Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what representations he has made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the allocation of additional funding to local authorities for the provision of adult social care services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The Government recognises the pressures facing local government, and this is why we have given councils access to £3.9 billion for adult social care this year. The Secretary of State speaks regularly with the Chancellor on a range of matters, including local government funding. Future funding for local government will be considered by the Government at this year’s Spending Review and work is already underway.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support his Department is providing to local authorities to improve the provision of services to vulnerable children.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
My Department has invested £920 million in the Troubled Families Programme. The latest evaluation shows that the programme has helped to reform local services and improve outcomes for vulnerable children and families across a number of measures, including a reduction in the proportion of children on the programme going into care by a third and a 15 per cent reduction of juvenile convictions. The full report is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-resilient-families-third-annual-report-of-the-troubled-families-programme-2018-to-2019. My Department is considering these positive evaluation findings as it prepares for the upcoming Spending Review.
At Autumn Budget the Chancellor also announced an extra £410 million to address pressures on adult and children social care services and, in the run up to the Spending Review, the Government is working closely with local authorities and the wider sector to build the evidence base and help develop a thorough understanding of children’s services costs and pressures.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to record the number of people sleeping rough in makeshift camps in official rough sleeping statistics.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government's latest annual Rough Sleeping Statistics, published on 31 January 2019, include people sleeping rough in make shift camps but no separate figures about the types of sites where people are sleeping rough are recorded.
These statistics show the total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough in each local authority area in England, on a single night in Autumn 2018 was 4,677. This was down by 74 people or 2 per cent from the 2017 total of 4,751 and was up 2,909 people or 165 per cent from the 2010 total of 1,768.
Local authorities use a specific definition to identify people sleeping rough. This includes people sleeping or who are about to bed down in open air locations and other places including tents, cars, and makeshift shelters.
The full definition of people sleeping rough is as follows:
People sleeping, about to bed down (sitting on/in or standing next to their bedding) or actually bedded down in the open air (such as on the streets, in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters or encampments). People in buildings or other places not designed for habitation (such as stairwells, barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations, or “bashes” which are makeshift shelters, often comprised of cardboard boxes). The definition does not include people in hostels or shelters, people in campsites or other sites used for recreational purposes or organised protest, squatters or travellers. Bedded down is taken to mean either lying down or sleeping. About to bed down includes those who are sitting in/on or near a sleeping bag or other bedding.
These statistics are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2018
This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which 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 Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period. This year, Rough Sleeping Initiative investment totals £46 million and has been allocated to 246 areas – providing funding for an estimated 750 additional staff and over 2,600 bed spaces.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number people living in makeshift homeless camps who have been removed in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
MHCLG does not collect any statistics on the number of people living in people living in makeshift homeless camps who have been removed to provide an estimate.
The annual Rough Sleeping Statistics, published on 31 January 2019, include people sleeping rough in make shift camps but no separate figures about the types of sites where people are sleeping rough are recorded or whether they have been removed.
These statistics show the total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough in each local authority area in England, on a single night in Autumn 2018 was 4,677. This was down by 74 people or 2 per cent from the 2017 total of 4,751 and was up 2,909 people or 165 per cent from the 2010 total of 1,768.
Local authorities use a specific definition to identify people sleeping rough. This includes people sleeping or who are about to bed down in open air locations and other places including tents, cars, and makeshift shelters.
The full definition of people sleeping rough is as follows:
People sleeping, about to bed down (sitting on/in or standing next to their bedding) or actually bedded down in the open air (such as on the streets, in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters or encampments). People in buildings or other places not designed for habitation (such as stairwells, barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations, or “bashes” which are makeshift shelters, often comprised of cardboard boxes). The definition does not include people in hostels or shelters, people in campsites or other sites used for recreational purposes or organised protest, squatters or travellers. Bedded down is taken to mean either lying down or sleeping. About to bed down includes those who are sitting in/on or near a sleeping bag or other bedding.
These statistics are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2018
This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which 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 Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period. This year, Rough Sleeping Initiative investment totals £46 million and has been allocated to 246 areas – providing funding for an estimated 750 additional staff and over 2,600 bed spaces.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has made a recent estimate of the number of young people who live in their (a) home and (b) university towns due to unaffordable rent in large cities and regional centres.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department does not collect or publish information on the number of young people who live in their [family] home, or in university towns due to unaffordable rent in large cities and regional centres.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate he has made of the number of empty shops on high streets in (a) Coventry and (b) the UK.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government receives information relating to the vacancy rates in the UK from the Local Data Company. As of June 2019 the vacancy rate for Coventry was 15.2 per cent and in Great Britain was 11.7 per cent according to the Local Data Company. This information is not currently reported centrally and is not publicly available. For this reason, in Autumn Budget 2018, as part of Our Plan for the High Street, we committed to piloting a publicly available register of empty commercial properties in selected local authorities, to help improve transparency and make it easier to bring vacant properties back into use. We are currently working on the detail of the pilot and will make a further announcement in due course.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the difference in spending per head between 2009-10 and 2017-18 by local authorities in the five most deprived areas in England and Wales.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The definition of spending power is not comparable over the period 2010-11 to 2019-20 due to changes in the finance and function of local government. A consistent measure of core spending power is available for the period 2015 -16 to 2019 -20. The Department does not calculate Core Spending Power per head.