Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are planning to take to avoid a substantial number of tenants of private housing being evicted when the stay on house possession proceedings is lifted.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
To help prevent people getting into financial hardship or rent arrears, the Government has put in place an unprecedented support package, including support for business to pay staff salaries through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, £9.3 billion of additional support through the welfare system this year, and increasing Local Housing Allowance rates so that they are set at the 30 th percentile of local market rents in each area.
Legislation has been introduced that means, from 29 August 2020, landlords must give tenants six months’ notice before they can evict in most circumstances, apart from the most egregious cases – such as incidents of anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse perpetrators – where it is right that landlords should be able to start progressing cases quicker, because of the pressure they place on landlords, other tenants and local communities. This will be in force until 31 March 2021.
In addition, new court rules, which will come into force on 20 September, will mean landlords will need to set out in their claim any relevant information about a tenant’s circumstances, including information on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Where this information is not provided, judges will have the ability to adjourn proceedings.
We will keep these measures under review?and decisions?will continue?to be guided by the latest public health advice.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure that private tenants who have fallen into rent arrears as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will not be liable for eviction.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
To enable tenants to continue to pay their living costs, the Government has implemented a strong package of financial support. This includes support for business to pay staff salaries through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, £9.3 billion of additional support through the welfare system this year and an increase of the Local Housing Allowance rate to the 30th percentile.
The stay on possession proceedings has been extended until 20 September 2020, meaning that in total no tenant can have been legally evicted for six months at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legislation has also been introduced that means, from 29 August 2020 until 31 March 2021, landlords must give tenants six months’ notice before they can evict in most circumstances, apart from the most serious cases.? The extension of the stay on possession proceedings and changes to notice periods will ensure those most at risk will be protected and provide time for tenants to agree a solution with their landlord if they are unable to pay their rent or consider moving to avoid building up unsustainable debt.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to encourage landlords and developers of high rise blocks to address the fire risks associated with (1) dangerous cladding, and (2) other sources of risk.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government has made £1.6 billion of funding available for the removal of unsafe cladding systems. We have also put in place additional project management support with construction expertise to help support individual projects and oversee remediation, so there is no excuse for delay. Where building owners are failing to make acceptable progress on remediation, those responsible should expect enforcement action to be taken by local authorities and Fire and Rescue Services. The Government established a Joint Inspection Team to support local authorities in taking enforcement action.
The Government?has?also introduced?the Fire Safety Bill to put beyond doubt that, as part of the fire risk assessment process, building owners and managers of multi-occupied residential premises of any height are required to fully consider and mitigate the risks of any external wall systems and front doors to individual flats. The Fire Safety Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons on 7th September and was introduced in the House of Lords on 8th September.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the availability of childcare provision; and what steps they propose to take to mitigate that impact on service providers and those dependent on such provision.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
In order to control the spread of COVID-19, early years settings were asked to only open for children of critical workers and vulnerable children from 20 March. An Ipsos MORI survey showed that three-quarters of critical workers with young children could access childcare during the coronavirus lockdown. The survey is available at:
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/parents-0-4-year-olds-and-childcare-1st-june-2020.
To ensure provision was available for all who needed it, local authorities have been able to redistribute free early years entitlement funding in exceptional cases to ensure childcare places are available for vulnerable and critical worker children.
Early years providers have been able to open to all children from 1 June. The latest attendance data shows that on 30 July, an estimated 285,000 children were attending an early years setting. The latest data, published on 4 August, is available at:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/2020-week-31.
Since 20 July, early years settings have been able to return to their normal group sizes, paving the way for more children to transition back to their early education and supporting parents to return to work.
On 20 July, we announced our commitment to continue paying local authorities for the childcare places they usually fund throughout the autumn term. This means that even if providers are open but caring for fewer children, they can continue to be funded as if the COVID-19 outbreak were not happening.
Local authorities should also continue to fund providers which have been advised to close, or left with no option but to close, for public health reasons. That gives another term of secure income to nurseries and childminders who are open for the children who need them. Until the start of the 2020 autumn term, it remains the case that free early years entitlement funding can be used differently and redistributed in exceptional cases to ensure childcare places are available for vulnerable and critical worker children.
The childcare sector has also been able to access a wider package of government support in the form of a business rates holiday, business interruption loans and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Full details of the support available is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures#funding.
