Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the second homes council tax premium on house prices.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The use of council tax premiums is at local authorities’ discretion. The Government does not make housing market assessments based on premiums.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when his Department plans to issue updated land use in England statistics.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
My Department is working to update the land use statistics’ methodology to take advantage of new, more granular data from Ordnance Survey. Publication is expected to resume this year.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate has the Land Registry made of the potential impact of the number of years of the lease length and the capital value of a leasehold (a) flat and (b) house.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
It is not within HM Land Registry's remit to conduct estimates of potential impacts of the number of years of the lease length and the capital value for flats or houses.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of aggregate council tax receipts in England in (a) 2025-26, (b) 2026-27, (c) 2027-28 and (d) 2028-29.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As part of the provisional settlement the Government has made estimates of changes to Core Spending power between 2026 and 2029. This includes estimates of the council tax requirements councils will set for those years. These estimates are set out here - Core Spending Power table: provisional local government finance settlement 2026 to 2029 - GOV.UK. These estimates exclude parish precepts, police and crime commissioner precepts, as well as the High Value Council Tax Surcharge being introduced from 2028.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will re-introduce the guidance entitled Four-day working week arrangements in local authorities, withdrawn on 8 November 2024.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Secretary of State wrote to all Council Leaders and Chief Executives in England on 19 December 2025, setting out the Government’s policy that local authorities should not be offering full time pay for part time work. This policy is reflected in the Best Value Guidance issued in May 2024.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
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 Social and Affordable Homes Programme plan to build 300,000 homes over ten years, of which 180,000 will be for social rent, do these targets exclude (a) completions under the AHP 2021-26, (b) non-grant-funded completions, (c) completions funded by right to buy receipts with no grant, and (d) completions provided from developer contributions with no grant.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Accurately forecasting long-term delivery is inherently challenging, but we believe the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) could deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over its lifetime with around 180,000 for Social Rent.
We will set initial targets for Homes England and the GLA after receiving bids from Registered Providers, and will review these targets across the lifetime of the programme to maximise delivery.
In setting targets for Homes England and the GLA, we will only include homes that have been funded under the SAHP. The housing completions listed in the question will not be included.
Our delivery agencies are already taking bids from Registered Providers to deliver homes under the SAHP through the £2 billion new investment we announced in March.
Those delivery agencies published guidance for prospective bidders for the SAHP in November, which can be found on gov.uk here. We plan to open for bids in February 2026.