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Written Question
Housing: Standards
Monday 6th February 2023

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of taking steps to consolidate housing standards legislation to help support enforcement by housing officers.

Answered by Dehenna Davison

The Government is taking a variety of steps to update relevant legislation through a variety of legislative vehicles.


Written Question
Environmental Health and Housing: Local Government Finance
Friday 3rd February 2023

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing adequate funding to local authorities to ensure the sustainability of (a) environmental health and (b) local housing enforcement teams.

Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)

The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available an additional £3 billion of taxpayer subsidy to councils in England, before local decisions about council tax changes are made. Councils can also make their own decisions to increase council tax by up to a further 3%, plus a further 2% for adult social care, should they deem it appropriate and proportionate to do so.

Taken together, this could mean an increase of 9% in cash terms compared to 2022/23.

The majority of this funding is un-ringfenced in recognition of councils being best placed to understand local priorities.


Written Question
Private Rented Housing: Standards
Friday 3rd February 2023

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the role of Selective Licensing Schemes in improving housing standards in privately rented homes.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

A 2019 Independent Review looking into the use and effectiveness of selective licensing found overall that it is an effective tool with many schemes achieving positive outcomes, particularly when integrated with a wider, coherent housing strategy.


Written Question
Housing: Construction
Wednesday 7th July 2021

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy and (b) effectiveness of local authorities' powers to prevent underqualified builders from constructing developments once planning permission has been granted.

Answered by Christopher Pincher

The responsibility for ensuring compliance with the Building Regulations rests with the people carrying out the work. The building control body will inspect building work on site at appropriate stages. The local authority has the power, under Section 36 of the Building Act, to take enforcement action against non-compliant work.

The Building Safety Bill includes a power to make Regulations regarding the competence of anyone carrying out design or building work. We intend, through Regulations, to require that individuals and the people they employ are competent for their roles. To support these legal requirements, we are working with the industry and the British Standards Institution (BSI) to develop an Overarching Competence Framework Standard that can be adapted for different sectors to produce sector-specific competence frameworks.


Written Question
Equality
Monday 19th April 2021

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

What recent steps his Department has taken to tackle regional inequality.

Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)

Government is tackling regional inequality through our commitment to level up all corners of the United Kingdom. Our actions include establishing the Levelling up Fund; the UK Community Renewal Fund; the Community Ownership Fund; creating Freeports whilst empowering our regions by devolving money, resources and control away from Westminster.

Alongside this, the Government has also committed over £35 billion to help councils support their communities and local businesses during the pandemic.


Written Question
Homelessness: Coronavirus
Monday 25th January 2021

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reason his Department has not reissued the guidance to local authorities that initiated the Everybody In scheme, including the sections that covered people who have No Recourse To Public Funds.

Answered by Eddie Hughes

This Government has taken unprecedented steps to protect rough sleepers during the pandemic. This work has not stopped, and through Everyone In, by November we had supported around 33,000 people with nearly 10,000 in emergency accommodation and over 23,000 already moved on into longer-term accommodation.

Given the new variant of COVID-19, and the new national lockdown, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that people who sleep rough are kept as safe as possible and that we do everything we can to protect the NHS. This is backed by £10 million to protect rough sleepers and ensure their wider health needs are addressed.

We have written to all local authorities, to ensure that even more rough sleepers are safely accommodated, and to ask that this opportunity is actively used to make sure that all rough sleepers are registered with a GP where they are not already and are factored into local area vaccination plans, in line with JCVI prioritisation for COVID vaccinations.

As we set out in that letter the law on eligibility relating to immigration status, including for those with No Recourse to Public Funds, remains in place. Local authorities must use their judgement in assessing what support they may lawfully give to those who might otherwise be ineligible for support as a result of immigration status. This should be carried out on an individual basis, considering that person’s specific circumstances and support needs. Local authorities already make similar judgements on accommodating otherwise ineligible individuals during extreme weather, for example, where there is a risk to life.


