Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure new build homes are built according to electrical and fire safety requirements.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The primary responsibility for compliance with the Building Regulations, including fire and electrical safety, rests with the person carrying out the building work. This is the builder or developer. Most building work is subject to building control either by the local authority or a private approved inspector, on a spot-check basis. It is the responsibility of the building control body to take all reasonable steps to assess compliance. However, responsibility for compliance remains with the builder or developer
On 5 July 2019, the government published a clarified version of Approved Document B (the approved document to the building regulations on fire safety) that aims to improve usability and reduce the risk of misinterpretation by those carrying out and inspecting building work.
We recently consulted on how we propose to take forward legislative reform for building and fire safety in higher-risk residential buildings implementing recommendations made by Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review. We committed in the Queen's Speech to bring forward legislative reform.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to ensure developers comply with fire and electrical safety requirements for new build homes.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The primary responsibility for compliance with the Building Regulations, including fire and electrical safety, rests with the person carrying out the building work. This is the builder or developer. Most building work is subject to building control either by the local authority or a private approved inspector, on a spot-check basis. It is the responsibility of the building control body to take all reasonable steps to assess compliance. However, responsibility for compliance remains with the builder or developer
On 5 July 2019, the government published a clarified version of Approved Document B (the approved document to the building regulations on fire safety) that aims to improve usability and reduce the risk of misinterpretation by those carrying out and inspecting building work.
We recently consulted on how we propose to take forward legislative reform for building and fire safety in higher-risk residential buildings implementing recommendations made by Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review. We committed in the Queen's Speech to bring forward legislative reform.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the findings of the 2016 Joint Nature Conservation Committee review of Special Protection Areas, (a) what representations she has received on completing and (b) what steps she is taking to complete the network of Special Protection Areas for the nightjar.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Several Members have enquired about the protection of specific wild bird species with reference to the findings of the 2016 review of Special Protection Areas (SPA). The answers are available on the Parliamentary website.
Defra officials, in liaison with Natural England, are finalising an assessment of how best to implement the SPA review in England. This draws on the advice and options set out in the second phase of the Review in 2017. It will include advice on how to prioritise implementation to achieve the best conservation outcomes including for nightjar.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2019 to Question 268421, if she will publish details of the Service Levels relating to the Next Generation Visa (NGOV) Services contract delivered by VFS Global.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
In line with the Government’s commitment to transparency, the Home Office has published the VFS Global Next Generation Visa (NGOV) contract schedules on Contracts Finder (part of gov.uk).
The Service Levels can be found in Schedule 7 of the contract. These Service Levels set out the criteria Home Office uses to assess the performance of VFS Global in handling visa and settlement applications
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had on whether to extend the contract for Next Generation Visa (NGOV) Services delivered by VFS Global beyond the current expiration date of 31 March 2021.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Home Department are currently in discussion with the suppliers who deliver the Next Generation Outsourced Visa (NGOV) contract to review proposals for an extension beyond 2021 but no recommendations have yet been made.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints her Department has received about VSF Global each year since the start of its contract with her Department in 2013.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The performance against service standard in relation to customer complaints relating to UKVI can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-august-2019. We do not publish statistics on complaints received in relation to individual supplier performance
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the timeframe is for his Department to bring forward legislative proposals to increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving.
Answered by Robert Buckland
We will bring forward proposals to increase the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the (a) quality and (b) provision of accommodation for 16 and 17 year old children in care.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Local authorities have a duty to consider the placement for each child and are required to ensure that children in care are provided with suitable accommodation that meets their needs.
Many children in care aged 16 and 17 live in foster care or children’s homes, which are inspected by Ofsted. Data from Ofsted’s latest annual report (2017/18) show that 84% of providers are judged as good or outstanding and 2% are inadequate.
We are supporting local authorities to increase sufficiency of fostering, secure and non-secure residential placements and ensure that placements meet children’s needs. This includes investing £5 million in an innovation programme funding 3 projects to increase councils residential care capacity and improve commissioning practice.
In fostering, we have invited local authorities and their partners to bid for seed funding to conduct feasibility studies into new or expanded collaborative approaches. This is across sufficiency planning, commissioning, recruitment and training of foster parents. In addition, arrangements for young people preparing to step up to, or down from residential care, or return home from foster care. The department is also increasing the number of secure children’s homes beds through our £40 million capital grants programme. In addition, the department has invested nearly £6 million in a pilot programme called Staying Close, which will provide further support for young people leaving residential care.
Where it is judged to be in the child’s best interests, local authorities can also accommodate children in care and care leavers aged 16 or 17 in suitable unregulated provision.
Suitable accommodation is defined in regulations in the Children Act Volume 2 statutory guidance, a copy of which is available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/441643/Children_Act_Guidance_2015.pdf.
Unregulated accommodation can be the right option for some older children in care and care leavers aged 16 or 17, providing a stepping-stone towards living as an independent adult. In some cases, the quality of accommodation provided may not be reaching the standards we would expect, so I have asked Sir Alan Wood, the Chair of the Residential Care Leadership Board, to collect evidence to help us understand where improvements might be needed.
In light of Sir Alan Wood’s findings, we will consider whether further steps need to be taken to ensure that all children in care aged 16 or 17 are living in settings that are safe and provide the wrap-around support that they need.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to tackle the practice of stop-skipping on the Great Northern line at Arlesey.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Omitting scheduled station stops (‘skip-stopping’) is used in exceptional circumstances where there is disruption to restore the service to schedule for the peaks as quickly as possible.
We expect the operator to make the correct operational decisions which balance the needs of passengers who are inconvenienced by taking stops out of service against the wider advantage to passengers of getting services back on schedule as soon as possible. Operators are expected to communicate this to passengers in good time where possible, and to provide affected passengers with advice on the alternative options to complete their journey.
Officials meet regularly with GTR to discuss performance and the operator has confirmed that it tries to protect stations like Arlesey where there are no alternative modes of transport. Where trains do miss these stations GTR has a procedure to try and ensure that the next fast service does call there.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of recent changes to the calculation of housing need on local authorities that are awaiting the adoption of their local plan.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We are committed to a plan-led system that delivers the homes this country needs, while protecting our precious environment. Up-to-date plans provide a sound basis for assessing land supply, and it is only where plans have become out-of-date that our standard method for assessing housing need is used instead. What this means in practice will depend on the amount of land with permission in each area, the protections that apply and the stage an emerging plan has reached, and so there is no national estimate of the impact. The National Planning Policy Framework protects emerging plans in certain circumstances, even in the absence of a five-year land supply, where a development would significantly undermine the plan.