Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans his Department has to support key workers to access affordable housing.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government has brought forward a range of recent interventions to promote home ownership. As an example, the First Homes programme is designed to help local first-time buyers, and the £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme is intended to provide tens of thousands of new homes, a large number of which will be for Affordable and Social Rent.
Housing associations are required by the Tenancy Standard to co-operate with their local authority's strategic housing function and their duties to meet identified housing needs. As private organisations, beyond the obligations from these arrangements with their local authorities, housing associations are free to let their properties as they wish - including to key workers.
DLUHC does not collect data on NHS recruitment and retention.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans his Department has to improve access to secure housing for people with complex mental health needs.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
The Government is committed to improving mental health and wellbeing outcomes, particularly for people who experience worse outcomes than the general population. This is a key part of our commitment to ‘level up’ and address unequal outcomes and life chances across the country.
Local authorities are responsible for drawing up and operating their allocation scheme for social housing. In doing so they must give ‘reasonable preference’ to specific groups including people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds. This will include people with mental health needs. Statutory guidance advises local authorities to consider giving additional preference (high priority) to those who need to move urgently because of a sudden disability.
In addition, people with acute enduring mental health issues may also be able to access specialist supported housing provision with personal care, through local adult social care system commissioning.
Furthermore, the White Paper People at the Heart of Care published in December 2021 set out Government’s ambition to ensure people, including those with complex mental health needs, have the choice and control to remain independent in the community.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what standards a polling station must adhere to on accessibility for disabled people.
Answered by Paul Scully
We continue to work with local authorities, charities, and civil society organisations, including those who represent people with disabilities, to help ensure that voter identification is accessible for everybody.
Local authorities are responsible for designating polling places and the law requires them to make sure that, as far as is practicable, these are accessible to the local community, including those voters with a disability.
The Elections Act 2022 will require Returning Officers to consider the needs of a wider range of disabled voters in polling stations and will remove restrictions on who can help disabled voters to cast their vote.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what discussions he has had with groups representing disabled people in advance of the mandatory voter ID requirement coming into effect.
Answered by Paul Scully
We continue to work with local authorities, charities, and civil society organisations, including those who represent people with disabilities, to help ensure that voter identification is accessible for everybody.
Local authorities are responsible for designating polling places and the law requires them to make sure that, as far as is practicable, these are accessible to the local community, including those voters with a disability.
The Elections Act 2022 will require Returning Officers to consider the needs of a wider range of disabled voters in polling stations and will remove restrictions on who can help disabled voters to cast their vote.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what provisions his Department enforces to ensure that a minimum number of new council houses are specially adapted to suit the needs of those with physical disabilities.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
To promote much needed new supply, the £11.5 billon Affordable Homes Programme (2021-26) (England) includes delivery within the programme for new supported housing for disabled, older and other vulnerable people, alongside other investment through DHSC.
Our planning rules already mean councils must consider the needs of older and disabled people when planning new homes. We have given councils guidance on options they should consider, such as housing with improved accessibility, to enable older and disabled people to live safely and independently.
The Government consulted from 8 Sept to 1 Dec 2020 on options to raise the accessibility of new homes. Evidence gathered through the consultation will help identify what changes can be made, including reviewing or tightening the regulatory framework to deliver accessible new homes and updates to statutory guidance.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what provisions his Department enforces to ensure that local authorities take into account the needs of people with (a) visual impairments and (b) learning difficulties when redeveloping town centres.
Answered by Lia Nici
We want to see thriving towns and high streets that are accessible to all. We set out how we will do this in the National Disability Strategy, published in July 2021.
In addition, our national planning policy framework and design guidance encourages local planning authorities to set out local policies and plans that aim to create places that are safe, inclusive and accessible. My department is also embedding accessibility within our criteria for how we design and allocate investment to local regeneration projects.
Round two of the Levelling Up Fund is currently open, with projects in scope including: accessibility improvements to local transport networks, the enhancement of infrastructure to help make town centres and high streets more accessible, and accessibility improvements to key cultural and heritage assets.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether any exclusions will apply to the proposed changes to enable leaseholders to have the right to extend their lease by a maximum of 990 years at zero ground rent.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. We are taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market, in January we announced reforms to the valuation process and length of lease extensions, in response to Law Commission recommendations.
The Law Commission’s report on enfranchisement includes recommendations relating to the qualifying criteria for enfranchisement and lease extensions, including any potential exemptions. We will bring forward a response to these and the other remaining Law Commission recommendations in due course.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will publish an estimate of costs to leaseholders other than legal fees of extending their lease by a maximum term of 990 years at zero ground rent.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. We are taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market.
Whilst the cost of a lease extension will vary depending on a number of factors including the time remaining on the existing lease, under the current system too many leaseholders find the process for extending their lease or buying their freehold (a process known as enfranchisement) too complex, lacking transparency and prohibitively expensive.
We will reform the process of enfranchisement valuation that leaseholders must follow to calculate the cost of extending their lease or buying their freehold. The Government will abolish marriage value, cap the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value, and prescribe rates for the calculations at market value. The Government will also introduce an online calculator, further simplifying the process for leaseholders and ensuring standardisation and fairness for all those looking to enfranchise. These changes to the enfranchisement valuation process will result in substantial savings for some leaseholders, particularly those with less than 80 years left on their lease. Our reforms to enfranchisement valuation also ensure that sufficient compensation is paid to landlords to reflect their legitimate property interests.
We will translate these measures into law as soon as possible, starting with legislation to set ground rents on newly created leases to zero in the upcoming session. This will be the first part of major two-part legislation to implement leasehold and Commonhold reforms in this Parliament.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support has been given to (a) Bexley Borough Council and (b) Greenwich Borough Council to help rough sleepers (i) during and (ii) after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
In 2020/21, we are providing over £700 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping across England.
Greenwich have been allocated £951,740 through?rough sleeping?programmes?in 2020/21. This includes Rough Sleeping Initiative funding to support the establishment or enhancement of coordinated local services for rough sleepers or those at risk of sleeping rough, £413,207 Next Steps Accommodation Programme funding to prevent as many as possible of those brought in during the Covid-19 pandemic returning to the streets and Cold Weather Funding: giving local areas the tools they need to protect people from cold weather and the risks posed by Covid-19.
Bexley have been allocated £240,000 through?rough sleeping?programmes?in 2020/21. Bexley have been allocated £190,000 in funding through the Next Steps Accommodation Programme and Cold Weather Funding.
Both authorities are also being closely supported by our MHCLG?Rough Sleeping Initiative advisers and Homelessness Advice and Support Team. These expert advisers are pro-actively working with local areas and will continue to support these authorities with the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act and the Rough Sleeping?Initiative.
Both authorities produced delivery plans setting out how they will be supporting rough sleepers. Delivery plans were used in the allocation of Next Steps Accommodation Programme funding.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has issued guidance to local authorities on banning the eviction of people living in local authority housing during the November 2020 covid-19 lockdown.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
On 16 November we changed the law in England to ensure bailiffs do not enforce evictions over this period of national restrictions or the Christmas period. This means that no eviction notices may be served until 11 January and, given the 14 day notice period required, no evictions are expected until 25 January at the earliest. The only exceptions to this are for the most serious cases, such as anti-social behaviour and perpetrators of domestic abuse in social housing.
Guidance for landlords, including local authority landlords, is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-and-renting-guidance-for-landlords-tenants-and-local-authorities.
Guidance for social landlords on understanding the possession action process is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-the-possession-action-process-guidance-for-landlords-and-tenants.
We will aim to provide further guidance regarding the operation of the exemptions shortly.