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, what funding will be provided by central Government to support (a) organisations, (b) local authorities and (c) others who offer assistance to Ukrainian refugees via the humanitarian sponsorship route.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer the Hon Member to the Secretary of State's statement to Parliament of 14 March 2022.
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, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the recommendation in End Our Cladding Scandal's Dereliction of Duty report, published on 20 February 2022, on strengthening the role of the Regulator of Social Housing and Housing Ombudsman to ensure that (a) housing associations are held to account for their obligations relating to building safety and (b) leaseholders are able to obtain appropriate redress in circumstances where a housing association is found to have failed to uphold those obligations; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Regulator of Social Housing's consumer regulation function is primarily responsible for regulating landlords in their delivery of services to tenants, and in some cases shared owners. The Regulator of Social Housing does not have a legal remit on protections for leaseholders. Leaseholders in properties owned by registered providers have different arrangements than tenants - they operate under the terms of a lease rather than a tenancy agreement, which are subject to separate legal and contractual requirements.
The Housing Ombudsman Service's role is to resolve disputes involving tenants and leaseholders of social landlords (housing associations and local authorities). The Housing Ombudsman's role is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and The Housing Ombudsman Scheme approved by the Secretary of State. We have strengthened the Housing Ombudsman's powers and increased their resources to help improve performance and delivery of services. This has enabled the Housing Ombudsman to publish important work such as their Spotlight reports into leasehold, cladding, damp and mould in social housing.
Through the Building Safety Bill, we will be ensuring that building owners of higher-risk buildings have clear accountabilities for managing building safety as Accountable Persons. This will include housing associations and other social housing providers. Leaseholders and residents will have a clear voice under the new regime and will be empowered to hold their Accountable Person to account. They will have the ability to raise and escalate complaints to the Regulator of Building Safety for breach of building safety obligations. We are also laying a series of amendments to the Building Safety Bill to require that historical safety defects in any building above 11 metres or five storeys owned by a landlord associated with that developer must be fixed by them. Building owners that can afford to pay must not pass any costs relating to remediating those historical safety defects to leaseholders.
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 will publish his response to the technical consultation on changes to permitted development rights for electronic communications infrastructure, which closed on 14 June 2021.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
In April 2021, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) (formally Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) launched a joint technical consultation which sought views on the detail of proposals to amend permitted development rights to support increased mobile coverage and 5G deployment.
The technical consultation closed on 14 June 2021. The government is considering the responses and will issue its response in due course. Subject to the outcome of this consultation, we will bring forward secondary legislation to implement the proposals.
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, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that wholesalers can access the forthcoming Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund; if he will make reference to the eligibility of wholesalers in the forthcoming Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund guidance; what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on ensuring the wholesale sector’s access to that relief; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The £1.5 billion COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund will be allocated to local authorities based on the stock of properties in the area whose sectors have been affected by COVID-19 and are ineligible for existing support linked to business rates.
My Department will publish guidance to help local authorities set up their local schemes once the legislation relating to COVID-19 Material Change of Circumstances provisions has passed. This will include the eligibility criteria for the scheme and individual local authority allocations.
Decisions on the award of relief will ultimately be for local authorities, having regard to the guidance.
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 issue guidance to local authorities to accommodate all homeless people this winter due to the continued risks from covid-19, including those not owed a homelessness duty, and match this with necessary resources; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is clear that no one should be without a roof over their head. We have made considerable progress in the last few years to reduce rough sleeping. Much of this work provided the capacity to deliver the pandemic response both locally and nationally.
We are supporting local authorities under the greatest pressure from rough sleepers under the £10 million Winter Pressures Fund which will bring rough sleepers across the country into safe and supported accommodation across winter. Brighton and Hove are eligible for this fund. We have made a further £3.8 million available to voluntary and community organisations to provide COVID-19 secure accommodation for those sleeping rough. This work bolsters our year-round investment through the £203 million Rough Sleeping Initiative. We continue to support local authorities to exhaust all options for rough sleepers, including those who are non-UK nationals.
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, what assessment he has made of the role of building more zero carbon social houses in levelling up the country.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% fewer CO2 emissions than those built to current standards. This represents a considerable improvement in energy efficiency standards for new homes. These homes will be future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing for a variety of tenures so that we can support a range of people in different circumstances and stages in their lives. We are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing, the largest investment in a decade. This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme (AHP), which will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow.
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, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) potential merits of a national landlord register and (b) impact such a register has had on protecting the rights of private renters in (i) Scotland, (ii) Wales and (iii) Northern Ireland; what plans his Department has to bring forward legislative proposals to introduce a similar database for England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government has committed to exploring the merits of introducing a national landlord register in England as part of a commitment to drive up standards in privately rented accommodation.
We are engaging with a range of stakeholders and potential users of a register such as private landlords, local authority enforcement officers, letting agents and private tenants to inform this work.
We are also engaging with officials in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and will seek to learn from the different approaches applied. We will publish a White Paper that will set out our proposals for private rented sector reform.
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, what the average household income is of owners of homes purchased through the Affordable Homes Programme.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We do not currently collect this information centrally.
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, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) number of households in England that have rent arrears as a result of the covid-19 outbreak and (b) proportion of those households that will be supported through the £65 million funding his Department announced on 23 October 2021.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 73864 on 22 November 2021.
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, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the potential effect of the Local Housing Allowance rate freeze on the number of people who are homeless; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to reducing homelessness and we are spending more than £800 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping this year alone. We work closely with colleagues across government on these issues, including DWP.
In April 2020 we increased the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to the 30th percentile of market rents. This investment of nearly £1 billion provided 1.5 million claimants of Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit with around £600 more housing support in 2020/21 than they would otherwise have received. For 2021/22, Local Housing Allowance rates have been maintained at the same cash level, and will remain at those levels for 2022/23, meaning claimants renting in the private rented sector continue to benefit from the significant increase in the rates applied in April 2020.
For those who require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available. Since 2011 we have provided over £1 billion in DHPs to local authorities to support households with their housing costs.