Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to oral evidence given to the Treasury Committee on 25 April 2018, HC 424 and the Local Government Association's response to the Housing, Communities and Local Government report into business rates, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of local government finance in maintaining vital services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Through the settlement, Local Government has been given access to £45.1 billion in 2018-19 and £45.6 billion in 2019-20. This is an overall increase since 2017-18 of £1.3 billion.
2018/19 is the third year of a four year deal providing funding certainty accepted by 97 per cent of councils in return for publishing efficiency plans.
In addition, the current business rates retention scheme is yielding strong results. Local authorities estimate that in 2018-19 they will keep around £2.4 billion in business rates growth.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to implement any of the recommendations of the report, Joint Serious Case Review Concerning Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adults with Needs for Care and Support in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published by the Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board and Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Child sexual exploitation is abhorrent and the crimes perpetrated in Newcastle have had a devastating impact on the lives of the victims. The Government acknowledges the seriousness of the issues raised in this serious case review and is committed to improving the national response to tackling sexual exploitation.
We have already taken significant action to tackle this issue. In February 2017, the Government published its Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report and announced a £40 million package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders. This included £7.5 million for a new, ground-breaking Centre of Expertise that will identify, generate, and share high quality evidence of what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation. The recommendations of the review cover a wide range of issues, which we will consider carefully in the context of this existing programme of work.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of local authority charges for burial fees for children in (a) Newcastle, (b) the North East and (c) England.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The information requested is not held centrally.
The Government recognises that the loss of a child is an incredibly difficult and distressing time for any family and that the cost of burial can be an additional concern. Payments may be available, through the Social Fund Funeral Expenses Payment scheme, to people who meet the eligibility conditions. In addition, it is open to local authorities to waive burial and cremation fees for children, as some already do.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure the private rented sector remains affordable for residents in (a) Newcastle upon Tyne and (b) the North East.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Government is committed to improving affordability in the private rented sector and the key to this is building more homes. We have introduced several initiatives to tackle this, including a £3 billion Home Building Fund, £1 billion of which is available to provide development finance for homes across a range of tenures, including Build to Rent. Our Build to Rent Fund provided over £630 million of development finance for the supply of new privately rented homes in England. Our £10 billion debt guarantee scheme will support the delivery of new homes purpose build for private rent and over 30,000 additional affordable homes across England.
However, the Government recognises that building more homes will take time. The Government therefore recently announced at the Queen’s Speech that it will publish a draft Bill to set out its proposals to ban letting fees to tenants in England to improve transparency, affordability and competition in the private rental market. A ban will enable tenants to see - at a glance –what a given property will cost them in the advertised rent level and ensure they aren’t hit by surprise fees they may struggle to afford. The approach taken in the draft Bill will be informed by the recent consultation and publishing the Bill in draft will enable scrutiny of our proposals to ban letting fees by Parliament and stakeholders ahead of introducing legislation.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to improve the mechanisms of support for people facing hardship while renting in the private sector.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Government spends around £24 billion a year on housing benefit to support people with their housing costs. Government is also providing local authorities with over £800 million in Discretionary Housing Payments funding between 2016 and 2021 to help support vulnerable claimants.
In addition, 30 per cent of potential savings from the Local Housing Allowance freeze will be used to create further Targeted Affordability Funding from 2017 to help tenants in those areas where local housing allowance rates have diverged the most from local rents.
The key to improving affordability in the private rented sector across England is to build more homes. Our Housing White Paper, published in February, included measures to deliver more homes and reform the housing market. A copy is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-our-broken-housing-market
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if his Department will make it mandatory for letting agents to (a) display details of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme used for each property and (b) be a member of a client money protection scheme.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Letting agents are required, under the transparency requirements in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, to publicise prominently in their offices and on their website, a full tariff of their fees, whether they are a member of a client money protection scheme and of which redress scheme they are a member.
Landlords, or letting agents acting on their behalf, are required to protect a tenant’s deposit in a Government authorised tenancy deposit protection scheme and to provide the tenant with the details of the scheme under which their deposit has been protected.
Baroness Hayter and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill carried out a review of Client Money Protection earlier this year. The Government published the report in March 2017 and announced its intention to accept the working group’s recommendation to make Client Money Protection mandatory.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on which date he plans to publish the findings of the consultation, entitled Banning letting agent fees paid by tenants, published on 7 April 2017.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Government's eight week consultation on banning letting fees paid by tenants closed on 2 June. Over 4,700 responses were received, which are being analysed. The Government will publish its response in due course once all the data and responses have been considered.
The Government recently announced in the Queen’s Speech its intention to publish a draft Bill to ban letting fees paid by tenants in England. A ban will help to deliver a more competitive, more affordable and more transparent lettings market. The approach taken in the draft Bill will be informed by the consultation responses.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the size of the funding gap by 2020 in (a) adult and (b) children's social care; what the effect of that gap will be on the provision of that funding; and what steps he is taking to reduce the scale of that gap.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Government periodically assesses resourcing requirements for local government as part of each Spending Review. In addition to the package announced at the 2015 Spending Review and the 2017-18 local Government Finance Settlement, the 2017 Spring Budget provided £2 billion of new funding to support social care. As a result of measures introduced by the Government since 2015, councils had access of up to £9.25 billion more dedicated funding for social care in the 3 years to 2019-20.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the change in the core spending power of (a) Newcastle City Council and (b) local authorities in England has been in each year since 2010-11.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The definition of spending power has changed over the period 2010-11 to 2019-20, with core spending power being first introduced at the 2016-17 Local Government Finance Settlement. The changes in definition mean that combining these year on year changes to calculate an overall change for the period 2010-11 to 2019-20 is not meaningful.
Information on core spending power for the period 2011-2020 is available at the following links:
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how he plans to ensure that local authorities in England are able to fund their (a) statutory and (b) non-statutory responsibilities after the Revenue Support Grant has ended.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Government periodically assesses resourcing requirements for local government as part of each spending review, ensuring a sustainable basis for local authorities to discharge their functions. This assessment is made irrespective of the funding mechanisms employed.