Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will publish the (a) dates on which Ministers in his Department had meetings with any elected Somerset County Councillors since 7 May 2015 and (b) the agendas and minutes of the matters discussed for each of those meetings.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
Details of Ministers' meetings with external organisations are published on www.gov.uk and can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dclg-ministerial-data. The information published includes all meetings up to and including March 2018. Meetings that have not yet been published, but are due to be in the future, include:
On 11 July 2018 I met with Councillors David Fothergill and Faye Purbeck from Somerset County Council and Councillor Harvey Siggs from Mendip District Council following their request for a meeting to discuss their thoughts about future organisation of Somerset. There was no minute of the meeting, though I wrote to the Councillors on 26 July 2018 as a follow up to the meeting, and I am placing a copy of that letter in the Library of the House.
Following my meeting with the Somerset councillors, I invited all the Somerset MPs to meet with me on 11 September 2018 to discuss their thoughts on future organisation of Somerset. Following that meeting I wrote to all those MPs with some additional information.
On 19 July 2018, Jake Berry MP attended a roundtable meeting about high streets and local growth with various councillors and businesses. Councillor David Fothergill from Somerset County Council was in attendance.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of the procedures for assessing the liability of holiday lets for business rates.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
Holiday lets are a valuable part of the local business landscape. They are assessed for business rates if they are available for short-term lets for 140 days or more per financial year. This rule is widely understood and provides a clear method of deciding whether a property should be liable for council tax or business rates. It ensures that properties do not switch year-to-year between council tax and business rates merely due to success in letting out the property. However, the Department is aware of concerns about this criterion, and is considering whether it remains appropriate.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans for his Department to be accredited by the National Living Wage Foundation in relation to paying the real living wage; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Department has no immediate plans to seek accreditation from the National Living Wage Foundation in relation to paying the real living wage. However, the Department does qualify to apply for the referenced accreditation as we do not employ anyone, either nationally or in London, that earns less than the hourly living wage rate for the respective areas as defined by the National Living Wage Foundation. A table highlighting the Department’s lowest hourly rate of pay in comparison to the current National Living Wage hourly rate is shown below.
| Real Living Wage | MHCLG Min Hourly Rate (Net Contractual Hours) | MHCLG Min Hourly Rate (Gross Contractual Hours) |
London | £10.20ph | £13.16ph | £11.59 |
National | £8.75ph | £11.30ph | £9.95 |
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March to Question 132182 on the return of £817 million to the Treasury, if he will provide a breakdown of the original intended recipients of the funding that has now been returned.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The information relating to the return of £817 million was published as part of Table 4 in the Supplementary Estimates Explanatory Memorandum 2017/18:
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March to Question 132182 on Housing: Finance, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the bidding process for local authorities councils to be allocate housing-related funding.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government is investing over £9 billion in the Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21, to support councils and housing associations to deliver genuinely affordable homes where they are needed most.
We have confirmed long-term rent certainty for social landlords in England and announced that we will be providing councils with £1 billion of additional borrowing to deliver homes where demand is greatest. These measures, and the additional Affordable Homes Programme funding, will support local authorities to deliver a new generation of council house building.
The programme is flexible and sets no ring-fences on particular forms of tenure, so providers can bid into the programme to develop a wide range of homes to meet the housing needs of a range of people in different circumstances and housing markets – building the right homes in the right places.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for other unitary authorities of its requirement for the population of a unitary council at a minimum being substantially in excess of 300,000.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
It is the statutory guidance, issued by the Secretary of State on 27 March 2018 under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which states that a proposal for unitary local government should seek to achieve unitary authorities with populations as a minimum substantially in excess of 300,000.
The Secretary of State has issued this guidance, including on population size, having regard to past reorganisations, the Northamptonshire County Council Best Value Inspection Report of March 2018, and research, including that from the County Councils Network in 2016 into lessons from previous unitarisations which found that the scale of a unitary council was key, with larger authorities able to deliver economies of scale while smaller unitary councils were more likely to be less resilient, putting key services at potential risk.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the (a) reasons and (b) evidential basis are for the threshold of a population of 300,000 being chosen as a requirement for unitary authorities.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
It is the statutory guidance, issued by the Secretary of State on 27 March 2018 under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which states that a proposal for unitary local government should seek to achieve unitary authorities with populations as a minimum substantially in excess of 300,000.
The Secretary of State has issued this guidance, including on population size, having regard to past reorganisations, the Northamptonshire County Council Best Value Inspection Report of March 2018, and research, including that from the County Councils Network in 2016 into lessons from previous unitarisations which found that the scale of a unitary council was key, with larger authorities able to deliver economies of scale while smaller unitary councils were more likely to be less resilient, putting key services at potential risk.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reasons his Department has changed the lower parameter of a population of 300,000 for a unitary authority from being set only in guidance to being a requirement; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
It is the statutory guidance, issued by the Secretary of State on 27 March 2018 under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which states that a proposal for unitary local government should seek to achieve unitary authorities with populations as a minimum substantially in excess of 300,000.
The Secretary of State has issued this guidance, including on population size, having regard to past reorganisations, the Northamptonshire County Council Best Value Inspection Report of March 2018, and research, including that from the County Councils Network in 2016 into lessons from previous unitarisations which found that the scale of a unitary council was key, with larger authorities able to deliver economies of scale while smaller unitary councils were more likely to be less resilient, putting key services at potential risk.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will permit people running in local council elections to put their electoral ward as their address for personnel security reasons.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
In its Response (Cm9578) published on the 14 March 2018, to the Committee on Standards in Public Life Review of Intimidation in Public Life, the Government accepts the Committee’s recommendation to remove the requirement for candidates standing as local councillors to have their home address published on the ballot paper, and will look to bring forward secondary legislation to achieve this at a suitable opportunity with the aim of effecting this change in time for the 2019 local elections. The intention is for this secondary legislation to replace the requirement for a specific address with an option to include a statement of residence based on an electoral area where the candidate lives.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the average cost to the public purse of local authority mergers in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
The three proposals for merging district councils, which the Department has been considering over the last 12 months, have been assessed as delivering annual savings ranging from £0.8 to £3.1 million with pay back periods for covering one off transition costs from 1 to 3 years.