Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to paragraph 5.70 in the Autumn Statement, CP751, published on 17 November 2022, with which local stakeholders will the government be working.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will work closely with mayors, devolved administrations, local authorities, businesses and other local partners as appropriate to consider how best to identify and support these clusters.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 a comparative assessment of the level of funding available for research and development from (a) European Structural Funds and (b) the Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is the successor to the European Social Fund (ESF) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The Fund ramps up to £1.5 billion a year in 2024/25 matching the funding all UK regions received from EU Structural Funds.
Places will be empowered to identify and build on their own strengths and needs at a local level. They can fund a range of interventions across the three investment priorities of the Fund, including supporting research and development activity, but this will be up to each place to decide as they will know and understand the unique needs and characteristics of their communities better than central government ever can.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 impacts of storms over the winter of 2021-22 on (a) social housing and (b) the number of outstanding repair requests in (i) Newcastle and (ii) the North East.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The impacts of severe weather events, such as those resulting from storms over the winter of 2021-2022 are traumatic for those communities they impact, and the Government has support routes in place to assist local authorities for emergencies such as these. However, following Storms Arwen, Malik and Corrie the flooding impacts reported did not support activation of these schemes. No specific additional funding was available for local authorities to repair social housing.
All social rented homes are still required to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard. The Standard requires that homes are free of serious hazards, are in a reasonable state of repair, have reasonably modern facilities and services such as kitchens and bathrooms, and have efficient heating and effective insulation.
This Government has set an ambitious mission to halve the number of non-decent homes, to drive up standards, in all rented sectors by 2030 with the biggest improvements in the lowest-performing areas.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what additional funding the Government has provided to local authorities for the repair of social housing following significant damage from storms (a) Arwen, (b) Malik and (c) Corrie in the winter of 2021-22.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
For the severe weather events Arwen, Malik and Corrie, no specific additional funding was available for local authorities to repair social housing.
The impacts of severe weather events, such as those resulting from storms over the winter of 2021-2022 are traumatic for those communities they impact, and the Government has support routes in place to assist local authorities for emergencies such as these.
The Government is committed to improving the safety and decency of social housing in all areas of the country.
All social rented homes are still required to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard. The Standard requires that homes are free of serious hazards, are in a reasonable state of repair, have reasonably modern facilities and services such as kitchens and bathrooms, and have efficient heating and effective insulation.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 potential effect of the proposed reduction of 90,000 civil servants on the levelling up missions for the English regions.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government is committed to supporting places and communities across the UK to realise their potential, delivering real change to people's lives through our core levelling up missions.
Through the Places for Growth programme, we will move 22,000 civil service roles out of London to places around the UK by 2030. We have already established a new economic campus in Darlington, a Home Office hub in Stoke and DLUHC's second headquarters in Wolverhampton. This will help to ensure that a broader range of voices are involved in national policymaking and that the Civil Service is more representative of the communities it serves.
Details of plans to improve the efficiency of the Civil Service will be announced in the usual way.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 Levelling Up White Paper: Missions and Metrics Technical Annex, what the current status is of the Missions, in the context of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which provides that the first statement of levelling-up missions must come into effect before the end of the period of one month beginning with the day on which this section comes into force.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We set 12 ambitious levelling up ‘missions’ to anchor ambition and provide clarity over the objectives of public policy for the next decade. This includes setting a statutory duty to publish an annual report on progress against all the missions. As set out in the Bill the missions and metrics will be published in a policy document, laid before and debated in Parliament.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to provide a statutory basis for the missions in the Levelling Up White Paper.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
As set out in the Levelling Up White Paper, the Government will legislate to create a statutory duty to publish an annual report on progress towards meeting the Levelling Up missions when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department took account of increases in inflation when setting levels of funding available through the Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Yes. Funding will match in real terms what was allocated under ERDF and ESF to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and each LEP area in England.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to assess the effectiveness of R&D interventions included in the investment plan submitted to the Government for approval for Shared Prosperity Fund funding.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Lead local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales will be asked to report data to us to ensure that allocations are being spent to agreed timescales and milestones, including achievement of outputs and outcomes at the project level. We will also ask local authorities to report individual project outputs and outcomes at UK Parliament constituency level.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are developing a national approach to evaluation, including a scoping study in partnership with the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. The national evaluation will evaluate the Fund through two related lenses: Fund-level process evaluation/s to demonstrate accountability and understand what worked well, what did not, and why, in the design and delivery of the Fund. Performance indicators from lead local authorities or project deliverers will contribute to the programme-level process evaluation. In addition, places may be required to cooperate with process evaluation activity undertaken by or on behalf of us.