Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the social housing system supports people with mental health problems.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
I refer the Hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 176245 on 11 October 2018.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how he has allocated spending from the rough sleeping prevention fund in each year since its inception.
Answered by Nigel Adams
Funding for the Rough Sleeping Grant Programme was allocated through a competitive bidding process. The final funding allocations across the two years of the programme were announced on 21 December 2016 and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/homelessness-prevention-programme.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when he plans to respond to the correspondence from the hon. Member for Colne Valley, sent on 23 May 2018, in reference to the National Planning Policy Framework.
Answered by Jake Berry
A response to this correspondence has been sent.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to reduce its use of single-use plastics ..
Answered by Jake Berry
In our 25 Year Environment plan the Government outlined a range of measures on how we will reduce the amount of plastic in circulation through reducing demand for single-use plastic. This included a commitment to removing all consumer single use plastics from the central government estate offices.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to monitor the compliance of organisations and companies with their duty to provide accessible toilets under Document M of the 2010 Buildings Regulations 2010; and if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of those provisions in respect of that duty.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Department itself does not monitor the compliance of organisations with Building Regulations' requirements. The responsibility for monitoring compliance with all aspects of the Building Regulations, including Part M, rests with the building control bodies - local authorities or approved inspectors. They cannot give a compliance certificate to building work until they are satisfied that all relevant requirements have been complied with.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to paragraph 1.25 of PFI and PF2, published by the NAO on 18 January 2018, HC 718, what plans his Department has to start recording data on the cost effectiveness of PFI deals.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
My Department supports Public Finance Initiatives (PFI) Housing and Joint Service Centre projects contracted directly by local authorities. The majority of PFI projects date back to 1999-2010 and no PFIs have been set up since 2014. They were subject to extensive value for money assessments before authorities entered into them and, in 2011, the Department ran a savings exercise on projects still within their procurement stage which identified over £531 million of savings over the lifetime of remaining projects.
All PFI projects are now operational and authorities are expected to continue to seek to improve the value for money of their projects wherever possible. The Department offers advice and support directly to individual local authorities and holds network events to share best practice between local authorities on making savings on its supported Housing and Joint Service Centre PFI projects.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of rough sleepers in the Kirklees local authority area in each year since 2010.
Answered by Marcus Jones
At Autumn Budget 2017, the Chancellor announced £28 million of funding to pilot the Housing First approach for some of the country’s most entrenched rough sleepers. The pilots will cover the West Midlands Combined Authority, Greater Manchester, and the Liverpool City Region.
This action builds on wider action that we have taken to achieve our manifesto commitment of halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. This includes:
establishing the Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, to drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy;
allocating over £1 billion to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping through to 2020; and
The Department for Communities and Local Government publishes regular statistics on rough sleeping which are published at national, London and local authority level. The latest statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/homelessness-statistics