Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely sympathise with the cause trumpeted by the hon. Lady and would say two things. First, some councils are doing innovative work in this area: I understand Barnet Council is working with Opendoor Homes to purchase properties itself to use for temporary accommodation, as in that way it can at least control the quality and associated cost. But my personal preference is the work we are doing through Capital Letters, which has been very successful so far in helping London boroughs secure properties for use for temporary accommodation.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to help ensure that local communities are consulted effectively in the planning process for new housing developments.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

As we know, local communities help to shape the identity of local places, and it is right that they should be at the heart of our planning reforms. I can tell my hon. Friend that public engagement through consultations is already required for new housing developments and in any preparation for local plans by councils. We consider plans for the future as a priority to ensure local people have a voice that is integrated much more effectively into the planning process.

[Stuart Anderson]

I welcome the Minister’s response on how we are making the system more responsive to local residents, but what steps will he take to ensure that residents have more of a say over the influence of developer contributions to local communities such as mine in Wolverhampton?

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Developer contributions, provided by developers to local authorities in order to undertake important infrastructure works, can often be slow to arrive, if they arrive at all, and they are often not what was expected in the first place. We want to put more power in the hands of local authorities and local communities, and not developers. That is one of the reasons why our infrastructure levy, which is under development, will provide greater transparency and greater certainty for communities about the important infrastructure that they will get.

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate on the Queen’s Speech, and what better matter for me to speak about than housing, considering that the second office of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is currently in the process of moving to Wolverhampton? That news has been met with great delight across the city. I recently had a meeting with the local DWP, which is already recruiting for setting up the new MHCLG office. It is a credit to James Attwood and his team at the DWP, who are passionate about making sure that we get more people in Wolverhampton into jobs.

Why is that so important? Wolverhampton is looking to be at the forefront of brownfield-first development. We now have the National Brownfield Institute in Wolverhampton, and we want to pioneer new technologies, through modern methods of construction, to help protect our green belt but also ensure that we get affordable housing. We have just over 10% of green space in Wolverhampton, and we want to make sure that we keep it. We have prominent campaigns, such as Save the Seven Cornfields, the Lower Penn group and the Wolverhampton Environment Centre, which are trying to protect beautiful areas in and around Wolverhampton. They are a lifeline for so many people in our city to enjoy nature, but we also need houses. The argument always come back, “We don’t have enough brownfield”, but that is categorically not true in Wolverhampton, where we have a lot of brownfield sites, empty retail space and a large city centre that can be filled with a lot of residential accommodation. We are delighted by the towns fund, the future high streets fund and investment into our city, but more needs to be done to see a transformational shift of private investment into the city to help build those houses.

To summarise, this is very simple: we need more housing, especially affordable housing; we have an abundance of brownfield sites or underutilised buildings within our city; and we need to protect the small amount of green belt that we have. So I will fully support these planning reforms, because they provide all of that for Wolverhampton, to ensure that our city goes from strength to strength, keeps the green belt that we love so much and also provides the affordable housing that we need in our city.

Rough Sleeping

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I welcome the additional funds, but will they be made available to the councils around the country that are working hard to end rough sleeping, including Wolverhampton? May I also invite my right hon. Friend to visit a charity that he knows well, the Good Shepherd Ministry in Wolverhampton, to see the new facilities that have just opened?

[Robert Jenrick]

I should be delighted to visit Wolverhampton. As I have said before, I volunteered at that charity as a teenager, and it is a fantastic organisation. We will be working to see how we can roll out the funds to provide those 6,000 move-on units across the country, which we will do in various ways: through new properties, through use of the private rented sector, and by refurbishing existing accommodation.

There are numerous good examples in the west midlands. Housing First is being piloted there, and just before Christmas I visited Walsall, not so far from my hon. Friend’s constituency, to see a lady who had moved into good-quality accommodation for the first time in many years after sleeping rough in Walsall. That is exactly the kind of intervention that we want to see throughout the country.

Homelessness

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way in a moment, if I may.

The strategy that we published in 2018, backed at that time by a £100 million package, is a vital step towards our shared goal. The strategy is built around three pillars: first, preventing rough sleeping before it happens; secondly, intervening at crisis points; and, thirdly, helping people to recover with flexible support that meets their needs.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware of the great work being done in Wolverhampton by Good Shepherd Ministry and other such organisations. What is he doing in this Parliament to end rough sleeping?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come on to the strategy. I know the Good Shepherd centre’s work; in fact, I volunteered there as a child, growing up in Wolverhampton.

The centre of our work is our rough sleeping initiative. That involves our team of rough sleeping advisers working closely with local authorities to deliver vital services to help people who are sleeping rough. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to those local authorities, and the charities and organisations and their volunteers, who are taking part in the RSI. Our evaluation concluded that the rough sleeping initiative was working. It is seeing an almost one-third reduction in vulnerable people sleeping rough in those areas that are funded by the initiative, compared with what would have happened if those areas had not been part of the initiative.