Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 13 July 2021 to Question 29857 on Housing Revenue Accounts, what assessment he has made of the impact of (a) fire safety remediation works and (b) carbon reduction retrofitting on the levels of debt of housing revenue accounts.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has made a series of funds available to local authorities in support of necessary fire safety remediation works. This includes the £400 million Social Sector Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) Cladding Remediation Fund, to fully fund the remediation of unsafe ACM cladding on social sector residential buildings over 18 million in height, including council-owned blocks. Remediation has either completed or started on 157 social sector residential buildings (98% of social sector buildings, equating to 100% of buildings identified at 31 December 2019).
The Government has also provided support for local authorities carrying out important and necessary carbon reduction retrofitting, including the £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), to support local authorities and housing associations to improve the energy performance of social rented homes. In addition, there will be around £160 million total funding for the first wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund programme in 2021/22, to make further progress towards delivering the government's commitment to invest in the energy performance of homes.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities are adequately resourced to undertake carbon reduction retrofitting of local authority homes.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Undertaking carbon reduction retrofitting 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 2019 Conservative Manifesto included a commitment to a £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) over a 10-year period, administered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to support local authorities and housing associations to improve the energy performance of social rented homes. £62 million has so far been awarded to 19 local authority-led Demonstrator projects across the country, covering over 2,300 social homes, to test innovative approaches to retrofitting at scale. Beyond these projects, there will be around £160 million total funding for the first wave of the SHDF programme in 2021/22 to make further progress towards delivering the government's commitment to invest in the energy performance of homes.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of housing revenue accounts to meet future investment needs in social housing.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing. We 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, which will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. We are keen to see local authorities playing a key role in the delivery of this programme alongside Housing Associations. Alongside this we have introduced a package of reforms to give local authorities increased flexibility over how they can spend their Right to Buy receipts on replacement homes. This package will make it easier for authorities to fund homes using Right to Buy receipts including homes for social rent; allow authorities greater flexibility over the types of homes they provide to reflect the needs of their communities; give authorities more time to use receipts and to develop ambitious build programmes; and make sure more new build replacements are delivered instead of acquisitions, contributing to net supply. Government abolished the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap in 2018, enabling local authorities to borrow for building.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a cap on bills for major works to support leaseholders.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. The Government is taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market.
The law is clear that service charges must be reasonable and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable standard. We believe very strongly that any fees and charges should be justifiable, transparent, and communicated effectively and that there should be a clear route to redress if things go wrong.
The ‘Section 20’ consultation process (of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985) aims to ensure that leaseholders contributing towards the upkeep and maintenance of the building where they live have sufficient input into how their money is spent on major works.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to (a) reform the leasehold sector and (b) support leaseholders presented with high bills for major works.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. The Government is taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market.
This includes making it easier for leaseholders to buy their freeholds, extend their leases or exercise their right to manage buildings. We will reform the process of enfranchisement valuation that leaseholders must follow to calculate the cost of extending their lease or buying their freehold. The Government will abolish marriage value, cap the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value, and prescribe rates for the calculations at market value. The Government will also introduce an online calculator, further simplifying the process for leaseholders and ensuring standardisation and fairness for all those looking to enfranchise. These changes to the enfranchisement valuation process will result in substantial savings for some leaseholders, particularly those with less than 80 years left on their lease. Our reforms to enfranchisement valuation also ensure that sufficient compensation is paid to landlords to reflect their legitimate property interests.
The measures will be translated into law as soon as possible, starting with the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rents) Bill, which was introduced into Parliament on 12 May. This Bill will make homeownership fairer and more transparent for thousands of future leaseholders, by legislating to prevent landlords under new residential long leases from requiring a leaseholder to pay a financial ground rent. This will be the first part of major two-part legislation to implement leasehold and commonhold reforms in this Parliament.
The law is clear that service charges must be reasonable and, where costs relate to work or services, the work or services must be of a reasonable standard.
The ‘Section 20’ consultation process (of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985) aims to ensure that leaseholders contributing towards the upkeep and maintenance of the building where they live have sufficient input into how their money is spent on major works.
Where the works relate to building safety, we have made direct funding of an unprecedented £5.1 billion available for cladding remediation on buildings of 18 metres and above, which will protect hundreds of thousands of leaseholders from the cost of remediating unsafe cladding on their homes. We are also stepping in to provide a generous finance scheme for the removal and replace of unsafe cladding on medium rise buildings.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he plans to take to ensure that changes to environmental assessment regulations do not undermine the (a) Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, (b) other environmental objectives and (c) targets set under the forthcoming Environment Bill.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
As part of wider reforms of the planning system as set out in the ‘Planning for the Future’ White Paper, the Government has committed to reviewing the current systems of environmental assessment to make them more accessible, easier to understand , simpler to execute and with fewer unnecessary delays. At the same time the Government has been clear that this reformed system will maximise environmental benefits, recognising the importance of our domestic and international obligations for environmental protection.
MHCLG and DEFRA officials worked closely together on the development of Environment Bill policies, and this close co-operation is continuing in the reforms to environmental assessment. The Government sees these reforms as a key way of ensuring that the planning system will be fit and able to contribute to the achievement of its 25 Year Environment Plan, the targets that are being developed as set out in the Environment Bill, and other existing environmental targets.
The Government is currently working on its response to the ‘Planning for the Future’ consultation, and will release more information on environmental assessment and the wider planning reforms.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department's response to its consultation on Planning for the Future, which closed on 29 October 2020 will include further policy proposals that will be open to public consultation.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our Planning for the Future White Paper was published in August 2020. It sets out our vision for a reformed planning system which would be simpler, quicker and more accessible for communities to engage with, providing a more certain system for all.
Alongside the publication, we ran an extensive series of roundtables with representatives from across the planning system, including with local authorities, SMEs, environmental groups, heritage bodies and representatives from civil society.
In addition, the accompanying consultation received over 44,000 responses – providing valuable feedback on our proposals and demonstrating just how important this is to people.
Since the close of the consultation, we have continued to regularly engage with stakeholders. This has included representatives from local government, as well as the planning, development and environmental sectors, statutory consultees, and other users of the planning system. Their perspective and knowledge have been vital in helping us to develop and refine the ideas set out in the White Paper, and we look forward to continuing to engage with a wide range of stakeholders throughout this process.
As we are in an active state of policy development, I hope you will appreciate that we are not able to share further details at this time. We will publish a response to the consultation setting out our next steps shortly, which will provide a basis for further engagement with the sector.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has required any attendees to withhold from disclosing information on the organisations or individuals present during the co-production or policy sprint process carried out by his Department ahead of the forthcoming Planning Bill; and what was discussed at those meetings.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our Planning for the Future White Paper was published in August 2020. It sets out our vision for a reformed planning system which would be simpler, quicker and more accessible for communities to engage with, providing a more certain system for all.
Alongside the publication, we ran an extensive series of roundtables with representatives from across the planning system, including with local authorities, SMEs, environmental groups, heritage bodies and representatives from civil society.
In addition, the accompanying consultation received over 44,000 responses – providing valuable feedback on our proposals and demonstrating just how important this is to people.
Since the close of the consultation, we have continued to regularly engage with stakeholders. This has included representatives from local government, as well as the planning, development and environmental sectors, statutory consultees, and other users of the planning system. Their perspective and knowledge have been vital in helping us to develop and refine the ideas set out in the White Paper, and we look forward to continuing to engage with a wide range of stakeholders throughout this process.
As we are in an active state of policy development, I hope you will appreciate that we are not able to share further details at this time. We will publish a response to the consultation setting out our next steps shortly, which will provide a basis for further engagement with the sector.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department's consultation, Planning for the Future, which closed on 29 October 2020, what opportunities his Department has put in place to invite full and fair representation of all sectors to engage in cross-sector policy development dialogue on planning reform matters ahead of the Planning Bill.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our Planning for the Future White Paper was published in August 2020. It sets out our vision for a reformed planning system which would be simpler, quicker and more accessible for communities to engage with, providing a more certain system for all.
Alongside the publication, we ran an extensive series of roundtables with representatives from across the planning system, including with local authorities, SMEs, environmental groups, heritage bodies and representatives from civil society.
In addition, the accompanying consultation received over 44,000 responses – providing valuable feedback on our proposals and demonstrating just how important this is to people.
Since the close of the consultation, we have continued to regularly engage with stakeholders. This has included representatives from local government, as well as the planning, development and environmental sectors, statutory consultees, and other users of the planning system. Their perspective and knowledge have been vital in helping us to develop and refine the ideas set out in the White Paper, and we look forward to continuing to engage with a wide range of stakeholders throughout this process.
As we are in an active state of policy development, I hope you will appreciate that we are not able to share further details at this time. We will publish a response to the consultation setting out our next steps shortly, which will provide a basis for further engagement with the sector.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department's consultation, Planning for the Future, which closed on 29 October 2020, whether he has met with representatives of the house building and construction industry as part of its co-production or policy sprint on reform of the planning system since that consultation closed.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our Planning for the Future White Paper was published in August 2020. It sets out our vision for a reformed planning system which would be simpler, quicker and more accessible for communities to engage with, providing a more certain system for all.
Alongside the publication, we ran an extensive series of roundtables with representatives from across the planning system, including with local authorities, SMEs, environmental groups, heritage bodies and representatives from civil society.
In addition, the accompanying consultation received over 44,000 responses – providing valuable feedback on our proposals and demonstrating just how important this is to people.
Since the close of the consultation, we have continued to regularly engage with stakeholders. This has included representatives from local government, as well as the planning, development and environmental sectors, statutory consultees, and other users of the planning system. Their perspective and knowledge have been vital in helping us to develop and refine the ideas set out in the White Paper, and we look forward to continuing to engage with a wide range of stakeholders throughout this process.
As we are in an active state of policy development, I hope you will appreciate that we are not able to share further details at this time. We will publish a response to the consultation setting out our next steps shortly, which will provide a basis for further engagement with the sector.