Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the role of parish councils in England.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Government recognises the important role that town parish councils play in their communities. In many parts of the country, parishes are the first tier of local government and important providers of local services. The Government has no plans to review the role of parish councils.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to protect high streets and shopping parades in England.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
This Government is fully committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our high streets and town centres successful as the nation responds to the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak. Now more than ever, it is vital that we continue to help our local economies by supporting town centres and high streets to recover, adapt and evolve.
We have worked with local authorities to make grants of over £11 billion to more than 890,000 businesses via three funds to support small businesses as well as businesses in hard hit sectors such as retail, hospitality and leisure.
In addition to these funds, in May government announced the Reopening High Streets Safely Fund which is providing £50 million from the European Regional Development Fund to councils across England to support the safe reopening of high streets and other commercial areas. This new money will support practical measures so businesses can re-open quickly when they are allowed to, staff get back to work and customers return to shops confident it is safe.
Government is also delivering the £3.6 billion Towns Fund to re-energise local economies, which includes the accelerated £1 billion?Future High Streets Fund competition. The fund will support local areas in England to renew and reshape town centres and high streets. Government announced in September £80m from the Towns Fund would be delivered to over 100 places to kick start regeneration projects; and we will make an announcement on places receiving funding via the Future High Streets Fund in Autumn.
Government is also providing support to places through the High Streets Task Force. Over five years this is providing hands-on support to local areas like Coventry to develop data-driven innovative strategies to tackle issues such as empty properties and connect local areas to relevant experts. The Task Force will be rolling out its expert, training and data offer across the country in due course and has already launched a range of online support.
We have also set out our plans to reform the planning process in the Planning for the Future consultation, open until 29 October. As part of this, we seek to streamline and modernise the planning process, meaning places across the country are able to respond to the needs of their communities and best utilise the land available for more homes in and around town centres and high streets, levelling up the economic and social opportunities available to our communities.
Finally, since March the Government has implemented a range of measures to support commercial property tenants and landlords. The objective of these measures was to preserve tenants’ businesses through the Covid-19 lockdown and to give time and space to landlords and tenants to agree reasonable adjustments to rent and lease terms,?including terms for the payment of accumulated rent arrears. This included a moratorium on the landlord’s right of forfeiture for non-payment of rent, restrictions on the service of statutory demands and winding-up petitions and publishing a voluntary Code of Practice to encourage constructive dialogue between tenants and landlords.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the fairness of contract terms associated with retirement villages, particularly in respect of assignment fees or event fees that are levied when the property is sold after the owner passes away or moves into long-term care.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
In 2017, the Law Commission published a report of their review of event fees on behalf of this Department. This followed concerns raised by the Competition and Markets Authority about the fairness of some retirement property leases that have resulted in leaseholders paying an event fee of between 0.25% and 30% of the sale price of the property when selling or sub-letting. Concerns were also raised about the lack of transparency of event fees for older people and their families when purchasing a leasehold retirement property. The Law Commission made a number of recommendations in its report, which can be downloaded (attached) at http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/event-fees-in-retirement-properties.
The Government responded to the Law Commission in March 2019 and agreed to implement the majority of the recommendations. The Government is further considering two recommendations, on succession rights and a database of leasehold retirement properties with event fees.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress made by the private sector to remediate the use of unsafe aluminium composite materials on high rise buildings.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Department publishes data on the number of high-rise residential and publicly owned buildings in England with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet building regulations. The latest data is available (attached) at:
The publication shows that as of the end of April 2020, the number of private residential high-rise buildings in England identified with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet building regulations in England was 208. Of those: 28 had completed remediation, 14 had started remediation and the ACM cladding had been removed, 35 had started remediation (ACM cladding not yet removed), 90 had a remediation plan in place, 40 had an intent to remediate and one building had an unclear remediation plan.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the total cost of remediating all buildings within the scope of the Building Safety Fund.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The value of the Building Safety Fund has been assessed on the basis of the proportion of building owners that we expect to be eligible, given that Government expects those who are already remediating their buildings to continue to do so. Building owners should also explore every opportunity to fund this work via those originally responsible for the defects and warranty claims before seeking Government funding, or passing on costs to their leaseholders.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total number of buildings that are eligible for funding from the Building Safety Fund.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The estimated 1,700 residential buildings over 18m in height with potentially unsafe non-ACM cladding is a working estimate produced by MHCLG officials to help with development of the Building Safety Fund.
The estimate is continuously under review as we receive further information from building owners and local authorities and housing associations. A refined estimate is due to be published in due course and will also be informed by the data we will gather from building owners following opening of registration for the Building Safety Fund on 1 June 2020.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proposals they have to deal with buildings with cladding made from unsafe non-aluminium composite materials which are less than 18 metres in height.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Government’s decision to place the scope of the Building Safety Fund at buildings over 18m reflects the exceptional fire risk that certain cladding products pose at that height, as previously noted by the Independent Expert Advisory Panel and Dame Judith Hackitt.
It remains building owners’ responsibility to address unsafe cladding on buildings of all heights. We have provided advice from the Expert Panel on the measures building owners should take to ensure their buildings are safe. This can be found (attached) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-advice-for-building-owners-including-fire-doors
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the numbers of high-rise buildings both in the private and public sector with serious fire safety defects relating to compartmentation and fire stopping failures.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Work is ongoing to establish a robust estimate that can be published in due course of the numbers of high-rise buildings with serious fire safety defects relating to compartmentation and fire stopping failures.
The Government has published guidance (attached) which makes it clear that building safety is the responsibility of building owners.?The Independent Expert Panel’s advice has highlighted the importance of internal fire safety measures, including considering whether adequate compartmentation is in place. The consolidated advice note available at the following recommends that building owners to seek professional advice where there is any doubt:
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who is responsible for setting and changing building regulations.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Building Regulations 2010 (as amended) govern most building work (e.g. new builds, renovations, refurbishment and installation of controlled fittings and services) carried out in England. The Regulations provide minimum standards for building work and a system to assess the work. Section 14 of the Building Act 1984 provides that before making any building regulations containing substantive requirements, the Secretary of State shall consult the Building Regulations Advisory Committee [for England] and such other bodies as appear to him to be representative of the interests concerned. Establishing a new Building Safety Regulator is a key part of the building safety reforms; it will have oversight of the regulation and performance of all buildings, delivering specific interventions for buildings requiring enhanced safety measures.
The responsibility for building regulations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are a devolved matter.
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many social homes they estimate were sold by housing associations during the last financial year.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018 a total of 13,086 sales of social stock including: social rented general needs, supported housing, intermediate rent and Affordable Rent and Low Cost Home Ownership (LCHO) were reported by Private Registered Provider through the Regulator of Social Housings Statistical Data Return (attached).
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistical-data-return-statistical-releases
9,660 sales were to tenants through various home ownership schemes and 3,426 were sales for non-social housing use.