Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the funding allocated to local authorities to make discretionary payments to people needing to self-isolate as a result of covid-19.
Answered by Luke Hall
MHCLG Ministers and officials have regular engagement with counterparts in the Department for Health and Social Care, as well as with other government departments and with local authorities, on all matters relating to local authorities’ finances. We have worked closely with the Department for Health and Social Care on the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much his Department spent on (a) opinion polling and (b) focus groups in each month since January 2019.
Answered by Luke Hall
The cost of establishing the full spend on opinion polling and focus groups is disproportionate. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) undertakes many research projects each year using external experts. Some of these projects will include either opinion polling or focus groups. This would form part of a wider package of research and to establish the specific cost of that part of the work across all of the projects would exceed 2.5 working days of effort.
Details of contracts awarded by MHCLG are routinely published on Contracts Finder.
MHCLG is able to provide the following limited information where it is able to identify spend through contracts solely for a) Opinion polling and b) focus groups.
Opinion Polls
Month | Value (excl. VAT) |
May 2019 | £5,000 |
July 2019 | £1,100 |
October 2019 | £825 |
January 2020 | £2,300 |
March 2020 | £2,600 |
June 2020 | £4,000 |
Focus Groups
Month | Value (excl VAT) |
March 2020 | £9,999 |
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the allocation of the covid-19 hardship fund to local authorities will take into account levels of deprivation.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government will provide English councils with £500 million to support financially vulnerable residents, and expects that most of the funding will be used to provide additional council tax relief.
Further guidance is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/council-tax-covid-19-hardship-fund-2020-to-2021-guidance .
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford 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 support adult social care services through the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The 2020-21 settlement for local government provided local authorities with access to the largest increase in spending power in a decade to help local authorities meet rising demand for adult social care. In total, local authorities will have access to almost £6 billion of dedicated funding across adult and children’s social care in 2020-21.
The Government has also announced additional funding of £2.9 billion to support hospitals, councils and adult social care providers through the COVID-19 outbreak. Of this, £1.6 billion will go to local authorities to allow them to address increased pressures on services in their local areas, including adult social care.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding allocated to local authorities for the provision of children’s services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
Funding for local government services, including children’s services, is set at Spending Review. The Chancellor has announced that the next Spending Review will be in 2019 and decisions about the future funding of local government will be taken in the round.
We are working with the Department for Education (DfE) and the sector to develop an understanding of children’s services costs and pressures, and to help local authorities innovate and reform services to achieve better quality and efficiency.
In preparation for the Spending Review, and as part of the Government’s review of relative needs and resources, new, up-to-date formulas are being developed to ensure funding distribution to councils is based on the best available evidence. DfE and MHCLG have commissioned an ambitious data research project from independent contractors to inform this work.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to ensure greater protection and improved redress for consumers where developers of new build homes fail to complete the development infrastructure and in the event that infrastructure utilities refuse to adopt that infrastructure.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government is committed to fixing our broken housing market, to ensure we have a housing market that works for everyone. We expect housing developers to deliver good quality housing, on time, and to treat house buyers fairly.
The majority of house builders are covered by an industry-led consumer code or warranty provider scheme which can offer resolution where things go wrong, but these do not always cover all issues. Where applicable, the industry-led Codes offer protection for the pre and post sales process and can include a completion timeframe. Where breaches of the code are evident, consumers can raise a complaint through the independent dispute resolution service. If consumers are unhappy with the warranty provider they can raise a complaint through the Financial Ombudsman Service.
It is right that developers are required to mitigate the impacts of development, and pay for the cumulative impacts of development on the infrastructure in their area. Specifically on the adoption of roads, this is covered under separate legislation (s.38 of the Highways Act 1980).
There are already existing enforcement powers available to local authorities to ensure developers comply with conditions of the grant of planning permission.
Through our package of planning reforms, which includes the revised draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the reforms to developer contributions, we’re putting more rigour into the system so that plans are clear about the obligations expected for infrastructure and affordable housing and developers are held to account in meeting them.
In February, we published the consultation “Strengthening consumer redress in the housing market”, to simplify the redress process so consumers have a clear and simple route to redress This follows the Secretary of State’s commitment from last November to explore options for improving redress in the housing market.