Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, when the final guidance on Thank You payments for sponsors will be issued to local authorities.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Homes for Ukraine Scheme and corresponding guidance is kept under review. The most up to date guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/homes-for-ukraine-guidance-for-councils.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether the Government's overall financial commitment to the Levelling Up Fund remains at £4.8 billion; how much the Government plans to make available for round two; and how many funding rounds there will be in total.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets. We will open round two in Spring 2022 and will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to round one of the Levelling up Fund prospectus and criteria, whether he plans to make changes for round two to the (a) classification of priority areas, (b) criteria for eligible bids by parliamentary constituency, in particular the approach where constituency areas cross local authority boundaries and types of bids likely to be supported and (c) themes of town centre/regeneration, culture and transport; and whether he plans to look for a split across the themes of transport, high streets/regeneration and culture when assessing bids for round two.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets. We will open round two in Spring 2022 and will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to round two of the Levelling Up Fund, when he plans to open that bidding round; what the deadline for that bidding round will be; and what his planned timetable is for announcing funding decisions from that bidding round.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets. We will open round two in Spring 2022 and will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
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 support leaseholders affected by high costs associated with remedial fire-safety works and unsafe cladding who do not qualify for the Building Safety Fund or the loan scheme.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
This Government has committed £5.1 billion of grant funding through the Building Safety Fund for the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding on residential buildings over 18 metres. Building owners and industry should make buildings safe without passing on costs to leaseholders and we are introducing new measures that will legally require building owners to prove they have tried all routes to cover costs.
The Secretary of State is looking very closely at this issue to make sure that everything possible is being done to support leaseholders.
The Government remains committed to protecting leaseholders from unaffordable costs, who bought their flats in good faith and are innocent parties. Further detail on the support offer for leaseholders in residential buildings of 11-18 metres will be released when all options have been fully considered.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment the Government has made of the ability of individual private landlords to sustain tenant rent arrears that have accrued since covid-19 lockdown measures started in March 2020.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We have been supporting landlords through helping tenants with extensive financial support to continue paying rent. The UK Government has provided an unprecedented package of financial support which is available to tenants. The Coronavirus Job Reception Scheme and the wider package of economic support measures have effectively prevented a widespread build up of rent arrears, by supporting private renters to continue paying their rent. This is evidenced by the latest published data from the English Housing Survey Household Resilience Study from November – December 2020, which suggests that the vast majority (91%) of private renters are up to date with their rent. Of the 9% (353,000 households) in arrears, two thirds are in arrears of less than 2 months. Given this, we expect that the majority of landlords have not seen significant losses due to tenant rent arrears since Covid-19 measures started in March 2020.
Where landlords find themselves in coronavirus-related hardship, mortgage lenders agreed to offer payment holidays of up to six months, including for buy-to-let mortgages. Mortgage payment holidays agreed before 31 March 2021 can continue until 31 July 2021, whilst other tailored forbearance options may be available through lenders.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the publication of the Household Resilience Study, Wave 2, what assessment he has made of the reasons that the proportion of private renters in arrears has increased during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The latest published data from the English Housing Survey Household Resilience Study from November – December 2020, suggests that 9% of private renters are in arrears, compared to 3% pre pandemic. Of the 9% (353,000 households) in arrears, two thirds are in arrears of less than 2 months, indicating the Government package of economic support measures have effectively prevented a widespread build-up of rent arrears.
The full breakdown of reasons for difficulty in keeping up with rent payments is provided in Table T20 of the Household Resilience Study Wave 2: Wave 2 tables, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/household-resilience-study-wave-2.