Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - 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 contribution of off-gassing flame retardants to indoor air contamination, particularly in mechanically ventilated homes.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This government has made no assessment of a contribution to indoor air contamination by off-gassing flame retardants. Part D of the Building Regulations 2010 relates to toxic substances and associated guidance in Approved Document D (attached) makes clear that formaldehyde fumes, given off by urea formaldehyde foams, should not penetrate to occupied parts of the building. Building Regulations Part F and Approved Document F (attached) relate to ventilation and describe how systems should be designed to supply a minimum level of outdoor air for occupants’ health and to rapidly dilute indoor air pollutants. Approved Document F includes performance criteria for indoor air pollutants, based on the World Health Organization’s Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Selected Pollutants (2010) and Public Health England’s Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for Selected Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the UK (2019 ).
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government,with reference to the Loneliness Strategy, what steps he is taking to work with Homes England to incorporate community cohesion as part of the support offered to existing and future garden communities.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Across England, we are currently supporting 48 locally-led garden communities, to be exemplars of high quality, good design and best practice.
These places will encourage strong social connections through vibrant spaces with mixed community use and healthy places that take a holistic approach to tackling wellbeing priorities. To date we have provided £38 million in capacity funding which includes early support to fund dedicated staff teams, key studies and assessments to underpin delivery of our garden towns and villages.
My Department and Homes England are exploring an effective means of sharing learning and good practice on tackling loneliness and social isolation through design and planning approaches with professional and accredited bodies.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking as part of the loneliness strategy to ensure that community cohesion is considered in the assessment process for prospective Garden Communities.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Prospective garden communities were required to outline how they would achieve ten design qualities in their proposals. These qualities help create places that support cohesive communities, and proposals were assessed against these criteria.
More broadly, we included tackling loneliness as a theme at our national design quality conference in February and are currently developing proposals around housing and placemaking for phase 2 of the loneliness strategy.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will undertake an impact assessment of the effect on the community in Liverpool of the mandatory HMO licensing scheme.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Through HMO licensing the Government is improving living conditions and overcrowding for many people.
The Government carried out an impact assessment on mandatory licensing for the whole of England when it was extended on 1 October 2018. There are no plans for Government to undertake an impact assessment of the effect on the community in Liverpool.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many houses of multiple occupancy are registered with Liverpool City Council.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government does not collect ward level data for mandatory licensable HMOs.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many houses of multiple occupation there are in each of the six council wards in Liverpool Wavertree constituency as at 1 April 2019.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government does not collect ward level data for mandatory licensable HMOs.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to expand the codes for student accommodation for maintaining property and management standards to extend to public spaces such as roads outside the property.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Codes of practice, run by Accreditation Network UK/Unipol and Universities UK/Guild HE cover areas such as management standards, waste management and anti-social behaviour. Were a member of a Code is found to be in breach of one of these areas, this would be addressed through the complaints procedure set out in the Codes.
We currently have no plans to expand the Codes for purpose built student accommodation to public spaces. However, we are working with Unipol and Universities UK to update the Codes and ensure they cover any future Government legislation.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the codes for student accommodation in (a) protecting tenants and owners of neighbouring properties and (b) maintaining management standards.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Codes of practice, run by Accreditation Network UK/Unipol and Universities UK/Guild HE cover areas such as management standards, waste management and anti-social behaviour. Were a member of a Code is found to be in breach of one of these areas, this would be addressed through the complaints procedure set out in the Codes.
We currently have no plans to expand the Codes for purpose built student accommodation to public spaces. However, we are working with Unipol and Universities UK to update the Codes and ensure they cover any future Government legislation.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many affordable homes were built in Liverpool in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The number of additional affordable homes provided in Liverpool is published in live table 1008C https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will encourage officials working on local strategic planning to include contributions from occupational therapists in that planning to seek to improve the physical health and activity of local populations.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Contributions from development towards local infrastructure are collected primarily through two mechanisms, Section 106 planning obligations and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). Local authorities can use both mechanisms to help fund public health infrastructure.
Local planning authorities should work closely with healthcare infrastructure providers to identify infrastructure capacity and requirements over the plan period. Local planning authorities should assess the quality and capacity of infrastructure and the ability to meet forecasted demands to determine if such infrastructure is required.