Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many new homes have been built so far during the current Parliament; how many are conversions from offices and retail and are not newly built; and how many are suitable for family occupation with a garden or play space as part of the property.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Department publishes an annual release entitled 'Housing supply: Net Additional Dwellings, England', which includes estimates of the components of housing supply, in each year since 2006-07, in Table 120 at this link: live-tables-on net supply of housing.
Data on dwellings suitable for family occupation with a garden or play space are not centrally collected.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of how many children are expected to be in temporary accommodation over the forthcoming Christmas period.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The latest statutory homelessness statistics for April to June 2022 can be found (attached) here . This includes data on the number of households in temporary accommodation in England, including the number of children.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many new homes to let at Social Rent in England (1) were completed in each of the last three years, and (2) are expected to be completed during the forthcoming year.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The number of new social rent homes delivered by local authority since 1991-92, including acquisitions of existing stock, can be found in Live Table 1006C, published (attached) at the following link.
The number of starts on site for new social rent homes since 2015-16 can be found in Live Table 1006S, via the same link. We are monitoring delivery of our housing programmes closely. We are working with our delivery partners, and the Sector to help support delivery.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they plan to give to the promotion of municipal bonds to enable residents to invest in local initiatives to reduce the impact of climate change.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
DLUHC has consulted with DCMS following their work on municipal bonds for community investment.
In 2019 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport sponsored independent research (attached) into the concept of crowdfunding as a way for people to invest in Local Authority projects in their communities. The report, entitled Financing for Society: Crowdfunding Public Infrastructure, was published by the University of Leeds and included case studies about the use of community municipal bonds for projects including those aimed at tackling climate change. DCMS has no current plans for further promotion of this financing mechanism.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to establish a regulatory framework for the audits of local authorities; and whether any such plans would include the appointment of a regulator to assess and advise on such audit reports.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government published its response to the Redmond Review of local authority financial reporting and external audit on 17 December 2020. The current regulatory framework for local audit was one of the matters considered by the review. We are giving close consideration to Sir Tony Redmond’s finding that the local audit framework is too fragmented and are committed to exploring the full range of options as to how the recommendations relating to system leadership can best be achieved and will update on this further later in the Spring.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many local authorities in England delivering adult social care have increased their adult social care precept for 2021/2022 by (1) 3, (2) 2–2.99, (3) 1–1.99, and (4) 0–0.99, per cent.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Department will publish National Statistics on 25 March setting out the level of council tax charged by local authorities in England for 2021/22. This release will include details on how authorities with responsibility for adult social care have made use of the adult social care precept.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
This is a complex issue and that is why a review is the right course of action and we are looking at all options.
Work is ongoing and the Government will update on its findings in due course.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many rough sleepers in England were allocated accommodation in a hotel or similar accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, my Department has been working intensively with local areas to support rough sleepers, those in shared sleeping spaces such as shelters and those at risk of rough sleeping, into secure accommodation as part of the Everyone In programme.
On 3 June, the Government published the management information that supports the announcements from the Secretary of State and Dame Louise Casey that nearly 15,000 vulnerable people had?been accommodated by local authorities in response to COVID-19.?This information can be (attached) found here.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many rough sleepers in England were reported in their latest count of rough sleepers; and when that count was conducted.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The most recent national rough sleeping data is the?autumn 2019 annual statistics, which showed a total figure of 4,266 rough sleepers on any given night.
The number of people sleeping rough in the 2019 annual snapshot is 9% lower compared with the previous year and 10% lower compared with 2017.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in?emergency?accommodation in order to prevent any risk of them sleeping rough during the pandemic.
Asked by: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the current number of rough sleepers in England not accommodated in hotels or similar accommodation.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Almost 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to enable them to isolate and stop the virus spreading. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.
The Government and local authorities have worked closely together to make accommodation available to significant number of people during this challenging time. The reasons behind people sleeping rough are complex, and some people may make decisions to refuse an offer of accommodation or leave accommodation that has been offered to them.
Management information on those accommodated is collected from over 300 local authorities nationally. Local authorities hold the most up to date information regarding the number of people they are currently assisting.?We are continuing to work with local authorities?to understand the work they are doing to help the most vulnerable in our society.