Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
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 it his policy to make additional resources available to increase the number of apprentices in environmental health training within local authorities.
Answered by Luke Hall
To ensure the effective operation of regulatory services teams, the Department convened the Regulatory Services Task and Finish Group in December 2020. The purpose of this group is to help coordinate central government’s expectations of local regulatory services and to propose short and long-term options to support the sector. The Group has already taken action to help local authorities (LAs) manage the capacity of their regulatory services teams. In January 2021 the Group issued LAs with a letter setting out government’s perspective on priority regulatory activities to help LAs to prioritise their resources during the pressures of the winter period. In March 2021, the Group produced a forward look of upcoming regulatory activities coming into effect in the next year to assist LAs with their forward planning.
The Group is now focussed on developing a suite of recommendations to address the immediate and systemic issues faced by local authority regulatory services teams. These recommendations will consider areas including the availability and number of apprentices in regulatory services teams.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps he has taken to help ensure that (a) environmental health and (b) other local regulatory services are operating effectively with sufficient resources.
Answered by Luke Hall
To ensure the effective operation of regulatory services teams, the Department convened the Regulatory Services Task and Finish Group in December 2020. The purpose of this group is to help coordinate central government’s expectations of local regulatory services and to propose short and long-term options to support the sector. The Group has already taken action to help local authorities (LAs) manage the capacity of their regulatory services teams. In January 2021 the Group issued LAs with a letter setting out government’s perspective on priority regulatory activities to help LAs to prioritise their resources during the pressures of the winter period. In March 2021, the Group produced a forward look of upcoming regulatory activities coming into effect in the next year to assist LAs with their forward planning.
The Group is now focussed on developing a suite of recommendations to address the immediate and systemic issues faced by local authority regulatory services teams. These recommendations will consider areas including the availability and number of apprentices in regulatory services teams.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
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 Homes England's press release of 8 December 2020 on the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on housing starts, if his Department will ensure that buyers already in the process of purchasing properties will not lose access to Help to Buy scheme finance in the event of covid-related delays to the construction of their properties.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Following the initial effects of Covid-19 there was a hiatus to construction during the first national lockdown. That is why the Government working with Homes England on 31 July announced changes to the Help to Buy contractual deadlines, which provided developers an extra two months’ build time. This gave developers using Help to Buy until 28 February 2021 to build out properties, with the deadline for legal completion remaining at 31 March 2021. However, additionally, where reservations were agreed before 30 June 2020, they were granted some further flexibility allowing such reservations to practically complete by 30 April and legally complete by 31 May 2021.
Working in line with sector guidance, the construction industry has been allowed to continue during the subsequent Covid-19 restrictions. Reservations for the current scheme were closed on 15 December, providing builders sufficient time to complete their orders.
Meanwhile, to mitigate against the risk of outstanding reservations not completing in time, Homes England announced on 15 January that it will not enforce the practical completion deadline of 28 February 2021 for the current scheme, thereby maximising the remaining time available time for developers to build out.
These measures provide relief for developers to build out homes delayed by Covid-19. We nevertheless continue to monitor the situation closely.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the deadline for applications to the Building Safety Fund will be extended.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The timelines for the Building Fund, set out in the prospectus, are intended to incentivise building owners to demonstrate pace of progression with their remediation plans for unsafe buildings. We will keep timelines under review as we continue through the application process.