Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what evaluation his Department has made of the need to ensure that planned reforms to the leasehold system address the matter of leaseholders struggling to sell share-of-freehold properties because of historic but dormant ground rent escalation clauses.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government is committed to addressing unregulated and unaffordable ground rents and we will do this in legislation. We will set out further details on our detailed plans for existing ground rents in due course.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to provide additional funding to offset the closure of the Community Ownership Fund.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government remains committed to the communities’ sector and to community empowerment. The Devolution White Paper, which was published on 16 December 2024, set out plans which demonstrate our commitment.
As part of the English Devolution Bill, we will legislate to introduce a strong new ‘right to buy’ for valued community assets, such as empty shops, pubs and community spaces. This will empower local people to bring community spaces back into community ownership and end the blight of empty premises on our high streets.
Community Right to Buy will help local people acquire valued community spaces if they come up for sale, keeping these assets in the hands of the community.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to replace the Community Ownership Fund.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government remains committed to the communities’ sector and to community empowerment. The Devolution White Paper, which was published on 16 December 2024, set out plans which demonstrate our commitment.
As part of the English Devolution Bill, we will legislate to introduce a strong new ‘right to buy’ for valued community assets, such as empty shops, pubs and community spaces. This will empower local people to bring community spaces back into community ownership and end the blight of empty premises on our high streets.
Community Right to Buy will help local people acquire valued community spaces if they come up for sale, keeping these assets in the hands of the community.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
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 assessment of the potential merits of amending Building Regulations Approved Document S to require (a) landlords and (b) management agents to install electric vehicle charging stations at existing (i) flats and (ii) multi-dwelling units.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Building Regulation set functional requirements and apply to new building work; they are primarily intended to protect people’s safety, health, and welfare. Building Regulations are not retrospective and thus are not an effective mechanism to encourage action in relation to existing buildings. Building Regulations Schedule 1 Part S sets requirements for infrastructure for charging electric vehicles and applies when new residential buildings are built or if dwellings result from a material change of use; and when residential buildings undergoing major renovation. Government is required to carry out a post implementation review before June 2027 looking at the effectiveness of the Approved Document S as published in 2021, which will assess how the objectives of Part S are working and whether they are still appropriate.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to trial new accessible voting devices to help blind and partially sighted people vote independently.
Answered by Rushanara Ali
I refer the hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 10319 on 29 October 2024.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an estimate of the proportion of Community Infrastructure Levy spent on each category of infrastructure listed in subsection 2 of s216 of the Planning Act 2008 for (a) Reigate & Banstead, (b) Surrey and (c) England in each year since 2020.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local planning authorities are required to publish an Infrastructure Funding Statement annually. These should include information on the items of infrastructure on which the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) has been spent, and the amount of CIL spent on these items.
You can find the Infrastructure Funding Statements for Reigate and Banstead here. Surrey County Council have published details of their developer contributions here. There is no statutory requirement for a consolidated Infrastructure Funding Statement for England to be published, and one has not been published to date.