Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 24 February 2023 to Question 143816 on Social Rented Housing: Greater London, what funding will be made available to social housing providers in London to meet that objective.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government provides landlords with funding for new supply of affordable housing, including for regeneration schemes where that investment delivers net additional housing. However, we generally expect landlords to fund repairs and other regeneration themselves from the income they get from rents and their own market activities.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to improve the quality of social housing in London.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
In the Levelling Up White Paper the government set out its ambition to reduce the number of non-decent rented homes by 50% by 2030, with the biggest improvements in the lowest performing areas.
Most recently, the Secretary of State confirmed he will table an amendment to the Social Housing Regulation Bill to introduce 'Awaab's Law' which will require landlords to fix reported health hazards within specified timeframes.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what progress he has made on allocating the £30 million funding for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to improve the quality of social housing.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
We are making good progress to ensure £30 million funding announced by the Secretary of State gets to Greater Manchester and West Midlands as soon as possible. The funding will be split equally between WMCA and GMCA, each of whom will retain discretion over how they allocate it across the social housing stock within their areas as long as it is spent on making improvements in the quality of social housing, particularly homes with serious (category 1) hazards.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring swift nesting bricks to be installed in newly built homes.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
We have always been clear that planning is a local matter and it is for each local planning authority to assess how it will deliver the Government's environmental goals, alongside our ambition to deliver the identified housing needs of their communities.
As we have set out previously, we of course welcome action by individual developers who wish to provide swift bricks and the benefits are set out in our Planning Practice Guidance on the Natural Environment. Local authorities can prioritise specific species such as swifts.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many new social houses were built in 2022.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
Information on new affordable housing, broken down by tenure and new build/acquisition, can be easily found in Live Table 1009, here.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will contact all households to inform them of the need for voter ID ahead of the 2023 local elections.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 140116 on 9 February 2023.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 22 September 2022 to Question 49746 on Buildings: Insulation, when he plans to publish further details on the funding scheme for buildings between 11 and 18 metres.
Answered by Lee Rowley
We have launched a new scheme to provide funding for the remediation or mitigation of life safety fire risks related to external wall system defects. This is for medium-rise buildings (11-18 metres) where the developer of a building cannot be identified, traced, or held responsible. This scheme opened in November via an initial pilot, targeting a small number of buildings that have interim measures or simultaneous evacuation measures in place. The wider rollout of the scheme to other buildings will commence in 2023. Further details on eligibility and the application process will be announced as soon as possible.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has had recent discussions with the British Landlords Association on rent increases in London.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
Details of ministerial meetings with external organisations are published on gov.uk.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the average increase in rent for private properties in London following the increase in the cost of living in the last 12 months; what comparative assessment he had made of the affordability of those increases on people on average earnings in London; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
The latest data published by the ONS shows that private rents in London rose by 3.5% in the 12 months to November 2022, compared to 4.1% on average across the rest of England. The most recent English Housing Survey from December 2022 shows that between 2021 and 2022, the average proportion of household income (including housing support) that private renters in England spent was 33%.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, for what reasons the Government did not introduce legislative proposals to end Section 21 evictions in 2022.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
We will do so in this Parliament as soon as parliamentary time allows.