Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what discussions she has had with the Centre for Ageing Better on its Good Home Hubs initiative.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
My Department and I engage in regular discussions with a wide range of housing stakeholders.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage met with the Centre for Ageing Better in September last year and discussed a range of topics, including its Good Homes Hubs initiative.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the housing strategy will include measures to help tackle (a) poor quality and (b) unsafe housing stock.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government intends to publish a long-term housing strategy later this year.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many overdue tree preservation order appeal cases are outstanding.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As of 31 December 2024, there were 423 overdue and outstanding tree preservation order appeal cases.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing funding to local authorities to support attracting and retaining senior planners.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Attracting and retaining senior planners in local planning authority (LPA) planning departments is vital not only to maintaining a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities, but also to ensuring that new developments are well designed and facilitate local growth.
At the Budget, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026.
Our manifesto committed us to appointing 300 new planning officers into LPAs. We are on track to meet that commitment through two routes, namely graduate recruitment through the Pathways to Planning scheme run by the Local Government Association and mid-career recruitment through Public Practice.
On 27 February, the government announced funding to support salaries and complement graduate bursaries. Further information can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 27 February 2025 (HCWS480).
On 25 February, the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 were agreed. These regulations increase planning fees for householder and other applications, with a view to providing much-needed additional resources for hard-pressed LPAs.
More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that LPAs have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an estimate of the number of Planning Inspectorate appeals related to Tree Protection Orders that have been overdue in financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 December 2024, 177 decisions were made on Tree Preservation Order works appeals that missed the ministerial target. This does not include cases due between these dates - but were still awaiting a decision.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the resources of the Planning Inspectorate in dealing with (a) local and (b) national planning appeals within target timeframes.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Inspectorate is performing well across a number of key areas such as local plan examinations, nationally significant infrastructure project applications, s62a applications, and planning appeals proceeding by hearings and inquiries. It is, for example:
The Inspectorate is implementing actions to maintain performance in these areas and to improve end-to-end times for other casework including by:
In addition, the Inspectorate has designed and developed a new digital Appeals Service currently in Beta phase. This new service improves the process for submitting appeals, including reducing the number of invalid appeals submitted. In turn, this reduces the number of validation checks required and is speeding up the time taken to validate appeals. The new service has been expanded to cover all local planning authority areas.
In five pilot local authority areas the digital Appeals Service is now being used to progress the appeal from receipt through to decision. This provides an interface for Local Planning Authorities and appellants to manage appeals and automate notifications which are expected to save time for participants, improve their experience of the appeals service and be a foundation for further improvements.
The Planning Inspectorate is an Arm's Length Government Body with responsibility for allocation of resources, prioritisation and overall operational performance. The Inspectorate publishes updates on its performance on its website regularly.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Local Government Pension Scheme on levels of economic growth in local communities.
Answered by Jim McMahon
The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) already invests approximately 30% of its assets in the UK, as part of its duty to invest to pay pensions. The government believes that the LGPS can make a distinctive contribution to local economic growth building on its local role and networks, through increasing its long-term investment in local communities.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what her timeline is for implementing the decent homes standard.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government intend to bring forward a consultation this year on a reformed Decent Homes Standard for the social and private rented sectors.