Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he intends to reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Hyndburn dated 14 October 2014 on Hyndburn Homes.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
A reply was sent to the hon. Member on 25 February 2015, a copy of which is attached.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
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 average time taken to grant access for housing associations to properties to undertake statutory gas safety checks.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
My Department has made no estimate of the average time taken to grant access to properties, or of the costs involved, for housing associations to undertake statutory gas safety checks or the costs involved .
One of the standard conditions of rented tenancy agreements is to allow reasonable access, following advance notice, for gas servicing and safety checks.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
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 costs to housing associations of implementing the legal power to enter a property to undertake a statutory gas safety check.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
My Department has made no estimate of the average time taken to grant access to properties, or of the costs involved, for housing associations to undertake statutory gas safety checks or the costs involved .
One of the standard conditions of rented tenancy agreements is to allow reasonable access, following advance notice, for gas servicing and safety checks.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many (a) full-time, (b) part-time, (c) self-employed, (d) casual, (e) fixed-term or contract, (f) apprenticeship and (g) commission-only workers there are in each local authority in Lancashire.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department does not collate or hold any detailed informaton relating to individual local authorities' workforces.
The Office for National Statistics collates workforce information from local authorites as part of its quarterly public sector employment survey. These statistics are available on the Local Government Association website at http://www.local.gov.uk/local-government-intelligence/-/journal_content/56/10180/2991184/ARTICLE.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent steps he has taken to encourage the ownership and management of park homes on a cooperative model.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Park home sites can be jointly owned by home owners and run on a co-operative model. We have not taken steps to promote this. Our priority has been to tackle poor management practices in the sector which is why we have implemented the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which significantly increases the rights of home owners and provides them with better protection.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what changes have been made to the Preserved Right to Buy since May 2010; and what consultation processes have accompanied such changes.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
Helping people to achieve their home ownership aspirations is a central part of the Government's housing strategy. This is why the Government reinvigorated the Right to Buy and, by extension, the Preserved Right to Buy, increasing the maximum cash caps to £75,000 in April 2012. At the same time, the Government committed to keeping the discounts under review to ensure they remain effective.
To reflect the unique nature of the housing market in London, the maximum cash cap for London was increased to £100,000 in March 2013. As part of keeping the discounts under review, the Government is currently legislating to increase annually the maximum cash cap by the Consumer Price Index, and to bring the maximum percentage discount available for houses up, from 60 per cent to 70 per cent, to the same level as that available for flats. We are also legislating, via the Deregulation Bill, to decrease the qualifying eligibility period from five years to three years, bringing it in line with the policy's original intentions.
My Department consulted widely on changes to the Right to Buy prior to the reinvigoration of the scheme in April 2012. We have held roundtable meetings with key partners, such as the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association and individual local authorities, on the further changes outlined above.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many homes have been sold to date through the Preserved Right to Buy; what steps his Department takes to ensure such homes can be replaced; and how many homes sold under Preserved Right to Buy have been replaced to date.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
This Government wants to ensure that as many social tenants as possible are helped to achieve their home ownership aspirations. The Preserved Right to Buy ensures that social tenants who were living in their homes at the time of a stock transfer maintain their important right to home ownership. Figures for Preserved Right to Buy sales are collected by the Department on an annual basis. In the first year of the reinvigorated scheme (2012-13), there were 2,458 Preserved Right to Buy sales. Sales data for previous years (table 648) can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales
As housing associations are independent organisations, and stock transfer agreements are private commercial contracts, we do not mandate what they do with receipts they receive from Preserved Right to Buy sales. It is the Department's expectation that these receipts should be used to help fund new homes for affordable rent, and we would encourage housing associations to work in partnership with local authorities, and use other sources of cross-subsidy, to help achieve this.
For future stock transfers, my Department has recently published a Stock Transfer Manual which sets out our intention to require that, for transfers completing after 30 September 2014, net proceeds from Preserved Right to Buy sales are, within three years, used to fund new affordable housing at no greater subsidy cost than under the main affordable homes programme.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
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 monitor the effect of the Preserved Right to Buy on the number of affordable homes.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
This Government wants to ensure that as many social tenants as possible are helped to achieve their home ownership aspirations. The Preserved Right to Buy ensures that social tenants who were living in their homes at the time of a stock transfer maintain their important right to home ownership. Figures for Preserved Right to Buy sales are collected by the Department on an annual basis. In the first year of the reinvigorated scheme (2012-13), there were 2,458 Preserved Right to Buy sales. Sales data for previous years (table 648) can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales
As housing associations are independent organisations, and stock transfer agreements are private commercial contracts, we do not mandate what they do with receipts they receive from Preserved Right to Buy sales. It is the Department's expectation that these receipts should be used to help fund new homes for affordable rent, and we would encourage housing associations to work in partnership with local authorities, and use other sources of cross-subsidy, to help achieve this.
For future stock transfers, my Department has recently published a Stock Transfer Manual which sets out our intention to require that, for transfers completing after 30 September 2014, net proceeds from Preserved Right to Buy sales are, within three years, used to fund new affordable housing at no greater subsidy cost than under the main affordable homes programme.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what research his Department has (a) conducted or (b) commissioned on recent trends in homelessness among people under the age of 35 years.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
This Government is continuing to work hard to support vulnerable homeless people get their lives back on track.
We commissioned Homeless Link to undertake studies on Youth Homelessness in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. All three reports are available at: www.homeless.org.uk/youth-homelessness.
Tackling youth homelessness is a priority for this Government and on 10 June I announced a package of £65 million funding from across Whitehall to tackle homelessness, with youth homelessness a central part of the programmes. The package includes:
· £41.5 million which will be shared between the Homelessness Change Programme to provide tailored temporary hostel accommodation for rough sleepers to get them off the streets and transform their lives through health, training and education facilities and Platform for Life - a low rent shared accommodation programme for low needs homeless young people so they have a stable platform for work and study;
· £15 million for the Fair Chance Fund which aims to improve the accommodation, employment and training outcomes for vulnerable homeless 18- 25 year olds;
· £8 million Help for Single Homeless Fundthat will improve council services for single people facing the prospect of homelessness and;
· over £580,000 to extend the Homelessness Gold Standard scheme which helps councils to improve frontline housing services for homeless families and single people.
This is in addition to the £470 million this Government has invested over the spending review period to tackle and prevent homelessness, and work we are already supporting to look at how local services for young people at risk of homelessness can be better joined up, to develop the skills needed to help homeless people into employment and to help single homeless people find accommodation in the private rented sector.
Asked by: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many proposals have been made by local authorities under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 in each year since that Act has been in force; and how many such proposals his Department has adopted.
Answered by Stephen Williams
[Holding Reply: Thursday 27 March 2014]
In July 2009, 100 local authorities submitted proposals to the Selector, the Local Government Association. In December 2009, the Selector presented a short-list of 199 proposals, containing over 300 separate requests to the Government. Details of these proposals, the 39 actions this Government said it would take in response and an update on these actions that was published in July last year can be found at:
Five local authorities submitted proposals in 2011. We carefully considered all the proposals and took forward two firm proposals. One local authority has submitted a proposal this year. It is under consideration.
The Government extended the power to submit proposals under the Act to town and parish councils in October last year. Since then five town and parish councils have submitted proposals, which are under consideration.