Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many applications were (a) made and (b) rejected to access funding under schemes within the flood recovery framework in the last two years; what total amount was that has been paid out through the flood recovery framework; and how many and what proportion of applicants received the maximum pay out of £25,000 under the flood recovery framework.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
In the last two years the Flood Recovery Framework has been activated twice – following Storm Babet in October 2023 and Storm Henk in January 2024. The decision to accept or reject applications for flood recovery funding is made by local authorities who are responsible for administrating all schemes, apart from the Farming Recovery Fund. To date, eligible local authorities have made payments of over £7.8 million to 8,510 impacted households and businesses. We expect this figure to rise substantially as further payments are made over the next 18 months.
With regards to the specific question on the £25,000 available under the Farming Recovery Fund scheme. DEFRA have only opened this once within the last two years on 9 April 2024 to provide farmers support to recover from uninsurable damage. The scheme provides grants of between £500 and £25,000 to return land to the condition it was before exceptional flooding of Storm Henk. The fund was initially opened in nine English local authority areas, however, DEFRA committed actively to review the areas to be included in the fund. Those farmers who were initially identified as eligible farmers have been contacted directly by Rural Payments Agency. DEFRA will be contacting all eligible farmers following completion of our review.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans to double council tax on second homes.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Provisions to allow local authorities to charge a council tax premium of up to 100% on second homes are contained within the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to help improve access to the private rental sector for Afghans in hotels under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Home Office is the department responsible for the ACRS and ARAP schemes, including for providing tariff funding for local authorities. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is supporting cross-Government work to help Afghans into private rental sector accommodation where possible, and Government is providing £35 million of additional funding to local authorities for this purpose.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what proportion of projects that received money from the Levelling Up Fund: Round 2 aim to improve local high streets.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
As set out in the published thematic and geographic analysis, Over £760 million of funding was awarded to projects under the regeneration and town centres theme, with a further £120 million awarded to projects where funding is split evenly between regeneration and town centre interventions and other themes.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether any of the Investment Zone expressions of interest received include areas at least partially within the boundaries or setting of (a) National Parks and (b) Areas of outstanding natural beauty.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
I refer the Hon. Member to my answer to Question UIN 90859 on 28 November 2022.