Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that Valuation officers (a) compile and (b) maintain rating Lists for each billing authority area.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The Valuation Office Agency has a statutory duty to compile and maintain the rating lists. The Valuation Office Agency is an executive agency, sponsored by HMRC.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many members of staff have left his Department since 1 January 2015; and how many of those members of staff were nationals of non-UK EU countries.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The number of direct employees that have left the Department, for any reason, since January 2015 is 930.
The Department collects national identity data from its employees on a voluntary basis. Where staff self-describe their national identity as ‘other’ there is no requirement to provide further detail or evidence of their nationality. As such we are unable to determine the number of non-UK EU nationals that have left the Department during the time in question.
This is lower than the number that left in the last three years of Labour. Perhaps the Department has just become a more fulfilling place to work now we have a Government which faces up to problems, rather than making them worse.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2017 to Question 60219, whether he has set a date to introduce legislative proposals to ban letting agent fees; and on what date he will begin consultation on details of that ban.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Government intends to implement the ban on letting agent fees paid by tenants as soon as Parliamentary time allows further to consultation with the sector on the detail of the ban. The consultation will be launched imminently.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he plans to consult on the proposals to reform attendance allowance that were referred to in the consultation on the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2016-17 and an offer to councils for future years, published in December 2015; whether that consultation will include an assessment of the potential effects of those proposals on older people; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Marcus Jones
In December, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that the Government will be consulting on giving councils in England “more responsibility to support older people with care needs – including people who, under the current system, would be supported through Attendance Allowance”. We want to explore if there is a better way to provide support for older people with care needs through local integration and we intend to launch a consultation on this in due course. Any change would not affect those already receiving Attendance Allowance. The consultation will be an open process that will give everybody a voice in determining the nature of any reform and will inform the decision about whether and how to proceed with any reform.