Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of the £28 million funding for Housing First pilot schemes he plans to allocate to projects in the Kirklees local authority area.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
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
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many women’s refuges have closed in (a) Kirklees, (b) West Yorkshire and (c) England in each of the last 7 years.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
My Department does not hold information on refuge closures. We expect local areas to assess their need of services and support for victims of domestic abuse and to provide for that need, for this reason the Government has devolved power and responsibility accordingly.
In our Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy the Government committed to review the local approach to refuge provision, two years after the launch of the £20 million Fund (by November 2018). We have launched a tender for an audit of local authority commissioning of domestic abuse services, including refuge, which will inform our review.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much funding his Department has allocated to adult social care in (a) Kirklees, (b) West Yorkshire and (c) England in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Local authorities' expenditure on services, including on Adult Social Care for previous years, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
Councils have also been able to add a precept for adult social care onto their council tax, which most of them have done.
Local authority expenditure is funded through a range of income sources including government grants, council tax, business rates and fees and charges. Many government grants are not ring-fenced, leaving local authorities to determine how much is spent on different services.
However, the Government has provided specific funding to councils for adult social care in recent years, most noticeably through the improved Better Care Fund which was supplemented by the additional £2 billion announced at Spring Budget 2017. Details of individual council allocations of the Spring Budget funding can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-allocations-of-the-additional-funding-for-adult-social-care
Details of the original improved Better Care Fund allocations along with the potential revenue from the precept (as announced at SR15) can be found with core spending power tables published with the LGFS - www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2017-to-2018.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to reduce homelessness in (a) England, (b) West Yorkshire, (c) Kirklees and (d) Colne Valley.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
This Government is committed to preventing and reducing homelessness in England. That is why we are aiming to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027. We will set up a rough sleeping and homelessness taskforce and pilot a Housing First approach to tackle rough sleeping.
We are implementing the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act, to prevent people becoming homeless in the first place by ensuring more people get the help they need earlier.
We are also investing over £550 million until 2020 to prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping, including through our £50 million Homelessness Prevention Programme. This is supporting 84 projects working across England to deliver an end-to-end approach to homelessness prevention.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to reduce loneliness in (a) England, (b) West Yorkshire, (c) Kirklees and (d) Colne Valley.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Through our policies, including the Supported Housing programme and Disabled Facilities Grant programme, my department is helping those in society get the help and support they need to live independently and be part of their communities.
Our Near Neighbours, and Community-based English Language programmes will also help to reduce loneliness in target populations through their work.