Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 17 November 2025 to Question 87778 on Affordable Housing: Construction, what proportion of funding from the new Programme will be used to purchase homes that have (a) already been started and (b) built through different schemes.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The new Social and Affordable Homes Programme will permit a limited number of acquisitions.
For further information, please see the policy statement published by the Department on 7 November which can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will set out how the uplift in rateable values in 2026 affects the calculation of funding of individual local authorities in the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2026-27; and whether council areas with an above-average increase in rateable values will receive additional net funding relative to the previous year from business rate revenue.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the Rt. hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 107993 on 28 January 2026.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 11 November 2025 to Question 87636 on Independent Review into Civil Unrest in Leicester, on what date the panel's report was received by his Department.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The panel submitted their findings to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 1 July 2025.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for government’s most important contracts, Data for July to September 2025, published on 25 December 2025, for what reason ensuring that each Paper produced by a Crown body includes the most up-to-date Crown copyright statement issued by the Controller is a key performance indicator in the MHCLG Corporate Print Management Service contact with ALLIED PUBLICITY SERVICES (MANCHESTER) LIMITED.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This is included as one of several performance indicators, to ensure our supplier uses accurate, up-to-date Crown copyright statements across all government publications it produces for the department and MHCLG’s Arm’s Length Bodies, helping maintain legal compliance and public trust.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an estimate of the cost to (a) central and (b) local government of the cost of translation and interpretation services.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As under the previous government, this information is not held centrally. The department does not hold this data for other departments or local authorities.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much funding was allocated to the Greater London Authority in each year of the 2026-36 affordable housing programme.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Greater London Authority has secured up to £11.7 billion to deliver the London portion of the government’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme, which will run from 2026 to 2036.
The programme will support the delivery of thousands of new social and affordable homes across London, with the overall housing target for the programme to be confirmed after the initial bidding round.
Funding is available to deliver projects that can start on site by March 2036 and complete by March 2039.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what is the estimated revenue from business rates in England in (a) 2024-25, (b) 2025-26 and (c) 2026-27.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Estimated net business rates yield in England for can be found in Table 1 of the ‘National non-domestic rates collected by councils in England’ statistical releases.
Data for 2024-25 based on out-turn (actual) data can be found on gov.uk here.
Forecast data for 2025-26 can be found on gov.uk here.
Data for 2026-27 will be published in mid-February 2026.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 12 November 2025 to Question 86657 on Elections and Political Parties, whether the final version of the Elections Strategy was shared with the Labour Party before publication.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government’s Strategy for Elections was not shared with any political party prior to publication.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in what financial year will the new default arrangements for council tax bills being billed in 12 instalments, rather than 10, come into effect.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government published a consultation on modernising and improving council tax administration which included a proposal on whether to move to default 12 monthly council tax billing whilst retaining the option to pay over 10 months. The government is currently considering all responses on this proposal and will publish its response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Affordable Homes Programme annual report 2024 to 2025, published on 7 January 2026, whether the £2 billion of funding announced in March 2025 is separate to the £39 billion of funding in the 2026 to 2036 programme.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As per the Written Ministerial Statement made on 25 March 2025 (HCWS549), the injection of £2 billion of new capital investment to support social and affordable housing delivery was designed to act as a bridge to the long-term grant funding that was to be announced at the Spending Review in June of that year. It is part of the £39 billion budget for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme.