Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of funding for local domestic abuse (a) services, (b) counselling and (c) advocacy support.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Ministry of Justice is quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25. £154 million of funding has been committed per annum across this Spending Review period, totalling a minimum of £460 million over three years (2022/23 to 2024/25 inclusive). This is up from £41 million in 2009/10. This multi-year funding allows victim support services, and those commissioning them, to build resilience into services and ensure consistency in the support that victims receive.
Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduced new statutory duties on local authorities to ensure that all victims, including their children, have access to support within safe accommodation when they need it. This includes counselling and advocacy support.
Since 2021, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has committed over £507 million, including £129.7 million in 2024/25, to councils across England to fund this duty. Funding from April 2025 will be determined at the next Spending Review.
This is a locally led duty. Each council must work closely with their Local Partnership Board to assess the needs of victims locally and commission the right safe accommodation support services needed to meet the identified need.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
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 tackle Islamophobia.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
I refer the Hon Member to the oral answer given by my Hon Friend, the Member for Kensington, on 4 March 2024 (Official Report, HC Volume 746, Column 628).
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether (a) right to manage and (b) residential management companies requiring the assistance of Building Safety Directors (BSD) will still be required to register by 6 April 2024, in the context of the time taken for regulations on the responsibilities and qualifications of BSDs to be published.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government is analysing the responses from the building safety director’s consultation and is considering whether to introduce regulations to enable the optional appointment of a building safety director by resident-led accountable persons in due course.
The requirement to register existing buildings came into force on 6 April 2023. Existing occupied higher-risk buildings had to be registered by 1 October 2023. Appointing a building safety director is not necessary in order to register a higher-risk building. Registration is a simple process, and the Building Safety Regulator has provided guidance to support accountable persons through this process. In addition, existing arrangements, and third-party support, such as from managing agents, can also provide expertise and support resident directors who are accountable persons in complying with their legal duties.
Asked by: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
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 lay regulations setting out the responsibilities and qualifications for Building Safety Directors.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government is analysing the responses from the building safety director’s consultation and is considering whether to introduce regulations to enable the optional appointment of a building safety director by resident-led accountable persons in due course.
The requirement to register existing buildings came into force on 6 April 2023. Existing occupied higher-risk buildings had to be registered by 1 October 2023. Appointing a building safety director is not necessary in order to register a higher-risk building. Registration is a simple process, and the Building Safety Regulator has provided guidance to support accountable persons through this process. In addition, existing arrangements, and third-party support, such as from managing agents, can also provide expertise and support resident directors who are accountable persons in complying with their legal duties.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to paragraph 61 of the National Planning Policy Framework, what discussions he has had with the Planning Inspectorate on their interpretation of the word advisory.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
When developing new planning policy the department engages with a range of stakeholders including the Planning Inspectorate.
The Government response to the consultation, published alongside the revised Framework, can be found at gov.uk. This sets out in detail the changes made to national policy following the consultation, and the reasons why those changes were made. In addition, the Government response set out that we intend to revise supporting guidance to provide further clarity on the changes to the Framework. The scope and timescales for those changes will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many veterans received the Council Tax Reduction in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following recent findings by the Resolution Foundation regarding the affordability and quality of housing, what steps they are taking to (1) address, and (2) mitigate, those challenges.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Full details of the Government’s long-term plan for housing are available on gov.uk. This includes measures to increase the overall supply and availability of safe, warm and affordable homes. Boosting housing supply is key to affordability: we are on track to deliver our commitment to build one million homes this Parliament, are investing significant funding in affordable housing programmes through the £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme and £6 billion Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, and we have helped over 876,000 households purchase a home since spring 2010 through Government backed schemes.
Housing quality is also central to this plan. We have seen a strong decrease in the number of non-decent homes since 2010. This government has introduced the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, including Awaab’s Law, and is applying the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time through the Renters (Reform) Bill, to ensure that all tenants benefit from homes that are safe and decent
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network World Happiness Report, published on 20 March; in particular, the finding that the happiness of young people under the age of 30 in the UK has declined.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is committed to improving the well-being of individuals in every area of the UK as set out in our (attached) update on the Well-being mission in January 2024. We continue to engage with new data and evidence in the delivery of all Levelling Up Missions, including on how we can improve well-being.
This includes considering the work of Professor Lord Richard Layard, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, and other experts in our ongoing work on this mission.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government which specific counties are included within the term "the west country of England" when they refer to this region.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The West Country is not an official region, but could be loosely and approximately defined to match the South West region. The West of England, covers a much smaller area, focussed around the Greater Bristol and Bath city region. The West of England Combined Authority is made up of the following local authority areas: South Gloucestershire, Bristol and Bath & North East Somerset.
Asked by: Baroness Deech (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Scott of Bybrook on 20 March (HL3102), what has been the nature of the consultation with representatives of subsequent genocides which will be included in the UK Holocaust Memorial Learning Centre; and what was the outcome of those consultations.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission issued a Call for Evidence which received almost 2,500 responses. The Commission’s conclusions, together with a list of organisations providing formal responses, was published in the Commission’s report Britain’s Promise to Remember (2015).
Comments were invited on the 10 shortlisted designs for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, details of which were published online and exhibited at sites in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff in 2017. Two public exhibitions of the chosen design were held in 2018.
Full consultation on the planning application opened in January 2019. Around 4,500 comments were submitted online, ahead of the planning inquiry at which 69 people made oral representations. The independent Planning Inspector provided a summary of written representations and a detailed appendix of oral representations in his report recommending that planning consent should be awarded.
The scope and content of the Learning Centre exhibition will be developed by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, drawing on a wide range of external advice and expertise. That process has not concluded and the noble Baroness is welcome to make any suggestions or views known to the foundation directly.