Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the total central government grant to City of Wolverhampton Council has been in each year since 2010.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The totals of each local authority’s source of finance, including grants from central government, are reported in their General Fund Revenue Account outturn and capital account outturn returns to MHCLG.
These can be found for the years requested via following the links to individual local authority data from www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-capital-expenditure-receipts-and-financing (‘RS revenue outturn summary’ data table) and from www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-capital-expenditure-receipts-and-financing (Table 'B. Resources used to finance capital expenditure' in the ‘COR4’ data table).
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the local government grant given to City of Wolverhampton Council was in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
Wolverhampton City Council will have available £876.7 million in Core Spending Power between 2016/17 to 2019/20.
Information on Wolverhampton’s Revenue Support Grant funding can be found on line at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of changes to the local government grant to City of Wolverhampton Council on that Council's ability to carry out its statutory duties.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The 2018-19 local government finance settlement confirms that Wolverhampton will have access to £221.4 million in Core Spending Power - an increase of 1.8 per cent from 2017-18. Wolverhampton has core spending power per dwelling of £2,029 compared to an average for Metropolitan Districts of £1,786. Wolverhampton is also part of the West Midlands Combined Authority and is a 100 per cent business rates retention pilot, enabling the authority to benefit from an increased share of business rates growth across the pilot area.
As part of my on going engagement with local government, I recently met with representatives of Wolverhampton Council to discuss the local government finance settlement and related matters.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to increase house building in the West Midlands Combined Authority area.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Over 1,111,000 additional homes have been delivered in England since April 2010, with 217,350 net additional dwellings in 2016-17, up 15 per cent on 2015-16 and 50 per cent on 2009-10.
But the Prime Minister has been clear – this should be a country that works for everyone. This means building more of the right homes, in the right places, and ensuring the housing market works for all parts of our community.
So at Autumn Budget 2017, we announced further reforms to tackle our broken housing market, including Planning reforms to ensure more land is available for housing and maximise the potential of our cities and towns to build new homes whilst protecting the Green Belt; more than £15 billion of new financial support over the next five years, taking total financial support to at least £44 billion to 2022/2023, and expanding the Homes and Communities Agency to become Homes England, bringing together money, expertise, planning and compulsory purchase powers.
We also agreed a second Devolution Deal with the West Midlands, which included support for a new Mayoral Housing Delivery Team, and are continuing work on a Housing Deal to increase the supply of land and housing delivery across the West Midlands.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many homes were (a) started and (b) completed in Wolverhampton in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Estimates of house building, new build dwellings starts and completions for England and in each local authority district, to June quarter 2017, are shown in Live Table 253a at the following link.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building
Data for the September quarter 2017 is scheduled for publication on the 19 December 2017.
These only cover new build dwellings and should be regarded as a leading indicator of overall housing supply. The Department also publishes an annual release entitled ‘Housing supply: net additional dwellings, England’, which is the primary and most comprehensive measure of housing supply.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many houses have been sold under right to buy in each year since 2010 in (a) England, (b) the West Midlands, (c) the City of Wolverhampton local authority area and (d) Wolverhampton North East Constituency.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government publishes quarterly Right to Buy sales by local authorities in Table 691 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales). The data is not broken down at a constituency level.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many homes for social rent have been built in (a) England, (b) the West Midlands, (c) City of Wolverhampton local authority area and (d) Wolverhampton North East constituency in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Figures on the numbers of homes built for social rent by local authority are available in live table 1006C. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
Figures are not available at constituency level.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to require sprinklers to be installed inside all tower blocks, including in privately-owned tower blocks in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) England.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government will consider this issue in light of the Independent Review on Building Regulations and Fire Safety, the findings of the Public Inquiry and on going work to review building safety.