Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of implementing a Dispute Resolution Scheme, similar to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, to resolve service charge disputes between landlords and tenants in social housing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
By law, variable service charges must be reasonable. Overcharging through service charges is completely unacceptable. Should tenants of private registered providers of social housing wish to contest the reasonableness of their service charges, they may make an application to the appropriate tribunal.
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 includes measures designed to designed to drive up the transparency of service charges and to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable.
On 4 July, my Department published a consultation on Strengthening Leaseholder Protections for charges and services. It can be found on gov.uk here.
The consultation seeks views on how to implement the relevant measures in the Act, and includes proposals to extend aspects of it to social housing tenants.
I otherwise refer the hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement made on 4 July (HCWS780).
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of extending the SEND Deficit Override until 2028 on (a) local authority finances and (b) local authority reserves.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This government recognises the pressures local authorities are facing because of their Dedicated School Grant (DSG) deficits, as well as the impacts on local authority reserves. The extension to the DSG Statutory Override is part of a phased transition to a reformed Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system. The Department for Education Spending Review settlement confirmed funding for SEND reform, details of which will be set out in a White Paper in the autumn. As part of this transition process, the government will provide more detail by the end of the year on the plan for supporting local authorities with both historic and accruing deficits. We will set out more detail at the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of updating the existing regulations on (a) composition, (b) marketing and (c) labelling of commercial infant and toddler foods.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Children’s early years provide an important foundation for their future health and strongly influences many aspects of wellbeing in later life.
It is vital that we maintain the highest standards for foods consumed by babies and infants, which is why we have regulations in place that set nutritional and compositional standards for commercial baby food. The regulations also set labelling standards to ensure consumers have clear and accurate information about the products they buy. We continue to keep these regulations under review to ensure they reflect the latest scientific and dietary guidelines.