Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how his Department plans to help protect homeless people from contracting the omicron covid-19 variant; and whether his Department plans to make extra resources available to (a) local authorities and (b) other organisations for the provision of safe accommodation.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We are monitoring the situation extremely closely and continue to prioritise the health of people sleeping rough and the homelessness workforce.
Currently, we are working to ensure people experiencing rough sleeping are encouraged to access vaccination and regular testing.
We are supporting local authorities through the £202 million Rough Sleeping Initiative this year, in addition to a £10 million Winter Pressures Fund for local authorities with the highest numbers of rough sleepers. We are in close contact with a range of stakeholders to monitor the situation.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what progress he has made on establishing a Housing Complaints Resolution Service.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
In summer 2019, the Department established the Redress Reform Working Group to help improve redress across the housing market and consider the options for a Housing Complaints Resolution Service. We are currently considering next steps and are taking forward a range of measures designed to improve redress across housing the housing market including provision for the New Homes Ombudsman scheme in the Building Safety Bill and measures to speed up access to the Housing Ombudsman by removing the need for residents to go to a designated person or wait eight weeks before approaching them (the Democratic Filter).
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether the homelessness funding announced in the Autumn Budget 2021 and Comprehensive Spending Review will be a three annual funding settlements or a three-year funding settlement.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Spending Review 2021 set departmental budgets for the next three years. The settlement earmarked over £2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over this period. This includes resource funding rising to £639 million by 2024-25, an increase of 85% in case terms compared to pre-pandemic levels.
This additional funding will enable us to continue to support frontline services through the Rough Sleeping Initiative, support local authorities to fund their statutory duties to prevent homelessness and complete delivery of the 6,000 longer-term homes for rough sleepers under the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme.
The settlement demonstrates the Government’s continued commitment to build on recent progress in ending rough sleeping. Multi-year funding will enable local partners to plan services more effectively and efficiently.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many buildings of five storeys or more that have been completed in each of the last four years are known to have combustible cladding and other materials in or on the building.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Information on the number of high-rise (over 18 metres) residential and publicly-owned buildings with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations is available in the Building Safety Programme data release.
For high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, the Department is continuing to work with building owners to progress applications for the Building Safety Fund at pace so more remedial works can begin as swiftly as possible. Information on the Building Safety Fund can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics
We have begun a pilot data collection project for 11-18 metre residential buildings to identify materials in use and to inform the design of a wider national 11-18 metre data collection exercise. We will publish further details as soon as possible.
In January 2020, we consulted on the proposal to extend the ban of the use of combustible materials in and on the external walls of buildings. We continue to review and analyse the numerous and detailed responses we have received and develop our proposal. We will publish a response to the consultation as soon as possible.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the extent of the continued use of combustible materials in building materials.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Information on the number of high-rise (over 18 metres) residential and publicly-owned buildings with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations is available in the Building Safety Programme data release.
For high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, the Department is continuing to work with building owners to progress applications for the Building Safety Fund at pace so more remedial works can begin as swiftly as possible. Information on the Building Safety Fund can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics
We have begun a pilot data collection project for 11-18 metre residential buildings to identify materials in use and to inform the design of a wider national 11-18 metre data collection exercise. We will publish further details as soon as possible.
In January 2020, we consulted on the proposal to extend the ban of the use of combustible materials in and on the external walls of buildings. We continue to review and analyse the numerous and detailed responses we have received and develop our proposal. We will publish a response to the consultation as soon as possible.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the Government plans to finalise and publish the full details of the loan scheme for leaseholders affected by cladding related issues.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Secretary of State is looking closely at this issue to make sure everything is being done to support leaseholders. We will continue to examine what more can be done to protect and support leaseholders and further detail on the support offer for leaseholders will be released when all options have been fully considered.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when his Department's Consolidated Advice Note, Building safety advice for building owners, including fire doors, published in January 2020 will be updated to ensure that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) can update its own guidance on challenging defective building works for the purpose of fire safety rectifications post-Grenfell; and when the updated RICS position will be implemented.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government made clear in its 21 July statement (HCWS 228), its intention to retire the Consolidated Advice Note. RICS have committed to consider the impact of the Government's statement on their guidance for valuers and we are encouraging them to complete that process as soon as possible.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to prevent the full cost of fire safety remediation works from being passed on to leaseholders who do not own 100 per cent of their home.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has recently announced a globally unprecedented investment in building safety under which hundreds of thousands of leaseholders, including shared owners, will be protected from the cost of removing and replacing unsafe cladding on their homes. We will provide over £5 billion in grant funding for the remediation of unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres, and we are establishing a generous finance scheme which will provide leaseholders in buildings of 11-18 metres with access to finance for cladding remediation costs. The monthly cladding repayment costs for these leaseholders will not exceed £50. We will publish more details on how these schemes will work as soon as we are in a position to do so.
We have also introduced a new model for Shared Ownership which will include a 10 year period during which the landlord will support with the cost of repairs in new build homes. The changes will prevent new shared owners from being faced with unexpected costs and will help to bridge the gap between renting and home ownership.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Answer of 19 April 2021 to Question 175876 on fire safety costs, when information on the (a) eligibility, (b) application process and (c) timeframe for issuing loans to leaseholders for fire safety works in buildings under 18 metres will be published.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government will fund the remediation of unsafe cladding on buildings over 18 metres. In lower rise buildings of 11-18 metres, with a lower risk to safety, leaseholders will gain new protection from the costs of cladding removal through a financing scheme that will limit repayments so that leaseholders will never pay more than £50 a month. Further details of this scheme will be made available as soon as we are in a position to do so.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department’s Spending Review 2020, which includes a £125 million settlement for the new duty on local authorities contained in the Domestic Abuse Bill, took into account the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on domestic abuse.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
MHCLG engaged with local authorities and service providers to ensure that the new duty is funded appropriately. The £125 million new burden funding has now been paid to local authorities to provide support in safe accommodation, to include all unmet demand, for financial year 2021-22. This is on top of £10 million in emergency funding during 2020/21 and continued supply of free PPE to refuge providers.
We continue to work with the sector to monitor demand on services as a result of Covid-19.