Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will provide guidance to home owners with rotten loft timbers caused by spray foam insulation on taking steps to find appropriate insurance.
Answered by Lee Rowley
We are aware of issues that some homeowners are finding after having sprayed foam installed in their loft space and have worked with the industry and stakeholders to find a resolution.
The insulation, lending, and surveying communities published new protocols in March 2023 to allow an assessment of these spray foam installations. These describe a structured route to assessing risks from this type of insulation and are intended to provide reassurance to lenders and insurance providers. These can be found here: https://www.property-care.org/resources/spray-foam-insulation-inspections and Guides & Documents - IMA (insulationmanufacturers.org.uk). These include advice that building professionals surveying spray foam insulation should be familiar with the requirements of BS 5250:2021 where this relates to hygrothermal evaluation or suitable condensation risk assessment.
We will continue to work with regulators and industry to ensure that insurers and lenders take a fair and proportionate approach when considering building-related risks. Correspondence between departmental officials and the regulator has been published on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
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 discussions with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the potential merits of designating veterans ID cards as an accepted form of voter identification at polling stations.
Answered by Simon Hoare
The Government reviewed the list of accepted identification as part of the wider evaluation of the impact and implementation of voter identification at the May 2023 local elections in England. We concluded that, at this time, there are no suitable additions to be made to this list. This review included consideration of the Veteran Card.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans to announce funding levels for local planning authorities to help tackle planning backlogs.
Answered by Lee Rowley
Local councils are responsible for ensuring that they build skills pipelines in their area to discharge their responsibilities. We recognise, however, that there have been challenges in recent years in plan and so, on a temporary basis, the Government is providing additional funds.
The £24 million Planning Skills Delivery Fund will help local authorities to recruit, retain and upskill planners to build a more sustainable planning system for the benefit of communities by helping local planning authorities clear planning backlogs and get the skills in place that they need to respond to changes in the planning system. This has been supplemented at Autumn Statement by an additional £5 million to clear the planning applications backlog.
We will announce the successful local authorities who applied for funding as part of the year one application process shortly.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the extension of the right to buy for housing association tenants will be brought into effect.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government remains committed to the Right to Buy, which since 1980 has enabled over two million social housing tenants to become homeowners.
Any future announcements will be set out in the usual way.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to implement the recommendations of the report by the Law Commission entitled Leasehold home ownership: buying your freehold or extending your lease, published on 21 July 2020; and whether he plans to review the calculation relating to the lease extension premium
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government has committed to making enfranchisement cheaper for leaseholders by reforming the process of valuation they must follow to calculate the cost of extending their lease or buying their freehold. We will abolish marriage value, cap ground rents in the calculation, prescribe the rates to be used and introduce an online calculator.
On 11 January 2022, the Government launched a consultation on a number of recommendations made by the Law Commission aimed at broadening the rights of leaseholders, and reinvigorating commonhold.
The consultation closed on 22 February 2022 and we received over 2000 responses. We are currently analysing the feedback and we will provide a response in due course.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
What progress he has made on enabling housing association tenants to purchase their homes.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Our overall priority as a government is to ensure that more people become home owners, and more people live in secure and safe accommodation whatever their tenancy.
Right to Buy has helped over 2 million tenants buy homes since 1980. We will be working closely with the Housing Associating sector on the approach to these schemes and will announce any developments in due course.