Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to promote community cohesion.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government has made £15 million available to the places most severely affected by the violent disorder of the summer through the Community Recovery Fund. Officials from my department have also carried out an extensive engagement process with these places to understand and address the underlying causes of the unrest.
This Government is determined to take a long-term, strategic approach to building social cohesion. This is a priority and I have stood up a cross-government Communities & Recovery Steering Group to oversee this work.
This Government is committed to ensuring that communities across Britain are safe, resilient, and united.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that people with disabilities have access to suitable housing.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I refer the Hon. Member to my answer to Question UIN 183870 on 11 May 2023, my answer to Question UIN 187138 on 12 June 2023, and the answer given to Question UIN HL8422 on 26 June 2023.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what support his Department provides to people with disabilities to allow them to obtain accessible housing.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I refer the Hon. Member to my answer to Question UIN 183870 on 11 May 2023, my answer to Question UIN 187138 on 12 June 2023, and the answer given to Question UIN HL8422 on 26 June 2023.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate his Department has made of the level of accessible housing stock available regionally for people with disabilities.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I refer the Hon. Member to my answer to Question UIN 183870 on 11 May 2023, my answer to Question UIN 187138 on 12 June 2023, and the answer given to Question UIN HL8422 on 26 June 2023.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to invest in carbon neutral, climate resilient social homes.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Retrofitting insulation and low carbon heat in social homes is a crucial step in achieving our commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and will contribute towards our Carbon Budget targets and our legally binding fuel poverty targets.
The Government's Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator has awarded £61 million to 18 local authority-led projects across England and Scotland, covering over 2,100 social homes, to test innovative approaches to retrofitting at scale. Beyond these projects up to £160 million total funding will be allocated for the first wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund programme in 2021/22. This funding supports the government's commitment to invest in the energy performance of homes.
In the Heat and Buildings Strategy and Net Zero Strategy, launched 19 October 2021, it was announced that a further £800 million has been committed for the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund as part of the 2021 Spending Review process.
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% fewer CO2 emissions than those built to current standards.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle the trend of fewer social homes being available due to their sale or demolition than are being built each year.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Since 2010, this Government has delivered over 382,300 affordable homes for rent, of which over 149,400 homes for social rent. We are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade.
This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme (AHP), which will deliver more than double the social rent than the current programme, which are typically 50 to 60% of market prices, with around 32,000 social rent homes due to be delivered. These homes for social rent will be available to deliver across the country, providing secure, affordable housing to families who need it most.
In March 2021, the Government introduced a package of reforms to the use of Right to Buy receipts. These reforms will help local authorities build more homes and make it easier to deliver homes for social rent. This set of reforms, combined with the abolition of the borrowing cap in 2018, gives councils substantially increased flexibilities to build new homes.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to protect homeless women that have suffered domestic violence.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government has introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act, which places a legal duty on councils to provide accommodation support to families and individuals, including women, who are vulnerable as a result of fleeing domestic abuse.
Since 2014 my Department has invested £55.5 million in services to support victims of domestic abuse, including refuges, and we recently announced the successful projects from our 2018/2020 £22 million fund to support victims of domestic abuse. The fund will support 63 projects covering 254 local areas across England and will provide support to over 25,000 victims and their families, and more than 2,200 additional bed spaces in accommodation-based services, including refuges.
We recognise that mainstream provision may not always meet the needs of women who sleep rough. That is why we are providing funding through the Rough Sleeping Initiative to ensure rough sleeping frontline workers receive training to support victims of domestic abuse.
We are also providing funding through the Rapid Rehousing Pathway, for specific, targeted support for women. For example, a new Somewhere Safe to Stay two-hub model in Brighton will include a women only hub, delivered by domestic abuse charity partners RISE, which will focus on , tackling complex needs.
