Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government why they are proposing that UK housebuilders pay for remedial work to buildings other than those they built, following the Grenfell fire.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Developers must make a fair contribution to the overall costs of making buildings safe, reflecting the wider benefit they derive from a well-functioning market, and the substantial funding and support the government has and continues to provide to the housing market.
The Government has already committed £5.1 billion to fund remediation of unsafe cladding. The Building Safety Levy is a key element of ensuring that the burden of paying for fixing historic building safety defects does not fall on leaseholders and does not further burden taxpayers.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to support first-time buyers of houses once the current Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme finishes on 31 January 2023.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is committed to helping first time buyers to get on the housing ladder. We operate a range of other government schemes including First Homes, Shared Ownership and the Lifetime ISA and we continually keep options to support first-time buyers under consideration.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to make the provision of long-term homes for private rent more appealing than supplying holiday lets.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The sharing economy has brought many benefits to the tourism sector and wider economy, as well as creating an additional income stream for homeowners. However, we recognise that the increase in short-term letting has also prompted some concerns. These include the impact on the housing market and local communities particularly from those living in our most popular tourist destinations.
The Government committed in the Tourism Recovery Plan, published in June last year, to consult on a possible Short Term Accommodation Registration Scheme in England. A call for evidence as the first stage of that consultation process was published on 29 June and runs until 21 September. We will listen carefully to what local people and affected stakeholders have to say to make sure we respond appropriately with evidence-based policy proposals.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the demand for homes for private rent.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The English Housing Survey provides information on housing stock. There was an expansion in the proportion of Private Rented Sector households from 2008 which peaked in 2017. Although there has been a slight downward trend since 2017, the proportion has remained relatively stable for nearly a decade at around 19% to 20%.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the size of the private rented housing sector; and whether their policy is to decrease that size.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The proportion of households living in the private rented sector (PRS) has remained relatively stable over the past decade. The English Housing Survey shows that in 2012-13, the PRS accounted for 18% of households in England. In 2015-16, this increased slightly to 20%, decreasing slightly to 19% in 2019-20, and remaining stable at 19% households in 2020-21.
Most people want to buy their own home one day and the government is firmly committed to helping Generation Rent to become Generation Buy. However, we also appreciate that this is not everyone's aspiration and that there are many people for whom renting a home is either a more practical or more affordable option. The PRS remains an important part of the housing market for the 4.4 million households who live there.
The recent White Paper, 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector', sets out how the government will deliver a fairer, more secure, and higher quality PRS. The reforms are designed to provide good landlords with the support they need, and to make sure they have the confidence to continue operating in the market. We will continue to talk to landlords, local councils and other interested groups while monitoring the impact of our reforms on the sector.
The government also strongly supports the expansion of the Build to Rent (BtR) market. BtR boosts housing supply, diversifies the private rental sector and increases quality and choice for renters in cities and towns across England. To support this, we have revised the National Planning Policy Framework and issued a new chapter of planning guidance to support the delivery of more BtR homes, including affordable rental homes.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total (1) number, and (2) proportion, of households in England in the private rented sector in each year since 2017.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The English Housing Survey collects data on number and proportion of households in each tenure and publishes this every year in our Headline Report, with details at Annex Table 1.1.
The totals for the private rented sector from 2017 are as follows:
2016-17: 4,692,000 households; 20.3% of households
2017-18: 4,530,000 households; 19.5% of households
2018-19: 4,552,000 households; 19.3% of households
2019-20: 4,438,000 households; 18.7% of households
2020-21: 4,434,000 households; 18.5% of households
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reports about their tower block safety plan, whether the UK house building industry will be required to pay for remedies to buildings constructed by overseas developers; and if so, why.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Secretary of State’s statement made clear that no leaseholder living in a building above 11m will ever face any costs for fixing dangerous cladding. We expect industry to make right their historic mistakes by funding and fixing the stock of unsafe buildings they have built over decades.
We are offering industry a window of opportunity, to work with the department through open and transparent talks to agree a settlement that will restore confidence and ensure the industry that caused the problem pays to fix it. Over recent weeks we have held several roundtables with developers and cladding and insulation to make our position clear, and talks are ongoing.
In addition, the residential property developer tax (RPDT) will be charged on the profits of companies carrying out residential property development. The tax is part of a wider plan to bring an end to unsafe cladding, provide reassurance to homeowners and support confidence in the housing market.
The Building Safety Levy will be charged on any residential building that requires building control approval. It is not based on developer location or profit margin. Moreover, if amendments to the Building Safety Bill are enacted, courts will also be given new powers to grant Building Liability Orders to allow developers to be sued where they have used shell companies to manage specific developments and avoid taking responsibility for their actions. The court may choose to apply a Building Liability Order to a developer based overseas if it is an associated company, which would be enforced in the normal manner.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to end any temporary restrictions in place for the (1) sale, and (2) purchase, of residential property. [T]
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The government removed restrictions on the sale and purchase of residential property in England on 13 May. Restrictions remain in place in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.