Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
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 potential implications for the provision of affordable homes of reducing the financial value of ground rents to zero.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government wants to ensures that consumers only pay for services that they receive. We will introduce legislation so that, in the future, ground rents on newly established leases of houses and flats are set at a peppercorn. Costs incurred by landlords for overseeing and appointing a managing agent, or carrying out wider services, can be recovered through the service charge or a marginally higher sales price.
Prior to introducing any final legislation in Parliament, the Government will undertake a regulatory impact assessment. As part of this evidence-based procedure, we will assess the economic, social, and environmental effects of the policy. This will include an assessment of the economic implications of setting ground rents to a peppercorn in terms of viability, affordability, and supply.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
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 potential implications for the level of housebuilding in each region of reducing the financial value of ground rents to zero.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government wants to ensures that consumers only pay for services that they receive. We will introduce legislation so that, in the future, ground rents on newly established leases of houses and flats are set at a peppercorn. Costs incurred by landlords for overseeing and appointing a managing agent, or carrying out wider services, can be recovered through the service charge or a marginally higher sales price.
Prior to introducing any final legislation in Parliament, the Government will undertake a regulatory impact assessment. As part of this evidence-based procedure, we will assess the economic, social, and environmental effects of the policy. This will include an assessment of the economic implications of setting ground rents to a peppercorn in terms of viability, affordability, and supply.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress his Department has made on bringing forward legislative proposals to ban (a) onerous ground rents and (b) the sale of new build leasehold houses.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for leaseholders and freeholders and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service.
We will ban the unjustified use of leaseholds on new houses and we will bring forward legislation to do this at the earliest opportunity. Any new government funding scheme will contain the condition that the money cannot support the unjustified use of leasehold for new houses. We want to build more homes but not at any cost. This is an essential step to restore pride and dignity to homeowners everywhere.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
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 comparative assessment of the potential merits of (a) capping ground rents at a nominal sum and (b) reducing their value to zero.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
My Department has been engaging with a range of stakeholders as part of developing a detailed approach to implementing this policy, and is currently exploring various policy options. We will set out further details in due course.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress his Department has made on bringing forward legislative proposals to ban (a) onerous ground rents and (b) the sale of new build leasehold houses.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for leaseholders and freeholders and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service.
We will ban the unjustified use of leaseholds on new houses and we will bring forward legislation to do this at the earliest opportunity. Any new government funding scheme will contain the condition that the money cannot support the unjustified use of leasehold for new houses. We want to build more homes but not at any cost. This is an essential step to restore pride and dignity to homeowners everywhere.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to consult with (a) housebuilders and (b) residential property investors on the Government's proposals for reform of the leasehold system.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
In 2017, the Government published a consultation document to seek views leasehold reform. We received an exceptional response with over 6,000 replies, many from developers and investors. Since then, my Department has been engaging with a range of stakeholders as part of developing a detailed approach to implementing this policy.
To help existing leaseholders the Law Commission is reviewing the law on enfranchisement with a view to making it fair, faster, and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold. They are also considering whether there needs to be a ban on transmitting unfair terms when a lease is sold on.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many (a) new houses have been built and (b) temporary accommodations have been made available for rough sleepers in each of the last three years.
Answered by Marcus Jones
My Department does not collect statistics on the allocation of new build properties or temporary accommodation.
At Budget, we announced £28 million of funding to pilot the Housing First approach for the country’s most entrenched rough sleepers. In addition to this, we announced £20 million of funding for schemes to enable better access to new tenancies or support to sustain existing tenancies in the private rented sector.
This funding forms part of the £1 billion that the Government has allocated until 2020 to prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping. But nobody should ever have to sleep rough. That is why we have gone further and committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. We have announced a new Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State, which will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy to tackle this issue.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether there is a cross-departmental plan on housing, health, social security and work policies to ensure a coordinated approach to assist people who are sleeping rough.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government has committed to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027.
To achieve this, we have established the Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce which will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy with an initial focus on rough sleeping.
The Taskforce will have a clear agenda to prevent and reduce rough sleeping and homelessness, driving action across both national and local government, other public services and the voluntary and private sectors.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people are not placed in temporary accommodation for more than the legal six weeks limit.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Time spent in temporary accommodation means people are getting help and it ensures no family is without a roof over their head. The six week limit applies to Bed and Breakfast accommodation. The law is clear that households with dependent children should only be accommodated in B&Bs in an emergency, and then no longer than six weeks.
The Government is assisting areas to ensure that families spend no longer than 6 weeks in B&Bs, which includes protecting and maintaining homelessness prevention funding at £315 million as well as providing providing extra funding to 25 areas most in need.
We are also implementing the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act, in April 2018, which will ensure that more people get help earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.
Our new Homelessness Advice and Support Team, drawn from local authorities and the homelessness sector, will provide support leading up to and following the commencement of the Act.
In addition, we have replaced DWP’s Temporary Accommodation Management Fee with a Flexible Homelessness Support Grant which local authorities can use more strategically to prevent and tackle homelessness. This amounts to £402 million over the two years from 2017/18.
Devolving the funding to local authorities will improve incentives to move families out of temporary accommodation and into settled accommodation more quickly. With more certain upfront funding local authorities will be able to tackle homelessness more pro-actively, pushing the balance of the investment away from crisis intervention and towards prevention.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton and Winchmore Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to Centrepoint's statement to The Independent newspaper of 9 January 2017, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of zero-hour contracts on the ability of young homeless people aged between 16 and 25 to escape homelessness in the long term.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government is committed to tackling youth homelessness and ensuring that young vulnerable people get the help they need to secure accommodation and find employment.
That is why the Government has taken a range of steps, including investing £15 million in the Fair Chance Fund programme, which is currently supporting around 1,900 homeless 18-25 year olds with complex needs into accommodation, education, training and employment. We have also invested in other initiatives designed specifically to support young homeless people into accommodation so they have a stable platform for work. A great example of this is the £40 million Platform for Life programme, which provides affordable shared accommodation for homeless young people.
We have also taken steps to ensure that zero hours contracts are used appropriately and not abused. Measures in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 prohibit the use of exclusivity clauses or terms in any zero hours contract, which means employers cannot stop an individual looking for work or accepting work from another employer. On average, people on zero hour contracts work 25 hours a week and nearly 70 per cent of people on zero hours contracts do not want more hours, according to ONS figures.