Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to support the RICS External Wall Fire Review process and help people sell their high-rise flats.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The ‘EWS1’ process, developed by RICS, is designed to support valuations of properties in residential buildings over 18 metres. It is important that information from those assessments are shared appropriately to support valuations for all the properties in any assessed block . An industry group is designing a data-sharing portal to facilitate this. The Government will help support this, with some funding, as required.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to bring forward legislative proposals to require surplus off-street parking revenue to be used in the same way as surplus on-street parking revenue.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Local authorities currently have strict controls over what they may spend any additional parking income on. Parking should be self-funding but local authorities must ensure that any surplus income from penalty charges (whether issued for on-street or off-street contraventions) plus any revenue from on-street parking fees and charges is used for legitimate purposes as prescribed in Section 55 (as amended) of the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the usable reserves held by each local authority in each year since 2010.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Local authorities are free to determine the level of reserves they hold on an annual basis and are accountable to their electorate for the decisions they make.
The financial framework is designed to ensure that adequate reserve levels are held by local authorities. This is done through legislation which requires local authorities to make an assessment annually on the adequacy of the financial reserves which are held. This aspect of the framework is crucial in ensuring that all local authorities hold sufficient unallocated reserves to meet unforeseeable financial risks
Local authorities report their usable reserves balances in a section of an annual Government return called 'Local Authority Revenue Expenditure and Financing Final Outturn'. These returns are published annually on the GOV.UK website. Categories are broken down into unallocated amounts (as referred to above) and earmarked balances which will usually be set aside for specific purposes. The data collection also includes ring-fenced reserves.
Attached is a link to that data source which contains links to each financial year's data on reserves including 2010/11. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of homeless people in (a) the UK, (b) England, (c) Hertfordshire and (d) Stevenage constituency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Homelessness is a devolved matter in the UK and statistics are produced by each UK country separately. MHCLG therefore holds data for England only. The Government Statistical Service Harmonisation Team have developed an interactive tool providing guidance on comparing statistics across UK countries and shows how each country’s statistics are collected. The tool is available here: https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/tools/GSS-Homelessness-Interactive-Tool/
Following the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, homeless households are owed a 56 day relief duty before a main duty decision is made. In England between April to June 2019, 32,220 households who presented themselves to their local authority were initially assessed as homeless and therefore owed a relief duty. During the same period, 8,360 households in England were assessed as owed a main homelessness duty. In Hertfordshire, 536 households were owed a relief duty and 223 were owed a main homelessness duty in April to June 2019. In Stevenage, 72 households were owed a relief duty and 13 were owed a main homelessness duty.
In December 2019 we announced the allocation of £263 million in funding for 2020/21 to local authorities designed to support them to deliver services to tackle homelessness. The purpose of this funding is to give local authorities more control and flexibility in managing homelessness pressures and supporting those who are at risk of homelessness, including providing them with temporary accommodation.
Table 1: Number of households owed relief duties and main duties, April to June 2019
| Relief duties owed | Main duty acceptances |
England | 32,220 | 8,360 |
Hertfordshire | 536 | 223 |
Stevenage | 72 | 13 |
Source: Homelessness statistics (HCLIC), MHCLG
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to tackle the disparity in discounts on properties offered to (a) council tenants and (b) right to buy schemes.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government remains committed to ensuring that housing association tenants have the opportunity to own their homes at an equivalent discount to that offered to local authority tenants under the statutory Right to Buy. The Voluntary Right to Buy pilot currently underway in the Midlands is a clear demonstration of that commitment and is giving thousands of housing association tenants in the East and West Midlands the opportunity to apply to purchase their homes at Right to Buy level discounts. The pilot will be independently evaluated after completion and future policy decisions will be taken in light of that evaluation.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress he has made on encouraging local authorities to invest more of their reserves in local communities.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Councils are free to determine the level of reserves they hold and are accountable to their electorate for the decisions they make. No powers exist to redistribute/reclaim this resource. All local authorities are required to hold sufficient unallocated reserves to meet unforecastable financial risks.
Many council’s reserves are earmarked for particular purposes. Earmarked reserves are funds that are spent at the discretion of the local authority.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has pans to encourage local authorities to reduce rates of council tax.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Council tax levels are determined by local authorities, although the Government maintains a referendum threshold to ensure local residents can have the final say on excessive increases. Referendum principles are set each year alongside the Local Government Finance Settlement, and proposals for 2020-21 will be published later in the year.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to reduce the two per cent referendum threshold on council tax increases to zero.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Council tax levels are determined by local authorities, although the Government maintains a referendum threshold to ensure local residents can have the final say on excessive increases. Referendum principles are set each year alongside the Local Government Finance Settlement, and proposals for 2020-21 will be published later in the year.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps is he taking to tackle unfair practises in the leasehold system.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
This Government is committed to tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market. We have committed to banning new leasehold houses and restricting ground rents to a peppercorn and launched a technical consultation on the details of these proposals which closed on 26 November. We will publish the Government response in due course and bring forward primary legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows.
We are also working with the Law Commission to make it faster, fairer and cheaper for existing leaseholders to extend their lease or buy the freehold. The Law Commission have also consulted on making Right to Manage legislation so that leaseholders can more easily take control of running their buildings. The Government will consider next steps when the Law Commission reports later this year
In addition, we have also set up a Working Group, chaired by Lord Best, to look at how property agents can be improved, including a single, mandatory Code of Practice for managing agents and whether any fees should be capped or banned. We expect to receive the Working Group's recommendations this summer and we will respond with our plans later this year.
We recently announced a new government-backed industry pledge to make sure that leaseholders whose leases contain onerous terms such as doubling ground rents within 20 years, get the support they need. The new pledge announced on 28 March has been signed by more than forty leading property developers and freeholders.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
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 implications for his policies of the housing association Right to Buy pilot schemes.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The forthcoming Midlands pilot will give thousands more housing association tenants the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of home ownership. The pilot will enable us to test key aspects of the voluntary agreement with housing associations not tested in the initial small-scale pilot, including the portable discount and one for one replacement. It will also allow us to better understand the level of demand, which will provide important evidence to inform the design of the main scheme.
Under the terms of the voluntary agreement between the Government and the National Housing Federation, housing associations will deliver an additional home through new supply nationally for every home sold hence increasing overall supply.