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 is taking to ensure that best practice in planning is shared between local authorities.
Answered by Lord Barwell
My department continues to fund the work of the Planning Advisory Service, which exists to help local planning authorities share best practice, improve procedures and understand changes in national legislation and policy. Its current work concentrates in particular on places that need to prepare up-to-date plans and improve their development management services.
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 make it his policy to encourage local authorities to include information about the New Enterprise Allowance, Small Business Rate Relief and Disability Confident with the business rate summaries sent to businesses.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government has no plans to encourage local authorities to include information about the New Enterprise Allowance and Disability Confident with business rates demand notices. Demand Notices are the statutory means by which local authorities inform non-domestic ratepayers of their rate liability for the year ahead. The demand notice also provides useful information about rate bills.
Small Business Rate Relief information is directly related to business rates and is already included on demand notices.
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 take steps to ensure that planning permission for major housing developments can only be granted if the application includes the appropriate provision of green space for sporting and recreation use.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that local planning policies should take account of the needs for open space, sports and recreation facilities, and opportunities for new provision. It is for local councils to apply these policies when determining applications for housing development, taking into account existing provision for sport and recreation in the area, and other material considerations.
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 his Department is taking to improve the training offered to (a) the leaders of local authorities and (b) local authority cabinet members.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Through DCLG grant funding, the Local Government Association (LGA) provides broad support to the local government sector, including training and support for members and officers, and policy briefings. This includes one-to-one mentoring for elected leaders and cabinet members by other member peers, members attending LGA Leadership Academy programmes, and corporate peer challenges. Corporate peer challenges involve a team of senior members and officers from other areas spending time in a council to review and challenge an aspect of its activity.
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 his Department is taking to encourage high quality candidates with (a) public and (b) private sector experience to become councillors.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Local councillors play a vital role in providing leadership, a voice for local communities and in overseeing key public services. So it is important that political parties and the local government sector encourage high calibre candidates from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences to put themselves forward to become local councillor candidates. The Local Government Association runs a programme to increase the diverse pool of talent from which councillors are elected to serve in local government.
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 properties in (a) Swindon, (b) Wiltshire and (c) England were in each council tax band in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
Details of the number of properties in each council tax band in the Swindon borough council area, the Wiltshire council area and England are shown in the attached table.
The figures are as at September 2014 and are taken from the Council Taxbase October 2014 form completed by all 326 billing authorities in England. These figures are published on the gov.uk website at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/council-taxbase-2014-in-england
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 estimate he has made of the amount of New Homes Bonus funding allocated to (a) Swindon, (b) Wiltshire and (c) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The table below sets out to the nearest £10,000 how much New Homes Bonus funding has been allocated to the unitary authorities of Swindon and Wiltshire, and to England as a whole. Figures for 2015-16 are provisional allocations announced in December last year. The figures show cumulative totals as new Homes Bonus is paid for six years.
2011-12 (£million) | 2012-13 (£million) | 2013-14 (£million) | 2014-15 (£million) | 2015-16 (£million) | Total New Homes Bonus 2011-2016 (£million) | |
Swindon | 1.45 | 2.78 | 4.01 | 5.07 | 6.10 | 19.41 |
| 1.84 | 4.59 | 7.59 | 10.90 | 14.28 | 39.20 |
England | 199.26 | 431.89 | 668.34 | 916.97 | 1,167.31 | 3,383.77 |
The New Homes Bonus rewards the delivery of additional homes and is a powerful, simple and transparent incentive for housing growth, and getting long-term empty homes back into use.
The Bonus ensures that local authorities who promote and welcome growth can share in its economic benefits, and build the communities in which people want to live and work. Councils are free to spend the Bonus as they choose, including on front-line services and keeping council tax low.
The Bonus also reverses the perverse situation under the last Labour Government, where councils were effectively penalised for building new homes; councils with a larger council tax base from house building found that the amount of formula grant they received from central government was reduced during the equalisation process.
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 is taking to ensure that newly built residential properties have access to telephone and internet services.
Answered by Nick Boles
Developers and internet providers recognise the importance of telephone and internet provision in new builds and that customers' expectation is these services will be available on the day they move in. My Department, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is working with house builders and providers of telephone and internet services to ensure newly built residential properties have access to telephone and internet services.