Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to include a devolution framework for local authorities to follow in the English Devolution White Paper.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Building on the success of our directly elected city region Mayors, our English Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper will set out our plans for expanding devolution, creating more elected Mayors in England, giving them and existing Mayors the powers they need to lead economic recovery and long term growth, and more unitary local authorities with stronger town and parish councils to deliver sustainable local services.
We intend to publish the White Paper in Autumn 2020.
Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to include proposals on the county council tier of local government in his forthcoming devolution White Paper.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Building on the success of our directly elected city region Mayors, our English Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper will set out our plans for expanding devolution, creating more elected Mayors in England, giving them and existing Mayors the powers they need to lead economic recovery and long term growth, and more unitary local authorities with stronger town and parish councils to deliver sustainable local services.
We intend to publish the White Paper in Autumn 2020.
Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to devolve further powers to metro mayors in England.
Answered by Simon Clarke
Building on the success of our directly elected city region Mayors, our English Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper will set out our plans for expanding devolution, creating more elected Mayors in England, giving them and existing Mayors the powers they need to lead economic recovery and long term growth, and more unitary local authorities with stronger town and parish councils to deliver sustainable local services.
We intend to publish the White Paper in Autumn 2020.
Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to ensure that communities can continue to access publicly funded community assets and projects that have been subsequently bought up by private individuals and organisations.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The key initiative which allows community groups an opportunity to take publicly or privately-owned buildings or land into community ownership is the assets of community value scheme introduced through the Localism Act 2011. The scheme however does not place any further restrictions on the asset after a sale is complete. The Government continues to recognise the value of community ownership and access to assets, and we have set out our commitment to strengthen the rights of community groups to protect and take over local assets and to introduce a £150 million Community Ownership Fund to support groups who wish to do so.
Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support has been given to (a) Hastings Borough Council, (b) Rother District Council and (c) East Sussex County Council to help rough sleepers (i) during and (ii) after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Thanks to the hard work of local authorities, agencies and the homelessness sector,?nearly?15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the?COVID-19?lockdown period, according to returns from local authorities to MHCLG. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.?This is a truly remarkable achievement, and one which all organisations involved should be proud.
To support this, we provided a targeted £3.2 million in emergency funding for local authorities to support vulnerable rough sleepers.??As the pandemic progressed, we provided councils across England with £3.2 billion to manage the impacts of COVID-19,?including supporting homeless?people. Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council were both directly allocated funds from these streams, as were the other local authorities under East Sussex County Council.
Building on the considerable success so far,?Dame Louise Casey is spearheading a Taskforce to lead the next phase of the Government’s support for rough sleepers during this pandemic.?Working hand in hand with local authorities and agencies from across the homelessness sector, the Taskforce will develop and lead on the next steps of the Government's response to rough sleeping during the COVID-19 pandemic – ensuring? as many people as possible who have been brought in off the streets in this pandemic do not return to the streets.
In total we have put in place?£606 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over 2020/21. This marks a £238 million, or 65 per cent increase in funding from the previous year.
Asked by: Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative - Hastings and Rye)
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 rough sleepers do not return to the street as the covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This is a public health crisis more than anything and so requires a health response. To enable this our priority?was to?urgently bring?vulnerable people inside so they could?self-isolate and stop the virus spreading.
Almost 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown period.
Building on the considerable success so far,?we?announced that Dame Louise Casey will spearhead a Taskforce to lead the next phase of the Government’s support for rough sleepers during this pandemic
The Taskforce has one overriding objective: to ensure that as many people as possible who have been brought in off the streets in this pandemic do not return to the streets.
We announced on 24 June that we are providing local authorities with a further £105 million to enable them to best support the c15,000 people placed into emergency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A further £16 million will also be provided so that vulnerable people currently in emergency accommodation can access the specialist help they need for substance misuse issues, in order to rebuild their lives and move towards work and education. This brings the total funding for substance misuse this year to £23 million.
This funding is on top of the £433 million which we announced on 24 May to provide thousands of additional long-term homes for vulnerable rough sleepers. This ambitious commitment will be backed by £160 million this year to support up to 6,000 rough sleepers into longer term accommodation, with 3,300 units of this accommodation becoming available in the next 12 months.