Written Question
Veterans: Homelessness
Friday 15th January 2021

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

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 calculate accurately the number of ex-service personnel nationally who are (a) homeless and (b) sleeping rough.

Answered by Kelly Tolhurst

Our veterans have played a vital role in keeping our country safe and we owe them a duty to ensure they are provided with all the support they need.

In 2018, my Department introduced the Homelessness Case Level Information Collection (H-CLIC), a new data collection tool to improve the information we collect from local authorities on homelessness


The figures for people that served in the armed forces identified as statutory homeless from 2018 onwards can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness

The Homelessness Reduction Act requires certain public authorities to refer members of the regular forces in England they consider to be homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days to a local housing authority, with the individual’s consent. A person who is vulnerable as a result of having been a member of Her Majesty’s regular armed forces has a priority need for accommodation.


Written Question
Test and Trace Support Payment
Monday 11th January 2021

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the funding allocated to local authorities to make discretionary payments to people needing to self-isolate as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)

The policy and funding for the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme is the responsibility of the Department for Health and Social Care. Of course, MHCLG ministers and officials regularly engage with their counterparts in a range of departments, including DHSC and the Treasury, as well as with local authorities on matters relating to local government finance.


Written Question
Homelessness
Tuesday 15th December 2020

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that homeless people have access to (a) shelter, (b) financial support and (c) mental health services during winter 2020-21.

Answered by Kelly Tolhurst

We have taken unprecedented action this year to protect vulnerable people. The ongoing 'Everyone In' campaign has helped to protect thousands of lives during the pandemic - by September it had supported over 29,000 vulnerable people, with over 10,000 in emergency accommodation and nearly 19,000 provided with settled accommodation or move on support.

We recognise the challenges that cold weather poses for local authorities in terms of rough sleeping. That is why we have launched a third year of the Cold Weather Fund. This £10 million fund is available to all local authorities to provide a robust, local response to support rough sleepers off the streets over the winter period, including providing self-contained and Covid-secure accommodation and support.

We have also provided a £2 million Homelessness Winter Transformation Fund (HWF) for faith and community groups to provide alternative provision this winter. This is on top of our 'Protect Programme' launched in November which is the next step in the ongoing targeted support to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities from Covid-19. A further £15 million will be provided to support the ongoing efforts to provide accommodation for rough sleepers during the pandemic. This programme will help areas that need additional support most throughout winter.

We recognise that rough sleeping is not just a housing issue and that many people need additional support. £23 million this year will be used to provide substance misuse treatment services for rough sleepers. This funding will provide the necessary support needed to many vulnerable individuals experiencing rough sleeping, including those accommodated under the Government's response to Covid-19. This will enable them to rebuild their lives and move towards sustaining long-term accommodation. Public Health England (PHE) has published guidance to assist commissioners, managers and staff in addressing Covid-19 in drug and alcohol services.

The Department of Health and Social Care has secured £30 million to meet the mental health needs of people sleeping rough, as part of the NHS England Long Term Plan - until 2023/24. This will ensure better access to specialist homelessness NHS mental health provision, integrated with existing outreach services, for the parts of England with the highest levels of need.

Taken together, the overall amount we are spending on rough sleeping and homelessness this year is over £700 million.


Written Question
Social Rented Housing
Thursday 13th February 2020

Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the level of demand for social housing in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) the UK.

Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)

It is for local authorities to identify demand for social housing. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that local authorities should identify the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community, including those who require affordable housing, and reflect this in planning policies.

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has made £9 billion available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022 to deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including Social Rent.

A mix of different tenures is vital to meet the needs of a wide range of people, and allow the sector to build the right homes in the right places.

Since? 2010, we have delivered over 464,500 new affordable homes, including over 331,800 affordable homes for rent.

We will also renew the Affordable Homes Programme, building hundreds of thousands of new homes for a range of people in different places. This will help us prevent people from falling into homelessness while also supporting further people into home ownership.