Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
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 decrease the number of homeless people in Cambridgeshire.
Answered by Felicity Buchan
This Government remains committed to ending rough sleeping and tackling homelessness.
In September 2022, we published a bold, new strategy available here: Ending Rough Sleeping For Good. The strategy sets out cross government action to end homelessness and rough sleeping, including over £2 billion of investment over three years.
Cambridgeshire County and Cambridge City councils have been allocated over £10 million funding from April 2023- March 2025 through the Rough Sleeping Initiative, Homelessness Prevention Grant and Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 21 November 2022 to Question 79324 on Right to Buy Scheme: Housing Associations, what recent steps he has taken to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The Government remains committed to the Right to Buy, which since 1980 has enabled over two million social housing tenants to become homeowners.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent steps he has taken to increase Romani representation in public life.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
It is important that all members of a local community are able to able to access opportunities to participate in public life. Our Levelling Up White Paper outlined plans to remove barriers to community organisation and neighbourhood governance, supporting community leadership to take root and thrive. This includes launching a review of neighbourhood governance in England, looking at how to make it easier for local people and community groups to come together, set local priorities and shape the future of their neighbourhoods. The review will consider how people of all backgrounds can participate in neighbourhood governance.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle discrimination against Romani people.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
The Equality Act 2010 provides protection against discrimination for people because of various characteristics, including race, which covers colour, nationality, and ethnic and national origins. The Roma community is considered to be an ethnic group for the purposes of legislation.
The Government sponsors the Equality Advisory & Support Service (EASS), which is a free helpline offering advice and support to anyone in England, Scotland, and Wales who feels that they have suffered discrimination or had their human rights infringed. One of the stakeholder organisations that the EASS regularly deals with is Friends, Families and Travellers which works on behalf of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what guidance or advice his Department has provided to local authorities on whether councillors who have been suspended by a national political party should be considered to remain members of that party’s political group on a local authority for the purposes of allocating seats on committees.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - Leader of HM Official Opposition
The allocation of committee seats should be reviewed by a local authority annually, or upon request following a by-election or where a councillor joins a new political group. It is for the political groups on a local authority to determine their own membership as they see fit.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
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 ensure that social housing providers tackle cases of damp and mould.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Charter for Social Housing Residents: Social Housing White Paper set out commitments on how we will improve the lives of social housing residents including on housing quality.
We are working with the Regulator of Social Housing to create a strong, proactive consumer regulatory regime, strengthening the formal standards against which landlords are regulated, requiring them to be transparent about their performance so they can be held to account, to put things right when they go wrong and to listen to tenants through effective engagement. The Housing Ombudsman Service has been expanded and its powers increased so it will make decisions more quickly and can take stronger action against landlords where needed. These new powers enabled the publication of the Housing Ombudsman's recent important report on damp and mould which made 26 recommendations for landlords including greater use of intelligence and data to prevent issues; reviewing communications with tenants to improve tone and making better use of previous complaints and disrepair claims so landlords can learn from them.
Social homes must be safe and decent. A key commitment of the Social Housing White Paper was to review the Decent Homes Standard. Part 1 of this review is underway and has considered how any revised Standard can help tackle damp and mould.