Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
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 adequacy of the delivery of affordable housing targets in 2023–24.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
My Department published an update on targets for the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme on 30 July 2024. This covers the 2023-24 period under the previous government. It can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to provide support to councils with high levels of financial distress.
Answered by Jim McMahon
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 60682 on 24 June 2025 and to the Written Ministerial Statement made on 20 June 2025 entitled Fair Funding Review 2.0 and Modernising and Improving the Administration of Council Tax (HCWS724).
Any council that has concerns about its ability to set or maintain a balanced budget should approach MHCLG in the first instance where we will treat all discussions in confidence, with respect and determination to find a solution together.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she has taken to increase local planning capacity.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Supporting local planning authorities to attract, retain and develop skilled planners is crucial to ensuring they provide a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities and that new developments are well designed and facilitate local growth.
The government appreciates that planning departments across the country are experiencing challenges with recruitment, retention, and skills gaps and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.
At the Budget last year, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026.
Our manifesto committed us to appointing 300 new planning officers into LPAs. We are on track to meet that commitment through two routes, namely graduate recruitment through the Pathways to Planning scheme run by the Local Government Association and mid-career recruitment through Public Practice.
On 27 February 2025, the government announced funding to support salaries and complement graduate bursaries. Further information can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 27 February 2025 (HCWS480).
On 25 February 2025, the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 were agreed. These regulations increase planning fees for householder and other applications, with a view to providing much-needed additional resources for hard-pressed LPAs.
More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that LPAs have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.
Lastly, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes provisions that will allow LPAs to set planning fees or charges at a level that reflects the individual costs to the LPA to carry out the function for which it is imposed and to ensure that the income from planning fees or charges is applied towards the delivery of the planning function.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department plans to take to improve the quality of private rented accommodation.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Renters’ Rights Bill enables the Decent Homes Standard to be applied to the private rented sector for the first time and provides local authorities with effective and proportionate powers to enforce it.
The Bill will allow ‘Awaab’s Law’ to be applied to the private rented sector. It will enable timeframes to be set out in regulations within which private rented sector landlords and licensors must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many brownfield housing starts have been recorded in the last 12 months.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Figures on the number of housing starts specifically on brownfield sites are not centrally collected.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department has taken to support community (a) cohesion and (b) integration.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is leading cross-Government efforts to develop a longer-term, more strategic approach to community cohesion and integration working in partnership with communities and local stakeholders to rebuild, renew and address the deep-seated issues.
The Government is providing communities with the resources and capacity to deliver on this – in June we announced funding for up to 350 places, which will serve as the cornerstone of this Government’s support for communities, incorporating the existing 75 Plan for Neighbourhoods areas that were announced in March, and the 25 trailblazer neighbourhoods announced at Spending Review, who will receive up to £20 million over the next decade.
This funding will support improvements people can see on their doorstep, champion local leadership, foster community engagement and strengthen social cohesion.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps her Department has taken to (a) strengthen electoral integrity and (b) tackle voter fraud.
Answered by Rushanara Ali
This Government is committed to strengthening the UK’s democracy and upholding the integrity of elections. It has already taken steps in this area including the work undertaken to review and reform the voter identification policy, successfully passing legislation which allows use of the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card as identification at polling stations.
The Government will be setting out its approach to elections and electoral reform for this Parliament in an overall Government Strategy for Elections, to be published later this year, where it will set out plans for further strengthening the integrity of elections and encouraging participation in democracy.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to encourage developers establishing new buildings to have (a) solar panels, (b) batteries and (c) heat pumps fitted; and what support is available to those developers.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the 1.5 million homes we will build over the course of this parliament will be high quality, well designed and sustainable. Renewable and low carbon technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and heat pumps, are a key part of our strategy to get to net zero via a decarbonised electricity grid. We must therefore take the opportunity, where appropriate, to encourage their adoption in new buildings.
In 2021 the Government introduce an uplift in energy efficiency standards. New buildings are now required to produce significantly less CO2 emissions compared to those built to previous standards. Already we have seen many homes being built with solar panels and heat pumps.
Future standards, to be introduced later this year, will set new buildings on a path that moves away from relying on volatile fossil fuels, ensuring they are fit for a net zero future. These buildings will be future proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
A consultation setting out proposals for what the new standards should entail was published in December 2023 and closed in March 2024. We are carefully considering the feedback received and will publish the Government response, setting our more detail on the content of the standards, in due course.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what funding Thornaby on Tees will receive from the (a) Town Deal programme and (b) long-term plan for towns.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Towns Fund has allocated £23.9 million pounds to Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council to deliver 4 projects in the Thornaby area. The projects are now being delivered as part of the Simplification Pathfinder Pilot, a model that brings local growth funding together, providing financial flexibility and streamlined monitoring to aid delivery.
Thornaby-on-Tees was not selected to receive funding through the Long-Term Plan for Towns programme. A list of places selected and the place selection methodology can be found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help protect the rights of older renters through the Renters (Reform) Bill.
Answered by Jacob Young
Everybody has a right to a secure and decent home. The Renters (Reform) Bill increases protections for all renters, including older renters. Abolishing section 21 no fault evictions, reforming possession grounds and providing stronger protections against backdoor evictions, means older tenants will have much more security in the new system.