Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that any development which requires land to be taken out of greenbelt proposed in local plans (a) is necessary to meet local housing need and (b) has the support of local communities.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts. Once established, Green Belt boundaries should only be altered where exceptional circumstances are fully evidenced and justified, through the preparation or updating of plans. Before concluding that exceptional circumstances exist to justify changes to Green Belt boundaries, the relevant authority should be able to demonstrate that it has examined fully all other reasonable options for meeting its identified need for development. Local plans should be shaped by early, proportionate and effective engagement between plan makers and communities.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when his Department plans to open the third round of applications for the Levelling Up Fund.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
The £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets.
Bidding for the second round of the Fund closed on 2 August, and we hope to announce successful bids to this round of the Fund in the Autumn.
We are determined to learn all the lessons we can in continuing to improve our support for local places. Given we will have an opportunity to evaluate the success of the first round before spring 2023, we are not yet committing to the timing or format of future rounds.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that newly built homes are built to the highest levels of energy efficiency.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government remains committed to meeting its target of net zero emissions by 2050 and recognises the important contribution that the energy efficiency of buildings has to make in meeting it.
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% fewer CO2 emissions compared to those built to the 2013 standards. These homes will be future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.
In December 2021 we introduced an uplift in energy efficiency standards that delivers a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions and provides a stepping-stone to the Future Homes Standard. Once the uplift comes into force, in June 2022, new homes will be expected to produce around 30% fewer CO2 emissions compared to the previous 2013 standards.
The uplift marks an important step on our journey towards a cleaner, greener built environment and it supports us in our target to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Ukrainian refugees have access to community support networks and employment opportunities.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Guidance for local authority support can be found at: www.gov.uk/guidance/homes-for-ukraine-guidance-for-councils#role-of-councils.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many offers of help under the Homes for Ukraine scheme have been received from households in Hitchin and Harpenden constituency as of 28 March 2022.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
I refer my Hon Friend to the data published at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data . Further data will be published in due course.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to help town centres and high streets recover from the effects of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This Government is fully committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our town centres successful as the nation responds to the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak. Our package of support for businesses through this period totals over £352 billion including business grants, the coronavirus loan schemes and Job Retention Scheme, as well as deferral of income tax payments. This builds on major investment and action from Government to level up opportunity and prosperity across all areas of the country, including through the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, the £220 million UK-wide Community Renewal Fund and the £3.6 billion Towns Fund
Our ambition is to ensure that town centres continue to flourish now and in the future. Therefore, on 15 July, Government published the Build Back Better High Streets Strategy. The Strategy sets out Government's long-term plan to support the evolution and regeneration of all high streets across every part of the UK into thriving places to work, visit and live. The plan sets out how we intend to support places to achieve this vision, focussing on five key priorities: breathing new life into empty buildings; supporting high street businesses; improving the public realm; creating safe and clean spaces; and celebrating pride in local communities
We know the pandemic has significantly impacted the hospitality and retail sectors. We have therefore launched the first-ever hospitality strategy to support the reopening, recovery and resilience of England's pubs, restaurants, cafes and nightclubs. It is a forward-looking strategy for a sector that contributes significantly to the economy and plays a leading role in high streets and city centres across the country. The retail sector remains a key part of the high street. Physical retail will remain an important route to consumers, we continue to work with the sector on its long-term strategic needs to ensure businesses are profitable, resilient, innovative, and support local economies in socially and environmentally responsible ways.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what (a) financial and (b) other support has been provided to Luton Borough Council since March 2020.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
In this year's Settlement, the Government made available an increase in Core Spending Power in England from £49 billion in 2020-21 to up to £51.3 billion in 2021-22, a 4.6% increase in cash terms. This recognises the resources councils need to meet their pressures and maintain current service levels.
This saw Luton Borough Councils Core Spending Power increase from £154.7 million in 20/21 to £161.78 million in 21/22, a 4.5% increase.
The Government also allocated more than £12 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic, with more than £6 billion of this un-ringfenced, recognising that councils are best placed to deal with local issues.
Luton Borough Council received £19.4 million in additional Covid funding in 20/21 and saw this figure increase to £26.3 million in 21/22.
We have recently published figures for emergency funding for local government in 2020-21 and additional support in 2021-22 online and can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-emergency-funding-for-local-government.
To further support Luton Borough Council, the Secretary of State agreed to provide additional financial support, on an exceptional basis. This support takes the form of a flexibility to use capital resources to fund the revenue budget, equating to additional support of up to £35 million in 2020/21.
The Secretary of State is also minded to give permission for the flexibility to be applied to a total not exceeding £14 million in 2021/22, subject to the outcome of an external assurance review.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to improve water efficiency in new-build houses in order to protect the long-term viability of rare and important chalk stream habitats, such as the Ver, Lea and Hiz in Hitchin and Harpenden.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Currently, the Building Regulations require that new homes are built to a standard of 125 litres of water used per person per day, or 110 litres per person per day if required by the local authority
In 2019 DEFRA launched a consultation and call for evidence on further measures to reduce personal water use. The consultation sought views on labelling water-using products, building regulations for water efficiency, metering and behaviour change.
In July of this year, Government published its summary of responses to the consultation, and a Written Ministerial Statement, which set out a number of measures that Government is taking to support water efficiency in homes.
The summary of responses to the consultation can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/water-conservation-measures-to-reduce-personal-water-use
The Written Ministerial Statement can be found here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2021-07-01/hcws140
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the increase in the period of notice required to be served on a tenant (private, domestic property) from three months to six months applies to notices served and effective before the increased period was announced.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The legislation requiring landlords to provide six months’ notice to their tenants in most circumstances, apart from the most egregious cases, will be in force from 29 August 2020 until 31 March 2021. Notices served on and before 28 August are not affected by these changes.
If a landlord serves a second notice of the same type under these new requirements, both notices will stand, but it is good practice to withdraw an earlier notice if a second notice is issued.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
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 effectiveness of regulations used by local authorities in relation to changing the classification of assets of community value.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Government has committed to improving the assets of community value scheme which was introduced through the Localism Act 2011. As part of this, we will assess the overall the effectiveness of the regulations for local authorities, asset owners and voluntary and community groups to ensure that any legislation the Government introduces will meet our objective of supporting communities to protect those assets that are under threat.