Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many staff from the Ministry of Defence are working in his Department to assist with preparations for the scenario of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has requested that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) provide a total of 167 civilian staff to help resource our planned preparations and response for a no deal exit. Civilian MOD staff are provided on temporary detachment. In addition MOD will provide up to 160 military personnel to act as Government Liaison Officers (GLOs). GLOs will work alongside and support Local Resilience Forums and will only be deployed to areas if and where required.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what agreement his Department has reached with the Ministry of Defence on the length of time staff can be loaned from that Department to assist his Department with preparations for the scenario of the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and whether that agreement contains an option to increase the length of those loans.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Ministry of Defence will provide staff to work on the Ministry of Housing, Communites and Local Government (MHCLG) no deal preparations and response for a maximum of six months on temporary detachment. The six month period will apply on an individual basis commencing on the date each person is deployed to work for MHCLG.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what tasks in preparation for the scenario of the UK leaving the EU without a deal staff from the Ministry of Defence are carrying out on behalf of his Department.
Answered by Jake Berry
Ministry of Defence (MOD) staff supporting the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) no deal preparations and response will carry out a broad range of tasks including; work to support and advise local authorities and local resilience forums on their own Brexit preparations and response; providing situation reports based on information received from local partners; contributing to briefing material for Ministers and cross Government forums. MOD staff will work alongside MHCLG colleagues in delivering the Department’s no deal response.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department will cover the staff costs of civil servants loaned to his Department by the Ministry of Defence to work on preparations for the scenario of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) will fund the salary costs and any relevant allowances of staff they provide to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to support our no deal preparations and response for a maximum of six months. During this period MHCLG will reimburse MOD for travel and subsistence costs incurred by MOD staff whilst working for MHCLG. MOD staff working on the MHCLG Brexit preparations and response are provided on temporary detachment.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many staff his Department has requested to loan from the Ministry of Defence to assist with preparations for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government no deal Yellowhammer response was formally activated on 21 October and currently a total of 155 Ministry of Defence (MOD) staff are rostered to work on that response. In addition MOD will provide military personnel to act as Government Liaison Officers (GLOs). GLOs will work alongside and support Local Resilience Forums. A total of 47 Military GLOs have to date been activated to cover the eleven priority port areas in support of Operation Yellowhammer.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of rent levels on household income.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The English Housing Survey provides data on the proportion of income that is spent on rent in both the Private Rented Sector and the Social Rented Sector. This information is available online:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/817630/EHS_2017-18_PRS_Report.pdf and
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/829741/EHS_SRS_report_revised_Sept_19.pdf'.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to tackle homelessness among young people.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. That is why we introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act, the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades. The Act ensures that there are more opportunities to prevent or relieve homelessness including for young people.
Last summer we published the Rough Sleeping Strategy. This sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Strategy included a commitment to develop the Young Futures Fund a social impact bond programme aimed at supporting vulnerable young people who are homeless or rough sleeping. This will build on the success of the Fair Chance Fund (2015-2017), which supported over 1,900 homeless young people to improve their accommodation, employment and education outcomes.
We have also established the Homelessness Advice and Support Team, which includes dedicated youth homelessness advisors that work with local authorities to promote joint working across housing authorities and children’s services, offering training, advice and support to all local authorities. Last year we also updated the provisions for 16-17-year olds who are homeless or require accommodation, setting out the respective duties of children’s services and housing services.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of suitable homes for the elderly.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
This Government recognises that providing more homes for older people is vital to support an ageing population. Offering older people a better choice of accommodation can help enable them to live independently for longer and help reduce costs to the social care and health systems. The proposals set out in the White Paper, “Fixing our broken housing market”, underline our commitment to do more to provide the homes we need for all in our society
In the White Paper we acknowledged that older and disabled peoples’ housing needs was an issue that needed to be addressed. We have strengthened the revised National Planning Policy Framework, published in July 2018, and on 26 June 2019 we published new guidance to help councils to put these policies in place. This makes it clear that authorities should set clear policies to address the housing needs of groups with particular needs such as older and disabled people. This guidance also sets out the range of options these should consider, from housing with improved accessibility through to more specialised options.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the trends in the level of vacancy rates in town centre business properties.
Answered by Jake Berry
Town centres and high streets are a crucial part of our communities and the Government is determined to see these areas thriving, both now and in the future.
The Department receives vacancy rate data on retail units from the Local Data Company which has enabled the Department to monitor the change in these vacancy rates over time at a national level. The data demonstrates that retail vacancy rates peaked at 14.6 per cent in August 2012. Although there have been fluctuations in the rate, it has not reached this high point since and current figures show this rate is at 12.9 per cent in May 2019.
At Autumn budget we set out ‘Our Plan for the High Street’ to support the sustainable transformation of high streets, including a £675 million Future High Streets Fund, a High Streets Task Force and measures on business rates and planning. We also launched a pilot of our Open Doors project in November 2018, which brings empty properties back into use by linking landlords of vacant units with community groups looking for space.
Asked by: Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many rogue landlords were issued with banning orders in 2018.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Banning orders were introduced in April 2018 and are an additional sanction for the worst offenders. It can take 12 months or more for a conviction for a banning order offence to be secured, after which a local authority may apply for a banning order. As such, no banning orders were entered onto the database of rogue landlords and agents during 2018.