Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
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 update planning laws to support an increase in the contribution of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to the energy security of the UK.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
National planning policy is clear local authorities should support transition to a low-carbon future, including having a positive strategy in place to promote energy from renewable and low carbon sources.
As set out in Net Zero Strategy, we intend to review the National Planning Policy Framework to make sure it contributes to climate change mitigation as fully as possible, and help bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to take steps to protect Grade 1 land from housing and solar developments to preserve land for the production of food; and what discussions he has had with relevant stakeholders on that matter.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that planning policies and decisions should recognise the benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land and that where significant development is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer quality land should be preferred to those of higher quality. This requirement would apply to both housing and solar developments. The Framework is also clear that local authorities should encourage efficient use of land and acknowledges the importance of undeveloped land for food production.
In the case of solar, guidance sets an expectation that large-scale solar farms are sites on previously developed and non-agricultural land, provided it is not of high environmental value. Where projects are proposed on greenfield sites, our guidance seeks to minimise the impacts and requires developers to justify the use of any such land. Our guidance also requires that projects are designed to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts on the best and most versatile agricultural land.
These aspects of planning policy are devolved in Wales.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
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 ensure that affected homeowners are not charged unaffordable remedial costs for historic fire safety defects.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Building owners and developers should make buildings safe to live in and it should not fall to leaseholders to pay the price when they have failed to do so. The Government is focused on protecting leaseholders, who bought their flats in good faith, and now face unaffordable costs.
The Government is investing an unprecedented £5.1 billion to fund the cost of replacing unsafe cladding for leaseholders in residential buildings 18 metres and over in England. This will make homes safer and support those who, through no fault of their own, have been unable to sell their property. Fire risk is lower in buildings under 18 metres and costly remediation work is usually not needed.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
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 protect hedgehogs by ensuring that new housing developments include hedgehog highways, a hole at the bottom of a fence that allows hedgehogs to move freely between gardens.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government welcomes any action by individual developers who wish to provide hedgehog highways. The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that planning policies and decisions should minimise the impacts on biodiversity and provide net gains. Moreover, our Planning Practice Guidance was updated in 2019 to highlight that relatively small features can often achieve important benefits for wildlife, including providing safe routes for hedgehogs between different areas of habitat
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
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 bringing forward legislative proposals to make housing more affordable for young people.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We are building the homes our country needs and helping a new generation to own their own home – and making sure young people are not priced out of their area.
We are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade. This includes our new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and deliver up to 180,000 homes should economic conditions allow. Half of these homes will be for affordable home ownership, supporting aspiring homeowners to take their first step on to the housing ladder. This includes our new, fairer model for Shared Ownership and 1,500 First Homes for first-time buyers and key workers.
First Homes are homes which are sold to first-time buyers with a discount of at least 30 per cent from full market value, making both deposits and mortgage requirements cheaper and opening up the dream of home ownership to even more people. The discount will be funded by developers themselves as part of their contributions through planning obligations, without a direct cost to central Government or local authorities.
Crucially, the discount will be passed on to all future purchasers in perpetuity, so these homes will keep helping first-time buyers onto the property ladder for generations to come.
In future, 25 per cent of all affordable homes delivered by developers as part of their obligatory contributions will be First Homes. This new First Homes Requirement means that there will be a steady and sustained supply of these homes, helping first-time buyers across England.
This is in addition to our Help to Buy: Equity Loans, which have helped over 257,000 first-time buyers into homeownership since its launch in 2013 to 1 December 2020. The new Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme opened on 1 April 2021 and will run to March 2023. It is targeted at first-time buyers only and has regional property price caps based on average first time buyer property prices.
The mortgage guarantee scheme launched on 19 April 2021 and will be available until December 2022, enabling lenders to offer 95% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages to both first-time buyers and existing homeowners, throughout the whole UK, on homes up to £600,000 in value. 95% mortgages supported through the scheme are open to all adults, including young adults.
For renters, in response to Covid-19 pressures, the Government has put in place an unprecedented support package to help renters and ensure they can continue to afford their housing costs, including retaining the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Universal Credit uplift until September.
In the long run we need to build more homes to tackle affordability. This is why we are bringing forward an ambitious near-£20 billion investment to underpin the Government’s long-term housing strategy. 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.
We are making good progress towards achieving our supply ambitions of delivering 1 million homes this Parliament and building 300,000 homes a year over the longer term. Last year, around 244,000 homes were delivered – the highest level for over 30 years and the seventh consecutive year that net supply has increased.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to £125,000 of capacity funding for Welsh local authorities in the Levelling Up Fund, how the Government plans to allocate that funding; what the timeframe is for allocating that funding; whether the Government plans to undertake an assessment of the effort made by each local authority in respect of the awarding of that funding; and whether the Government plans to award that funding in the event that a local authority does not make a bid.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The Levelling Up Fund will invest in local infrastructure that will have a visible impact on people and their communities.
For the first round of funding, capacity funding of £125,000 will be provided to the 93 local authorities in England that fall into category 1 on the index of priority places published alongside the prospectus; and all local authorities in Scotland and Wales to help build their relationship with UK Government for the purpose of the Fund.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has issued guidance on the likelihood of success for a second category submission to the Levelling Up Fund; and whether his Department has targets for the proportion of successful bids in the (a) first, (b) second and (c) third category.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport and investing in cultural and heritage assets.
The Fund will be allocated competitively, and funding will be targeted towards places in England, Scotland and Wales with the most need, as measured by an index taking into account the following place characteristics: need for economic recovery and growth, need for improved transport connectivity, and need for regeneration. The bandings do not represent eligibility criteria, nor the amount or number of bids a place can submit. Bids from categories 2 and 3 will still be considered for funding on their merits of deliverability, value for money and strategic fit, and could still be successful if they are of exceptionally high quality.
Further detail on how the Levelling Up Fund will operate from 2022-23 onwards will be set out later this year.
Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many bids local authorities in the second category can submit to the Levelling Up Fund (a) in the first tranche of bidding and (b) over the lifetime of the Fund.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport and investing in cultural and heritage assets.
The Fund will be allocated competitively, and funding will be targeted towards places in England, Scotland and Wales with the most need, as measured by an index taking into account the following place characteristics: need for economic recovery and growth, need for improved transport connectivity, and need for regeneration. The bandings do not represent eligibility criteria, nor the amount or number of bids a place can submit. Bids from categories 2 and 3 will still be considered for funding on their merits of deliverability, value for money and strategic fit, and could still be successful if they are of exceptionally high quality.
Further detail on how the Levelling Up Fund will operate from 2022-23 onwards will be set out later this year.