Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his policy is on ensuring housing developers convert planning permissions into homes.
Answered by Lord Sharma
We are clear that new homes should be built out as soon as possible once planning permission is granted. Indeed, all planning permissions are time-limited: if building does not commence within the time period specified in the planning permission, it will lapse.
It is important to recognise that there are a variety of reasons that might prevent development starting once permission has been granted, some of which are beyond the control of developers. That is why our Housing White Paper proposed taking a wide-ranging approach to ensure planning permissions are converted into much-need homes as swiftly as possible. The proposals aim to do so by:
Diversifying the range of players in the housebuilding sector.
Tackling barriers to developments with planning permission from starting on site, including delays to the delivery of essential infrastructure.
Holding local authorities and developers more clearly to account for the delivery of new homes.
Increasing transparency about the timing and pace of housing delivery.
We have already made progress on some key proposals, such as the recent announcement of the £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund.
Views were sought on a number of proposed tools to hold developers more closely to account. The White Paper proposals included encouraging greater scrutiny of a site’s delivery prospects where earlier permissions have not been implemented; encouraging local authorities to set shorter timescales for implementing permissions; and more streamlined procedures for serving a completion notice. We are currently considering the response to these proposals.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many people have purchased a property through a Help to Buy scheme in (a) North Swindon constituency, (b) Swindon local authority and (c) the UK since the inception of that scheme.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Help to Buy: Equity Loan, for which this Department is responsible, began in April 2013. Since then, (a) 517 households have purchased a property through the scheme in North Swindon constituency, (b) 1,023 in Swindon local authority and (c) 120,864 in England.
Other people will have been helped into home ownership through shared ownership schemes from housing associations.
HM Treasury is responsible for Help to Buy: ISA and Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee, which closed to new loans on 31 December 2016. Help to Buy: ISA is available across the UK, as was Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee.
The Scottish and Welsh Governments respectively are responsible for Help to Buy (Scotland) and Help to Buy (Wales). Northern Ireland also operates some Government home ownership schemes, but they are not Help to Buy schemes.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will commission an expert panel to review the leasehold sector.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Housing White Paper sets out the Government’s approach to promote transparency and fairness for the growing number of leaseholders. We will also consider the outcome of the Law Commission’s consultation on its 13th programme of law reform. Our manifesto said we would crack down on unfair practices in leasehold; we will consult shortly where the most urgent reform may be needed, as well as in due course to look at wider reforms in the medium-term, both of which will be informed by experts with an interest in leasehold reform. We will continue to work with experts to inform wide ranging leasehold reforms, as well as recommending specific changes to leasehold, such as the Technical Group looking into updating section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. This group had its inaugural meeting on 11 July 2017.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he has taken to increase housebuilding.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government is providing support to housebuilders through the £3 billion Home Building Fund. This will provide £1 billion of loans for small and medium builders, custom builders and offsite construction, with an aim to deliver 25,000 homes by 2020, as well as a further £2 billion loan funding for infrastructure and large sites throughout England, unlocking a pipe line of up to 200,000 homes over the longer term. Furthermore, the £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, which is now open for bids, will unlock up to 100,000 new homes.
The Government is also taking direct action to increase housebuilding. Since 2015 departments have released land with capacity for 21,217 homes and identified land to be released by 2020 for a further 120,394 homes. We are investing £7.1 billion in more affordable housing and have helped over 400,000 households into home ownership through Government schemes including Help to Buy and Right to Buy.
The Housing White Paper, Fixing Our Broken Housing Market, published in February 2017, set out a long term, comprehensive strategy to build more homes, through encouraging better, more realistic plan making which recognises housing need; consulting on a new standardised way of assessing housing need; boosting the capacity and capability of planning authorities and giving them stronger tools to ensure sites with permission are built on; and supporting custom build homes and the use of modern methods of construction.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to reform the leasehold sector.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Our manifesto made clear that we will crack down on unfair practices in leasehold, and the Housing White Paper highlighted the Government’s aim to improve consumer choice and fairness in the leasehold sector and to tackle unfair and unreasonable abuses of leasehold. We will consult shortly where the most urgent reform may be needed, and it is our intention to look at wider reforms in the medium-term, both of which will be informed by experts with an interest in leasehold reform.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will introduce regulations on the level of maintenance fees borne by leaseholders.
Answered by Lord Sharma
In 2014 the Government took action to cap repair charges imposed on leaseholders by public sector landlords for government-funded maintenance. In addition, since 2014 all property managing agents in England must belong to one of three approved redress schemes, allowing consumers to follow up complaints and drive up standards with the least regulatory burden. The Government has no plans to regulate leaseholders’ maintenance fees.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether transitional funding will be made available to community and amateur sports clubs that will be affected by the increase in business rates.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Rateable values are set independently of Ministers by the Valuation Office Agency.
Community and amateur sports clubs already receive a mandatory 80 per cent relief on their business rates and local authorities have discretion to top this up. The Government has put in place a £3.6 billion package of transitional relief to support the minority of businesses that do face an increase. We are working closely with the Treasury to determine how best to provide further support to those businesses facing the steepest increases and we expect to be able to make an announcement on this at Budget.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the new taper on New Homes Bonus on local authorities who approve and build a high volume of houses.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Government based its decisions to reform the New Homes Bonus on the need to sharpen its incentive effect to increase the delivery of new homes. The Bonus has been successful in encouraging authorities to welcome housing growth, however, it did not reward those authorities who are the most open to growth.
The changes to the scheme are being made to increase the focus of the Bonus on delivery of new homes, to reward those authorities who are really committed to growth whilst also freeing up resources to be recycled within the local government settlement to support authorities with particular pressures, such as adult social care.
The reforms are being made following a 12 week consultation on the proposals and the views expressed were taken into consideration in the consultation analysis. Those areas who deliver the most housing growth will continue to benefit most from the Bonus under the new scheme. The payments for the Bonus in 2017/18 are £1.2 billion and will still be worth £900 million in 2018/19.
The Government chose to take a moderate approach to reforming the Bonus from the options consulted on and also to stage the changes to give authorities time to adapt their plans, we will therefore not be providing transitional funding.