Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what representations he has made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on additional funding for local authority children’s social services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
My Department works on a regular basis with the Her Majesty’s Treasury regarding funding for local government. This includes children’s services and I speak to colleagues at the Department for Education on this matter as well. At the last Autumn Budget, Government made available an additional £410 million to local authorities for spend on children’s and adult’s social care in the next year. Our Departments will continue to work closely together in the run-up to the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of council tax rises on the living standards of low-income families.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Council tax decisions are for local authorities to take having considered local circumstances. However, the Government has maintained referendum thresholds to give council tax-payers in England the right to veto excessive increases in a local referendum and council tax this year remains lower in real terms than in 2010. To assist those facing financial hardship, including those in receipt of low incomes, authorities in England are required to have locally designed council tax support schemes in place.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to reduce mortality among homeless people.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Every person who dies while they do not have a place to call home is one too many and we have a moral duty to act.
It should not happen that people die prematurely and on the street because they are homeless. Whilst we recognise that suitable housing is a key part of the solution, health services have a significant role to play, alongside other public services.
My Department is working with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that rough sleepers have the health care they need, when they need it. In its long-term plan, the National Health Service committed to investing up to £30 million extra on meeting the needs of rough sleepers. This will ensure that the parts of England most affected by rough sleeping have better access to specialist homelessness NHS mental health support, integrated into existing outreach services.
We are also ensuring that where a homeless person dies, or is seriously injured, Safeguarding Adult Reviews take place where appropriate, so that local services can learn lessons from these tragic events to better prevent them from happening in the future.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps his Department is taking to improve the provision of housing for disabled people.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
National policy sets out clearly the need for local planning authorities to plan for the housing needs of all members of the community, including suitable properties for disabled people. Our recent Housing White Paper sets out the ways in which the planning system will be used to deliver more suitable homes for people with disabilities, including proposals to strengthen the National Planning Policy Framework. We are also introducing a new statutory duty on the Secretary of State to produce guidance for local planning authorities on meeting the housing needs of older and disabled people.
In addition, since 2011, we have delivered 27,000 supported housing units for disabled, vulnerable and older people. At Autumn Statement 2015, we announced £400 million new specialist affordable homes also for the vulnerable, elderly or those with disabilities. We have also increased funding for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG). Since 2012, the Government has invested over £1.6 billion into the Grant, providing around 250,000 adaptations by the end of the 2017-18 financial year. By 2020, we expect to have invested around a further £1 billion, with year-on-year increases meaning that spending on DFG will more than double to over £500 million from £220 million in 2015-16. Budget 2017 announced an additional £42 million for DFG in 2017-18.