Asked by: Anna Dixon (Labour - Shipley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of raising the baseline accessibility standard for new build homes to Part M4(2) of the building regulations.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer my Hon Friend to my answer to Question UIN 12990 on 25 November 2024.
Asked by: Anna Dixon (Labour - Shipley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what criteria her Department will use to determine which stage (a) one and (b) two levelling up bids will be allowed to proceed.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Chancellor’s July ‘Public Spending: Inheritance’ speech forecasted an overspend of £21.9 billion above limits set by the Treasury in the Spring. We understand that will have caused uncertainty about the status of some projects and the challenge that presents locally. We must, however, ensure that we are making responsible decisions on public spending. Decisions that have fallen on this government to take. In this context, the Chancellor has set out a path to confirming plans for this year and next at the forthcoming Budget on October 30th.
Asked by: Anna Dixon (Labour - Shipley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 10 September 2024 to Question 3887 on Conveyancing, what steps her Department is taking to help (a) speed up and (b) reduce the cost of conveyancing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 3887 on 10 September 2024.
Asked by: Anna Dixon (Labour - Shipley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to abolish leasehold marriage value.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As outlined in the King’s Speech, the Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. This includes a new valuation scheme that leaseholders must follow to calculate how much they should pay to enfranchise and includes measures such as removing the requirement to pay marriage value, capping the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value in the calculation, and prescribing rates for the calculation. A small number of provisions came into force on 24 July, two months after Royal Assent, relating to rentcharge arrears, building safety legal costs and the work of professional insolvency practitioners.
The Government will further reform the leasehold system by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, and removing the disproportionate and draconian threat of forfeiture. We will also reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.
The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny.