Asked by: Lord Banner (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing to disabled war refugees from Ukraine including, but not limited to, in relation to employment opportunities.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Councils receive a tariff of £5,900 per Homes for Ukraine arrival in their area to support guests to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into communities. Councils can use this funding flexibly to support households as best suits the local area, this could include supporting individuals to access education and employment.
All Ukrainian guests have access to public services, including benefits to support housing, healthcare, education, and other essential services.
Guidance is available on GOV.UK in English, Ukrainian and Russian, which provides Ukrainian guests with information on finding a job, accessing benefits and healthcare provision. This also provides guidance on social care and support for carers.
We recognise that the ability to speak English is key to helping people integrate into life in the UK. The STEP programme which launched this month, will provide intensive English language lessons and employment support for up to 4,000 individuals across the Ukraine and Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) visa schemes. This builds on the success of the STEP Ukraine pilot which has supported over 13,000 Ukrainians, with an impressive 84% successfully completing the programme and 73% achieving 100% in their English language test.
The Department for Education also supports adults aged 19+ in England who do not have English as a first language to access English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision via the Adult Skills Fund (ASL).
Asked by: Lord Banner (Conservative - 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 the Planning Inspectorate is sufficiently resourced to handle planning appeals swiftly and without any dilution in scrutiny before the new National Planning Policy Framework causes any increase in its caseload; and what consideration they have given to introducing planning appeal fees to help with that resourcing.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government is committed to handling planning appeals more quickly, including ensuring there is sufficient resourcing in the Planning Inspectorate to support such activity. We currently have no plans to introduce appeal fees but we will continue to keep the issue under review.
Asked by: Lord Banner (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to bring into force section 73B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, pursuant to section 110 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government is committed to reforming the planning system, via the new National Planning Policy Framework and the Planning Infrastructure Bill. As part of these reforms, we are also considering which provisions from the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 we will implement and will present more detail on these in due course.