Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will commit to building 100,000 homes for social rent per year.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We are committed to increasing the supply of social housing to further support struggling families and those at risk of homelessness. We have invested over £9 billion into our Affordable Homes Programme to deliver approximately 250,000 affordable homes by 2022, including at least 12,500 for social rent in areas of acute affordability pressure.
We have increased the size of the Affordable Homes Programme, re-introduced social rent, removed the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap for local authorities, and have set out a long-term rent deal for councils and housing associations in England from 2020. Housing associations and local authorities now need to accelerate delivery and build more affordable homes.
Since 2010, we have delivered over 430,000 new affordable homes, including over 308,000 affordable homes for rent.
On 18 September we announced an additional £2 billion of long-term funding certainty for housing associations. This extra funding will deliver more affordable homes and stimulate the sector’s wider building ambitions, through strategic partnerships.
We do not publish yearly targets but, deliver flexibly throughout the years of the programme to achieve our overall target and hold Homes England and the Greater London Authority (GLA) to account for delivery.
We will continue to provide opportunities for more people to afford home ownership and seek to build on the progress that has been made on building new social homes.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will bring forward plans to draft the parking code of practice.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is committed to delivering the Code of Practice as soon as possible. We are currently considering the format for formal stakeholder engagement and will make an announcement in due course. We are also committed to carrying out a full public consultation on the draft Code of Practice, allowing all interested parties to directly respond to the proposals.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if the Government will bring into force section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 so that political parties would be required to publish diversity data on candidates standing in elections.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We keep section 106 under review, as we do with other uncommenced provisions in the Equality Act 2010.
The Government Equalities Office is working to support women and disabled people to participate in politics. This includes the recently announced fund to support disabled candidates to seek electoral office, to meet the costs of campaigning, primarily for the forthcoming English local elections in 2019.
Ultimately, parties are responsible for their candidate selection and should lead the way in improving diverse representation. Many are already doing so.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government has taken to increase the number of affordable homes being built each year since 2014.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has made £9 billion available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022 to deliver 250,000 new affordable homes of a wide range of tenures, including social rent
Our expanded programme will now provide a wider range of homes to meet the housing needs of a range of people in different circumstances and different housing markets – building the right homes in the right places
We have listened to the sector. We have increased the size of the Affordable Homes Programme and re-introduced social rent to it, lifted the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap for local authorities, and are setting a long term rent deal for councils and housing associations in England from 2020.
In September 2018, the Prime Minister announced an additional £2 billion of long term funding certainty for housing associations. This extra funding will deliver more affordable homes and stimulate the sector’s wider building ambitions, through strategic partnerships
Our ten year funding commitment marks the first time any government has offered housing associations such long-term funding certainty.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
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 validity of the findings in the Crisis report, Everybody In: How to end homelessness in Great Britain.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I welcome Crisis's report and Government shares the broad ambition it sets out. That is why we have committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and ending it by 2027. As part of this we have established the Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel and a cross-Government Ministerial Taskforce to support the development and implementation of the Rough Sleeping Strategy. Crisis sit on the Advisory Panel and supported the work to put forward a number of recommendations for the Rough Sleeping Strategy.
I will continue to consider the findings outlined within the report ahead of the publication of the Rough Sleeping Strategy. My Department will also continue to work with Crisis once the strategy has been published and remain committed to tackling both rough sleeping and broader issues of homelessness as highlighted in the report.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans to prevent landlords from discriminating against people on the basis that they are in receipt of benefits.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
We strongly encourage landlords and agents to look at all potential and existing tenants in receipt of housing benefit on an individual basis and we will shortly be publishing a new How to Let guide to help landlords better understand their responsibilities.
Legislation exists to prohibit acts of discrimination against individuals in terms of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the ministerial statement HCWS384 of 21 December 2017, what steps he plans to take to prevent onerous ground rents in already existing leasehold properties.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government response to the consultation on ‘ Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market’ set out a range of measures to cut out unfair and abusive practices within the leasehold system. This included introducing legislation to prohibit the development of new build leasehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances, and restricting ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn (zero financial value).
For existing leaseholders, the Government wants to see developer compensation schemes going further and faster, with support extended to all those with onerous ground rents, including second hand buyers and for customers to be proactively contacted. We will be keeping a close eye on progress and will consider measures that could be pursued to take action if necessary.
We want to make it easier for existing leaseholders to exercise their right to buy their freehold, or extend their lease, for this to be faster, fairer and cheaper, and to be available as soon as possible.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 27 December 2017 to Question 120298, what information his Department holds on the number of people that have died while sleeping rough in each of the last seven years.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
This department does not collect data on deaths of people sleeping rough. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why Government has committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. We have announced a new Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State, which will drive forward the implementation of a cross-Government strategy to tackle this issue.
We have allocated over £1 billion through to 2020 to prevent and reduce all forms of homelessness including piloting a Housing First approach for some of the most entrenched rough sleepers.