Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Answer of 9 March 2023 to Question 156238 on Building Regulations: Carbon Emissions, what his Department’s planned timescale is for launching a consultation on the Government’s approach to embodied carbon.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Announcements will be set out in the usual way.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to use any in-year underspend in his Department's revenue budget to re-open the Community Housing Fund; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Details of departmental underspends are published annually as part of HM Treasury’s Main Supply Estimates.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 28 June 2023 to Question 21263 on Private Rented Housing, for what reasons he has maintained the requirement for Secretary of State approval for larger local authority selective licencing schemes.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
All tenants should have access to a good quality and safe homes. Selective licensing is a targeted tool to improve standards and safety in the private rented sector in areas suffering from issues such as poor housing quality, levels of deprivation and anti-social behaviour. In the White Paper: A Fairer Private Rented Sector, we set out how we are going to reform the private rented sector to level up housing quality and increase the tools available to local authorities to crack down on poor quality, building on the powers already available, including selective licensing.
We continue to review the use of selective licensing via our approval process and engagement with local authorities. We will consider throughout the development of the private rented sector reforms how selective licensing will work with the new system. In the meantime, selective licensing remains an effective tool for local authorities to tackle issues in their local private rented sector.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will take steps to allow the Affordable Homes programme to offer a pre-development grant to smaller community housing providers that lack the working capital to bring forward schemes for capital funding bids; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) provides capital grants for new homes.
The Government values the role of smaller housing providers in delivering housing supply where it is most needed. The AHP enables smaller providers to access grant funding through a Continuous Market Engagement (CME) function, which is designed to support individual schemes. Providers can be paid on a cashflow basis, which supports them to make initial investment in developing new sites before they start building work.
Since the most recent round of the Community Housing Fund closed in March 2022, the Government has been considering what support it may provide to the community-led housing sector and we will make a decision in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans to publish his response to the consultation entitled A Decent Homes Standard in the private rented sector, published on 2 September 2023; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
I refer the Hon. Member to answers given at Oral Parliamentary Questions (Official Report, HC, Volume 730) on 27 March 2023 and to the White Paper, A Fairer Private Rented Sector, published online and available on gov.uk. We are currently analysing the response to the Decent Homes Standard consultation and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will take legislative steps to require landlord licensing for all privately rented properties in the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
I refer the Hon. Member to answers given at Oral Parliamentary Questions (Official Report, HC, Volume 730) on 27 March 2023 and to the White Paper, A Fairer Private Rented Sector, published online and available on gov.uk. We are currently analysing the response to the Decent Homes Standard consultation and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to provide bridging funding to replace European Regional Development Funding in the 2022-23 financial year; if he will place a copy of his response to the letter of 27 February 2023 on this issue from the University Alliance in the House of Commons Library; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
As previously set out, the UK continues to participate in the EU programmes funded through the current 2014-20 Multiannual Financial Framework (MMF) which includes ERDF. The Withdrawal Agreement ensures that ERDF funding is available until the end of 2023. Total domestic funding will at least match receipts from EU structural funds. We will respond to the letter in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department's policy on changing legislation to protect tenants who are students from no fault evictions has changed since the Consultation outcome, A new deal for renting: government response, Updated 16 June 2022; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The department is carefully considering the impact of our reforms on the student market. Since the publication of the White Paper, we have continued to engage with stakeholders across the sector, including students and landlords. Ministers convened a round table with landlord and student representative groups in December 2022 to discuss our proposed reforms.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of local authorities in which the LHA meets the 30th percentile of local rents; if he will take steps to (a) increase the LHA rates so they meet the 30th percentile of local rents in all areas and (b) provide funding for social landlords to buy the homes of mortgaged homeowners who are unable to pay their mortgages; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Local Housing Allowance's rates are set for each Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA). These areas can encompass more than one local authority, and local authorities can also be split between two BRMAs. As a result, we cannot provide this information at the local authority level.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2023 to Question 138293 on Elections: Proof of Identity and with reference to the percentage figures of people who hold photographic ID contained in the Cabinet Office Photographic ID research Headline Findings of 21 March 2021, if he will make an estimate of the numbers of people in (a) total and (b) in each age group who do not have the required ID to vote.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
I refer the Hon. Member to the response to the UQ I gave on the floor of the House on 21 February 2023.