For school-aged children, holiday clubs and other out-of-school settings have been able to open since 4 July, helping parents to meet their childcare needs during the school summer holidays.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking in response to the £3.1 million in service credits charged to Mears Group between September 2019 and January 2020 for poor performance in its contract to provide accommodation to asylum seekers.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
We expect the highest standards from our providers and accommodation provided must be safe, habitable, fit for purpose and it is required to comply with the Decent Homes Standard in addition to standards outlined in relevant national or local housing legislation.
The AASC contracts have robust performance management system to which Providers are expected to deliver; where performance falls short of the required standard for each of the individual KPIs the failures are recorded and can result in the award of Points; which can result in a Service Credits being applied.
Mears performance is monitored closely with dedicated staff in each contract area who are in contact with the Provider on a daily basis. This is supplemented by a formal governance process which includes quarterly Strategic Review Management Boards and monthly Contract Management Groups. Service credits and subsequent improvement plans are discussed and monitored as part of this process.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to publish their social housing White Paper.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government will publish the Social Housing White Paper later this year and I refer the noble Lord to my answer on 16th June 2020 to Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Official Record, House of Lords, Vol. 803. Col. 2043).
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they have not responded to the letter, dated 1 April, from Sam Johnson on behalf of the Board of Trustees of The Match Girls Union in relation to the proposed works at Manor Park Cemetery that might cause damage to the grave of Sarah Chapman.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
Ms Johnson submitted a query to the Ministry of Justice on 1st April 2020 to ask if the email address she had used to send a letter to the Secretary of State was correct. On the 7th April we confirmed that the email address she had was correct.
Unfortunately, we have no record of any email or letter from Ms Johnson to the Lord Chancellor having been received; and so, we have contacted her asking if she could resubmit her correspondence.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to compensate (1) staff, and (2) residents, of care homes who have been adversely affected by shortages of personal protective equipment.
Answered by Lord Bethell
There are currently no plans to compensate staff or residents of care homes.
The Government has published a range of guidance to help care providers reduce the spread of infection. The guidance sets out advice for those affected on how to minimise risks of transmission, through good infection control practices, and set out some of the steps that local authorities and the National Health Service should take to support care providers through the pandemic. We will continue to update this guidance as is required.
For supplies of personal protective equipment, we encourage all care providers to continue to use their business as usual supply chains. Where this is not possible, we are supporting the existing supplier network by providing stock of PPE to 11 wholesalers for adult social care.
If a provider has been unsuccessful in obtaining PPE through these routes, they can approach their Local Resilience Forum (LRF) to set out their PPE needs. If they are unable to access PPE through their LRF, a provider can raise a request for an emergency pack of PPE through the National Supply Disruption Response system.
We are working with e-commerce experts to launch a Parallel Supply Chain, a new web-based system for procuring PPE which will be managed in line with the published guidance from Public Health England, integrated with NHS Supply Chain's central PPE logistic operations and shipped directly to providers via Royal Mail.??Over one million items have been delivered via the portal, which is now rolling out nationally to small residential and domiciliary care providers.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
The Leader of the House how many of the Questions for Written Answer listed as unanswered after 10 working days in the edition of House of Lords Business dated 3 June related to COVID-19; and what steps she is taking to ensure that they are answered promptly.
Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
In the House of Lords Business dated 3 June, there were 164 unanswered Questions for Written Answer (QWA) relating to COVID-19. As of 11th June, 72 of these have been answered. The officials and special adviser's working in my office regularly speak with departments to ensure the timely answering of QWAs and have been doing so during the COVID-19 pandemic. I also regularly remind the Government Front Bench of their obligations to the House and the need to ensure all QWAs are answered within the established deadlines.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that directors of social care in England issued warnings two years ago about the need for better supply plans for personal protective equipment in the event of a pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have been developing pandemic response plans for many years working closely with our national and sector partners, including adult social care. Since the start of this outbreak we have continued to work with the adult social care sector and public health experts to put in place support for social care, including around personal protective equipment (PPE).
In mid-March, social care providers across England received an emergency drop of over seven million PPE items from the pandemic flu stockpile.
As of 29 May, we have released 127 million items of PPE to designated wholesalers for onward sale to social care providers. Between 6 April and 31 May we have authorised the release of over 124 million items of PPE to local resilience forums to help them respond to urgent local spikes in need across the adult social care system We have also mobilised a National Supply Disruption Response system to respond to emergency PPE requests, including for the social care sector.
We have developed a parallel supply chain with almost 3,000 providers to support the normal supply chain before the national roll out. This is a dedicated channel for critical PPE and core PPE products for Covid-19 are flowing through this. As of 15 May, over a million items have been delivered via the portal, which is now rolling out nationally to general practitioners and small residential and domiciliary care providers.