 18 metres through the Building Safety Fund and, potentially, the new scheme for 11-18 metre buildings (currently at pilot stage) where developers or building owners are not currently funding cladding remediation.
For those shared ownership leaseholders looking to increase or 'staircase' their ownership share, on 20 December 2022, the six largest mortgage lenders confirmed that lenders will consider mortgage applications on properties in buildings in England of 11 metres or 5 storeys and above in height with building safety issues, providing it is being self-remediated by developers, is covered by a recognised government scheme, or the property is protected by the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act.
For shared ownership leaseholders who need to move for work or family reasons, the Government has also made it easier for those living in buildings that require remediation to sublet their homes.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their proposals contained in their consultation Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: reforms to national planning policy, published on 22 December 2022, on their commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I refer my noble friend to the impact assessment for the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill here.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the review of the effectiveness of the Tenants’ Associations (Provisions Relating to Recognition and Provision of Information) (England) Regulations 2018 will be carried out.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The Government wants to make it easier for leaseholders to come together to take on responsibilities for their properties. We are currently considering the Law Commission's report and recommendations on improvements to the Right to Manage for leaseholders. We will also continue to monitor the operation of the Statutory Instrument.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they consider that the QEII Conference Centre is unsuitable accommodation for the House of Lords; and what evidence they have for this.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Levelling Up is central to the Government's mission and the Government would welcome the House of Lords playing a leading role in that effort.
Peers relocating out of London during the decant would not only be a powerful symbol but a very practical way to boost local economies and ensure that lawmakers could hear directly from those beyond the capital. For this reason, the Secretary of State cannot support the use of the QEII Conference Centre, a location in the heart of Westminster, as a decant location for the House of Lords.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many buildings have been assessed as needing remediation under the provisions proposed in the Building Safety Bill; and on how many of these have agreements been reached with the construction industry to carry out the necessary remediation.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Information on the number of high-rise (over 18 metres) residential and publicly-owned buildings with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations is available in the Building Safety Programme data release here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/aluminium-composite-material-cladding#acm-remediation-data.
For high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, the Department is continuing to work with building owners to progress applications for the Building Safety Fund at pace so more remedial works can begin as swiftly as possible. Information on the Building Safety Fund can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics.
We have begun a pilot data collection project for 11-18m residential buildings to identify materials in use and to inform the design of a wider national 11-18m data collection exercise. We will publish further details in due course.
We have asked developers to provide comprehensive information on all buildings over 11m which have historic fire-safety defects and which they have played a part in constructing in the last 30 years. We are reviewing this data, alongside other data we have received, to ensure fire safety issues in these buildings are identified and addressed as quickly as possible.
The principle of protecting leaseholders living in their own homes is paramount.
It is fundamentally unfair that innocent leaseholders, most of whom have worked hard and made sacrifices to get a foot on the housing ladder, should be landed with bills they cannot afford to fix problems they did not cause.
We have been in intensive talks with the housebuilding sector to come forward with proposals on how it will make right its historic mistakes by taking responsibility for fixing the stock of unsafe buildings which have been built over decades.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the progress of the Building Safety Fund.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up made clear in his building safety statement on 10 January 2022 that the Government is focused on making sure the Building Safety Fund is more risk driven and delivered more quickly to protect leaseholders. The monthly Building Safety Fund statistics on gov.uk at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registrations-private-sector-and-social-sector show the progress that is being made with the Fund. Over £1 billion of funding has been allocated and over a thousand buildings are proceeding with a full application to the Building Safety Fund. This means that owners of over 80 thousand homes within high-rise blocks are covered by Building Safety Fund applications and leaseholders and residents can be assured the fire risks caused by the unsafe cladding will be addressed at no cost to them.
Asked by: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement on building safety by the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 10 January (HC Deb col 288), whether leaseholders who are buy-to-let landlords will be covered by the "protection for leaseholders" referred to.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
As set out in our statement to Parliament on Building Safety on 10 January 2022, building owners and industry should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders, and leaseholders living in their own medium rise buildings should not pay a penny to remediate historic cladding defects that are no fault of their own. We have clarified that we have no intention of excluding leaseholders who have moved out and sublet from the protections that will be in place (including those in shared ownership) for buildings below 18 metres in England. We will explore whether this support should extend to other leaseholders, such as buy-to-let landlords.