Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the report by children's charities, entitled Children and young people’s services: Funding and spending 2010-11 to 2018-19, published in May 2020, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the £2.2 billion reduction in funding available for local authority children’s services since 2010-11 identified in that report.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The last three local government finance settlement announcements have all included real terms increases to local authorities. For 2021-22, Government is making £2.3 billion extra available to local government in 2021-22. This means that next year, Core Spending Power in England will rise by up to 4.6% in cash terms.
Supporting councils to maintain critical mainstream services, such as Children’s Services continues to be our key priority. This year’s local government finance settlement rolled forward £1.4 billion of Social Care Grant funding from 2020-21, and added a further £300 million funding, taking the total Social Care Grant to £1.7 billion for 2021/22.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to mandate developers to take full responsibility for covering the costs of unsafe cladding.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has been clear that it is the building owner or responsible person that is responsible for removing unsafe cladding from their buildings and it is the building owner or responsible person that faces enforcement action if they do not do so.
Depending on the terms of individual leases, building owners may be entitled to pass on costs to leaseholders. However, the Government expects building owners to meet remediation costs without passing them on to leaseholders wherever possible, through their own resources or by recovering costs from applicable warranty schemes or from the developers or contractors who were responsible for the installation of unsafe cladding, as is happening with more than half of the private sector buildings with unsafe ACM cladding.
Where this may not be possible the Government is providing over £5 billion of funding to protect leaseholders living in residential buildings over 18m with unsafe cladding from the costs of remediation.
However, it is fundamental that the industry that caused this legacy of unsafe buildings is made to contribute for compromising public safety. We will be setting out details of a forthcoming industry/developer levy.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to ensure that people living in homes with unsafe cladding are not excluded from access to insurance cover.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department is aware that obtaining affordable building insurance for some multi storey, multi occupied buildings can be challenging. The Department is working with industry to understand this better and to scope out potential resolutions.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the financial implications for local authorities of removing section 106 payments.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We intend to reform the current approach to developer contributions by creating a new, single system, the Infrastructure Levy. This new levy would be a flat rate, value based charge, set nationally, at either a single rate, or at area specific rates, and charged on the final value of a development.
We will aim for the new Levy to raise more revenue than under the current system of developer contributions. Our proposals are set out in our White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ which was published on 6 August and is out to consultation until 29 October. The consultation responses will support the assessment of the proposals, and detailed design.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how his Department plans to ensure that the proposed new levy on developers raises at least as much value as is currently captured through the Community Infrastructure Levy and section 106 payments.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We intend to reform the current approach to developer contributions by creating a new, single system, the Infrastructure Levy. This new levy would be a flat rate, value based charge, set nationally, at either a single rate, or at area specific rates, and charged on the final value of a development.
We will aim for the new Levy to raise more revenue than under the current system of developer contributions. Our proposals are set out in our White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ which was published on 6 August and is out to consultation until 29 October. The consultation responses will support the assessment of the proposals, and detailed design.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it is his policy that local authorities will be able to determine the new infrastructure levy on developers; and at what level he plans to set the value-based minimum threshold for that levy.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We intend to reform the current approach to developer contributions by creating a new, single system, the Infrastructure Levy. This new levy would be a flat rate, value based charge, set nationally, at either a single rate, or at area specific rates, and charged on the final value of a development.
We will aim for the new Levy to raise more revenue than under the current system of developer contributions. Our proposals are set out in our White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ which was published on 6 August and is out to consultation until 29 October. The consultation responses will support the assessment of the proposals, and detailed design.