Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many homes in each London Borough failed to meet the decent homes standard in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The last Labour Government failed to meet its Decent Homes target. It pledged in 2000 that: “We... are committed to ensuring that all social housing is of a decent standard within 10 years” (DETR, Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All: The Housing Green Paper, April 2000, p.11). But almost one in ten homes failed to meet the standard by 2010.
Indeed, the last Labour Government actually cut the Decent Homes programme by £150 million in July 2009, cannibalising the housing programme to pay for other policies. I also observe the last Prime Minister planned to cut back housing investment, remarking before the general election: “Housing is essentially a private sector activity. Let's be honest about this... I don't see a need for us to continue with such a big renovation programme” (BBC Newsnight, 30 April 2010).
By contrast, the Coalition Government is investing £2.3 billion from 2011 to 2016 to improve the quality of existing social housing through the Decent Homes programme and large-scale voluntary transfer gap funding.
Across England, the number of non-decent local authority dwellings has fallen from 291,600 on 1 April 2010 to 184,100 in April 2013, and continues to fall thanks to our continuing investment.
The attached table shows figures for London Boroughs, based on their own estimates. Figures for some Boroughs fluctuate from year to year due to councils carrying out more thorough assessments on the state of individual properties; yet there is a clear downward trend across London.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many children were recorded as living in overcrowded housing in each London Borough in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
My Department does not record or collect the information requested at London borough level.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many properties in each London borough were classified as empty in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Williams
Statistics on vacant dwellings in England by local authority district are published in the Department’s live table 615 which is available at the following link.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants
It gives annual total numbers of empty homes and those vacant longer than six months and also vacants in the local authority, housing association and other public sector tenures.
The table below provides information on all vacants for individual London Boroughs for the last four years. It is a clear sign that the Government’s approach to reducing empty homes is working.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many people were recorded as living in overcrowded housing in each London Borough in each of the year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
My Department does not record or collect the information requested at London borough level.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many affordable homes were built in each London Borough in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Statistics on delivery of affordable housing by local authority area are published in the Department’s live table 1008, which is available at:
www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
These statistics include both newly built housing and acquisitions, and include figures for 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. Further statistics will be published in due course.
My department holds some statistics for 2013-14, for affordable housing delivery through programmes reported by the Homes and Communities Agency and the Greater London Authority (but not through other sources).
In total, the combined figures show that almost 200,000 affordable homes have been delivered in England from 2010-11 to 2013-14, of which almost 49,000 are in London. We expect these figures to be revised upwards when full affordable housing supply statistics are published in due course.
The Government’s affordable housing programme for 2015 to 2018 aims to deliver 165,000 new affordable homes, and lever in a further £23 billion of public and private investment in affordable housing.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the average sector rent was in each London Borough in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Information on average rents in the local authority sector for 2011-12 and 2012-13 can be found in section H of the datasets on the Department’s website at:
Information on average rents in the private sector can be found on the Valuation Office’s website at:
http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/statisticalReleases/140610_Private_Rental_Market.html
Information on average social rents Private Registered Providers can be found on the Department’s website at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-rents-lettings-and-tenancies
The tables below show how rents have fallen in real terms.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many council homes were built in each London Borough in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
More new council housing was started in London last year than in all the 13 years of the last Labour Government combined. Statistics on local authority (council) house building by local authority area are published in the Department’s live table 253, which is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of new homes needed annually to meet London's housing needs into 2020.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
From the 1 April 2012, the Mayor of London has had strategic oversight of housing, regeneration and economic development in London.
The Department does not estimate demand for housing. However, the Department publishes household projections, which are a trend-based view of the number of households that would form given projected population and previous demographic trends.
The most recent household projections are 2011-based. The projected household numbers are disaggregated by household type and are published at:
I would observe that new home registrations rose by 30% in 2013 in England, the highest since 2007; and are up 60% in London, the highest for over two decades, this is in contrast to Wales which has a Labour Administration, where new home registrations are falling (source: NHBC).
More new council housing was started in London last year than in all the 13 years for the last Labour Government combined.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of new affordable homes in each London Borough were rented at below (a) 70 per cent, (b) 60 per cent and (c) 50 per cent of market rent in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
This information is not held centrally. Notwithstanding, I also refer the rt. hon. Member to the answer to him of 14 May 2014, Official Report, Column 638W.
Asked by: Sadiq Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much his Department paid to (a) G4S, (b) Serco, (c) Sodexo, (d) GEOAmey, (e) Capita, (f) Atos, (g) Mitie, (h) Working Links, (i) A4E, (j) MTC Amey, (k) GEO Group and (l) Carillion in (i) 2010-11, (ii) 2011-12, (iii) 2012-13 and (iv) 2013-14.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
As part of my Department’s transparency programme, any spend over £250.00 is available on the Department’s website. Since January 2011, all contracts over £10,000 in value are published on Contracts Finder (http://www.contractsfinder.co.uk/).