We are also working across government to support vulnerable women such as with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on this year’s £15 million Tampon Tax Fund, which includes a core theme of female homelessness and rough sleeping.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will estimate how many former service men and women were homeless in each of the last five years.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government has committed to preventing and reducing homelessness for everyone, including armed forces veterans. That is why we have supported the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which will reform England’s homelessness legislation and ensure that more people get the help they need to prevent a homelessness crisis in the first place.
In addition, our £50 million Homelessness Prevention Programme has supported 84 projects across 205 district and unitary local authorities to deliver an end-to-end approach to prevention and rough sleeping.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether any (a) external contractors and (b) consultancy companies engaged by his Department have charged more than the initial price agreed for their services since May 2010.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department's embedded processes, including three-way invoice matching via DCLG finance systems, prevent contractors being paid in excess of agreed contracted amounts for goods and services. Any payment made as a result of contract variation or permitted extension would be for additional or revised work only and still subject to full supporting contractual documentation.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the cost of travel within the UK was for his Department in each year since 2010; and how much of this was spent on (a) hire cars, (b) helicopter hire, (c) hotel accommodation and (d) subsistence.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Role of the Department
Reflecting our responsibilities for local government, housing, planning and communities across England, the work of the Department involves staff travelling to different parts of the country.
Improved procurement has reduced our average domestic hotel rate in the UK by 8% between 2009-10 and 2012-13. Moreover, domestic flights for longer journeys can avoid the need for paying for staff to stay in a hotel overnight.
Since 2011-12, the Department accepted responsibility for some new functions outside of London, including residual functions following the closure of the Government Offices for the Regions and then oversight of the European Regional Development Fund following the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies. As these business functions relate to work in areas outside of London and to the European Commission, this has therefore increased our travel spend compared to the base of 2010-11. However, this is far more than offset by the very significant savings to taxpayers of the abolition of these regional bodies.
Based on current estimates (which reflect accounting consequences from machinery of government changes) the DCLG Group is reducing its annual running costs by around 40% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. This equates to net savings of at least £532 million over this spending review period and includes savings of around £420 million from the closure of the Government Offices for the Regions.
In addition to this, I note that the Regional Development Agencies were spending in the region of £246 million a year on administration (as cited in 11 March 2009, Official Report, Column 592W).
Spending data
The tables below list spending on travel by financial year. Figures for 2009-10 are from July 2009, as this is when the department's current approved travel agent contract commenced; those figures are therefore only for three-quarters of the financial year, and the full year is likely to be proportionately higher.
Overseas Travel | Overseas Accommodation | Overseas Subsistence | Total | |
July 2009 - March 10 | £408,621 | £19,847 | £79,574 | £508,042 (part-year) |
2010-11 | £56,304 | £21,759 | £27,798 | £105,861 |
2011-12 | £69,463 | £21,204 | £19,946 | £110,613 |
2012-13 | £78,474 | £29,224 | £21,911 | £129,609 |
UK Travel | UK Accommodation | UK Subsistence | Total | |
July 2009 - March 10 | £621,028 | £309,260 | £174,888 | £1,105,176 (part-year) |
2010-11 | £434,467 | £199,563 | £81,315 | £715,345 |
2011-12 | £980,307 | £162,544 | £71,913 | £1,214,764 |
2012-13 | £1,030,710 | £166,149 | £74,424 | £1,271,283 |
Explanatory notes:
- Overseas subsistence costs can include accommodation, meals and travel tickets purchased locally.
- The costs of internal travel abroad are not routinely recorded in the form requested and this information could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.
- Data on cost per trip is not centrally held in the form requested.
- For car hire, the data from our finance systems do not separate out expenditure for domestic and international car hire and this could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
- For helicopter hire, our records show that the Department has incurred no expenditure on this since 2010-11.
- Figures contained in this answer may differ from previous answers to Parliamentary Questions, as the data extracts have been re-run and reflect ongoing accruals and data. Delays in billing or crediting transactions can sometimes have an effect on the spend data between the financial years.
Taken in the whole, we have reduced overall travel spending compared to the last Administration, and delivered substantive savings for taxpayers' from the abolition of regional government in England.