Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when the Community Ownership Fund will be opened to applications.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The bidding prospectus, guidance notes and application form for the community ownership fund were published on 15 July and the first bidding round is now open. Applicants will be able to complete the online application form from 30 July and the first bidding round will close on 13 August. There will be future bidding rounds in December 2021 and May 2022.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2021 to Question 167292 on Levelling Up Fund: Wales, how the Government plans to measure the visible impact of the Levelling Up Fund.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Levelling Up Fund will reflect this Government’s greater emphasis on high-quality evaluation, which is critical to understanding what types of interventions work well in addressing levelling up challenges, through individual projects and across varying spatial scales. The development of a local growth and transport evaluation culture, which promotes sharing learning across the UK, will be an important strand of this work.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2021 to Question 167292 on Levelling Up Fund: Wales, when his Department last had discussions with representatives of (a) Ceredigion County Council and( b) other local authorities in Wales as part of the Government's ongoing work to support local economic growth in response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Levelling Up Fund is a competitive fund, with funding distributed to places across the UK on the basis of successful project selection.
The Levelling Up Fund will invest in local infrastructure that will have a visible impact on people and their communities. The Government regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders as part of ongoing work to support local economic growth as we recover from Covid-19.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he had with Welsh local authorities on the design of the Community Renewal Fund.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government has been engaging with key stakeholders on the design and priorities of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund since 2016, including holding a series of engagement events. Our engagement events have taken place across the UK. Over 500 stakeholders attended these events across a variety of sectors, including Welsh local authorities.
We will continue to engage stakeholders as we consolidate policy development for UK Share Prosperity Fund.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with Welsh local authorities on the design of the Levelling Up Fund.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Levelling Up Fund will invest in local infrastructure that will have a visible impact on people and their communities. The Government regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders as part of ongoing work to support local economic growth as we recover from Covid-19.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the design of the (a) Levelling Up Fund and (b) the Community Renewal Fund.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The UK Government is providing an additional £220 million funding through the UK Community Renewal Fund to help local areas prepare for the launch of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in 2022. The Fund aims to support people and communities most in need across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches and will invest in skills, community and place, local business, and supporting people into employment.
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets.
The UK Government intends to continue to work with the devolved administrations to ensure that funding is used to best effect and supports citizens across the UK. For both funds, where appropriate, the UK Government will seek advice from the devolved administrations on bids to ensure that they are deliverable and complementary to other provision.
UK Government officials regularly engage their counterparts in the devolved administrations to discuss any updates, concerns or queries. UK Government ministers recently met with ministers in the Welsh Government to discuss the UK Community Renewal Fund, the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Community Ownership Fund.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing a scheme of support similar to that offered by the Government for properties affected by precast reinforced concrete to help homeowners affected by deficient cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has made £1.6 billion of funding available to support the remediation of high rise residential buildings with unsafe cladding in England. This will deal with some of the highest risk and highest cost safety defects in our existing high rise stock, protecting leaseholders from the vast majority of these costs.
However, Government funding is not the only means of funding remediation. The Government expects building owners to meet costs without passing them on to leaseholders wherever possible, through their own resources or by recovering costs from applicable warranty schemes or from the developers or contractors who were responsible for the installation of unsafe cladding, as is happening with more than half of the private sector buildings with Aluminium Composite Material cladding.
The Government is accelerating work on a long-term solution. We are determined to remove barriers to fixing historic defects and identify financing solutions that help to protect leaseholders, whilst also helping to protect the taxpayer. We will provide an update as soon as we are in a position to do so.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what process will be used to allocate funding from the Shared Prosperity Fund across the UK.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund will operate across the Union to make sure each of the four nations prosper. The Conservative Manifesto committed to at a minimum matching the size of European structural funds in each nation. Decisions regarding the design of the fund will need to be taken after a fiscal event. In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with interested parties whilst developing the fund.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of changing the tax regulations which allow second home owners to avoid paying full council tax by registering their properties as holiday lets.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Council tax is a devolved matter and the Welsh Government is responsible for the relevant legislation in Wales.
In England, a property may be registered as a holiday let – and therefore assessed for business rates rather than council tax – only if it is available for short-term let for 140 days or more a year.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has consulted on the criteria under which a holiday let is liable for business rates rather than council tax in England and is currently considering responses to that consultation.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to hold engagement events on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in the next (a) four weeks, (b) three months and (c) six months in (i) Wales, (ii) England, (iii) Scotland and (iv) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government recognises the importance of providing clarity to local areas on the future of local growth funding now we have left the European Union, and of wide engagement in developing the UK Shared Prosperity Fund which will tackle inequality and deprivation across the United Kingdom.
The Government has been working closely with interested parties across the UK whilst developing the fund, and officials have met with their counterparts in the devolved administrations on multiple occasions to discuss the fund.
In total, Government officials have held 25 engagement events across the UK, attended by over five hundred representatives from a breadth of sectors, which has helped inform progress on policy design.
There is continued regular engagement at official level, and it is expected this will be maintained in the future.