Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to expedite enhanced DBS checks for (a) Ukrainian refugees and (b) UK applicants to the Homes for Ukraine scheme to help reduce the processing time for children coming to the UK through that scheme.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer the Hon Member to the answers given to Question UIN 145857 on 28 March 2022 and Question UIN 144955 on 29 March 2022, which include links to published guidance and information at Gov.uk.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an estimate of the maximum number of refugees from Ukraine that the UK can accommodate.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer the Hon Member to the answers given here.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support leaseholders to ensure that buildings conform with new building standards.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Through the Building Safety Bill, we will be ensuring that building owners of higher-risk buildings have clear accountabilities for managing building safety as Accountable Persons. Residents will have a clear voice under the new regime and will be empowered to hold their Accountable Person to account, with the ability to raise complaints for breach of accountable person duties, and escalate such complaints to the regulator.
The new Building Safety Regulator will enforce the more stringent regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings and oversee the safety and performance of all buildings.
The Government funds the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) to provide free and independent advice to leaseholders, including those affected by building safety issues. This aims to help them make informed decisions on next steps and engage confidently with freeholders, developers and managing agents. Advice is open to all and there is no limit on the amount of advice an individual can seek to support their chances of achieving the best possible outcome in their case.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 23 November 2021 to Question 77410 on Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Meetings, when the predecessor departmental board, for the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government last met; and when his Department plans to publish minutes of those board meetings held since December 2016.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Prior to becoming the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) held its last full Departmental Board meeting in March 2021.
There are no plans to publish MHCLG’s Departmental Board minutes from 2016 onwards.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when his departmental board last met; and when his Department plans to publish minutes of board meetings held since December 2016.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was established in September 2021, with the Machinery of Government change transfer of functions completing in December. The Secretary of State has been focusing on his priorities since setting up the new department, and the first Ministerial Board meeting is due to take place in January 2022. Governance arrangements, including publication of minutes of meetings, will be reviewed by the Board as part of the new department's governance framework and published in the usual way.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number of unsafe blocks of flats in (a) London and (b) Ealing; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Fire Commissioner's report detailing unsafe buildings in London.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Information on the number of high-rise (over 18 metres) residential and publicly-owned buildings with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations by local authority is published in the Building Safety Programme data release.
For high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, the Department is continuing to work with building owners to progress applications for the Building Safety Fund at pace so that more remedial works can begin as swiftly as possible. Information on registrations to the Building Safety Fund by local authority can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remediation-of-non-acm-buildings#building-safety-fund-registration-statistics.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 reduce the number of people living poverty related to housing costs.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Individuals who are unable to afford their housing costs may be eligible for a range of support through the welfare system. We lifted Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local rents in April 2020, and in 2021/22 maintained them at their increased level in cash terms.
For those who require additional support Discretionary Housing Payments are available. We have made £140 million in Discretionary Housing Payments funding available for local authorities this financial year, to distribute for supporting renters with housing costs in the private and social rented sectors. This builds on the £180 million in payments made available last financial year.
Moreover, we have banned lettings fees paid by tenants and capped tenancy deposits through the Tenant Fees Act, which came into force on 1 June 2019 and reduced the upfront costs associated with moving in the private rented sector.
During the Coronavirus pandemic the Government has put in place an unprecedented financial package, which is supporting renters to sustain tenancies and to afford their housing costs. We have provided support for business to pay staff salaries through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which is in place until the end of September 2021. We also extended the £20 per week uplift in Universal Credit until September 2021 and provided a one-off payment of £500 to eligible Working Tax Credit claimants.
In the longer term we need to build more homes to tackle affordability. We have made strong progress towards our aim of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s – delivering around 244,000 last year, the highest in over 30 years. This is backed by £20 billion in investment, which includes over £12.2 billion for the Affordable Homes Programme – to deliver up to 180,000 affordable homes – the biggest funding commitment to affordable housing in over a decade. We have also made initial funding of £7.1 billon available for the National Home Building Fund to unlock up to 860,000 homes over the lifetime of the projects through the provision of infrastructure, regenerating brownfield sites, and diversifying the market.
Furthermore, our £9 billion Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, running to 2023, will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes. We are also pushing forward with our planning reforms to establish a simpler, faster and more predictable system and ensure that the right homes are built in the right places where they are needed.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of people living in unsuitable housing.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
There is no single definition of unsuitable homes, which could encompass a range of housing-related issues. We do make regular assessments of the housing stock through the English Housing Survey.
According to the English Housing Survey, in 2019-20, 16.3% of owner occupied and 23.3% of Private Rented Sector homes were non-decent. The number of social homes classified as non-decent reduced from 20% in 2010 to 12% in 2019. According to the same survey, in 2019-20, 8% of all households in England (1.9 million) had at least one person with a long-standing physical or mental health condition and said that they required adaptations to their home. 81% of households that required adaptations to their home due to their health condition felt their home was suitable for their needs. The 19% of households (374,000) that required adaptations and who considered their accommodation unsuitable accounted for 2% of all households in England.
This Government is clear that everyone deserves a safe, decent home, and is taking forward a range of measure to support this, including giving local authorities stronger enforcement powers, undertaking a comprehensive review of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, reviewing the Decent Homes Standard, and our recent consultation considered raising the accessibility requirements for new homes.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
When his Department plans to publish transparency data on the (a) meetings and (b) relevant interests of its Departmental board.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Information on Board meetings and relevant interests of the Board will be published in the Department Annual Report and Accounts as standard, which will be available on the government website in the coming weeks. The interests of Ministers sat on the Board is readily available on the parliament website.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 potential merits of giving social housing tenants the right to acquire rented property built prior to 1997.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Right to Acquire (RtA) was introduced in 1997, through the Housing Act 1996. A Housing Association that accepted government grant from that point accepted that the RtA would be a condition of the grant.
Backdating the legislation to apply to homes built before 1997 would require forcing Housing Associations to sell properties to eligible tenants. However, Government has made home ownership available to certain Housing Association tenants through a voluntary agreement with Housing Associations supporting pilots of the Voluntary Right to Buy.
The Midlands pilot for the Voluntary Right to Buy was launched in August 2018. This pilot has given thousands of Housing Association tenants in the East and West Midlands the opportunity to buy their home with a discount. An independent evaluation for the Midlands Voluntary Right to Buy pilot was published in February 2021. The 2019 manifesto committed to evaluate new pilot areas.