Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to establish a cross-departmental office for green spaces.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government does not plan to establish a new cross-departmental office for green spaces. Cross-government coordination will continue through the Parks Working Group, which brings together sector expertise with departmental representatives to improve parks and green spaces, with a focus on equality of access.
Improving access to green and blue spaces remains a priority. As part of the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025, the government has announced that it will bring forward an Access to Nature Green Paper to consult on proposals to improve and expand public access to the outdoors. Furthermore, the MHCLG-owned Green Flag Award sets the national standard for parks and green spaces aiming to meet the needs of the communities they serve.
Local authorities play an important role in improving local green space. The Spending Review 2025 provides over £5 billion of new grant funding, most of which is unringfenced, over the next three years for local services that communities rely on.
Finally, the Pride in Place strategy will deliver up to £5 billion over ten years to up to 350 deprived neighbourhoods, supporting a wide range of community assets, including community green spaces.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to work with the environmental horticulture sector to review challenges around planning to incentivise growers and garden centres to install more onsite reservoirs and rainwater harvesting systems.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government is currently reviewing recommendations to enable the adoption of water reuse in the Independent Water Commission and will respond to these via a White Paper. We recognise the potential of the horticultural sector to take advantage of available rainwater and will review engagement opportunities with representatives as part of our policy development.
The government will also clarify the Planning Practice Guidance for the permitted development right that grants planning permission for the development of agricultural reservoirs.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that gardens and green spaces included in new developments are of a (1) high quality, and (2) minimum size.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is clear that local plans should make sufficient provision for and maintain and enhance networks of green infrastructure, which includes both gardens and green spaces. Green infrastructure is a network of multi-functional green and blue spaces and other natural features, urban and rural, which is capable of delivering a wide range of environmental, economic, health and wellbeing benefits.
Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Framework helps to define what good green infrastructure ‘looks like’ for local planners, developers and communities. The Green Infrastructure Framework includes a standard on accessible greenspace which sets criteria on size, proximity and quality.
The government is consulting on changes to the NPPF, which include a new requirement for local plans to set out standards for green infrastructure, drawing upon Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Standards. The consultation on changes to the NPPF is available here (attached): National Planning Policy Framework: proposed reforms and other changes to the planning system - GOV and will remain open for responses until 10 March 2026.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the number and value of UK properties held by (1) direct trust ownership, (2) UK companies held via a trust, and (3) overseas companies held via a trust
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This information is not held by MHCLG, DBT or HM Land Registry.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to restrict private and corporate funding for political parties and election campaigns and, in particular, whether they plan to limit either the amount or the proportion of total funding that a single source can contribute to a party or campaign.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Effective regulation of political finance is crucial for maintaining public trust in our electoral systems. The Government is committed to strengthening our democracy and upholding the integrity of elections and, as stated in our manifesto, we intend to strengthen the rules around donations to political parties to protect our democracy. My department is developing proposals to give effect to these commitments and will make them public in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress in ensuring immigrants from Hong Kong achieve employment commensurate with their education and skills; and what steps they are taking to assist new and recent arrivals to achieve this.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Since April 2021, DLUHC's Hong Kong British National (Overseas) [BN(O)] Welcome Programme has provided universal and targeted support. For the financial year (FY) 23/24, this included funding for VCSE organisations at both a national and regional level to deliver employability support.
In 2024/25, we continue to fund local authorities across England to provide English language support, alongside a network of Welcome Hubs across the UK.
Recent research has shown that almost half of employed BN(O)s, of all levels of skill and qualifications, report that their job does not match their skills and experience. To address this need, further VCSE grant funding is being provided in FY 24/25, for targeted employability support in England only. The deadline for grant applications was the 28 April and the successful organisation will be announced shortly.
BN(O) visa holders can also contact their local Hong Kong BN(O) Welcome Hub (delivered by Strategic Migration Partnerships) which DLUHC funds for further information on employability support offered locally.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to publish the new National Planning Policy Framework; and what assessment they have made of the impact of any delay in its publication on the production of local plans.
Answered by Baroness Penn
Government is clear that it expects plan making to continue as we move towards the new system, following royal assent of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023. As part of that we are closely monitoring those areas that have failed to keep plans up to date.
We intend to publish updates to the National Planning Policy Framework later in 2023 and are carefully considering how the changes should be implemented to encourage and support different authorities to progress their plans to adoption.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government (1) what assessment they have made of (a) the use of retrospective planning applications following deliberate breaches of planning rules, and (b) the level of resources available to local authorities to resist such breaches, and (2) what plans they have to prohibit inappropriate developments using retrospective planning applications and to prevent resubmissions of failed applications with only marginal changes to the proposal.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government does not collect data on retrospective planning applications. We have introduced measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to tighten up the retrospective planning application process, which is being considered by both Houses of Parliament. We have recently consulted on doubling the fees for retrospective planning applications and sought views on potential ways to improve developer accountability and, in particular, take account of past irresponsible behaviour in decision making. We also intend to consult on updating national planning policy to give increased weight against intentional unauthorised development so it can be dealt with more robustly in decisions.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they are taking to assist part-owners of homes who may be unable to sell as a result of conditions of rent charges allowing repossession; and what estimate they have made of the numbers of homeowners affected.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We want to make estate management companies more accountable to their freeholders for how their money is spent.
When Parliamentary time allows, the Government intends to legislate to ensure that freehold homeowners who pay estate rent charges have the right to challenge their reasonableness and to go to the tribunal to appoint a manager to manage the provision of services.
In addition, we will remove the statutory right for owners of rent charges to take possession or grant a lease of the property in the event of non-payment by the homeowner.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the benefits of stone as a relatively low-carbon building material; and what steps they are taking to promote research and development of its use.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Depending on how stone is quarried and how far it is transported, it is likely to be a relatively low-carbon material. We are carrying out research into the impact of measuring embodied carbon and methods of reducing it across building types - including the contributions that could be made by different material choices. We will set out further announcements in due course.