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 plans his Department has to support employment projects for disabled people through the Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund will help to level up and create opportunity across the UK in places most in need, such as ex-industrial areas, deprived towns and rural and coastal communities.
A portion of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will support investment in people and skills, in communities and places and in local businesses, all tailored to local needs.
A second portion of the Fund will be targeted differently to people most in need, through bespoke employment and skills programmes. This will support improved employment outcomes for those in and out of work in specific groups of people who face labour market barriers.
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 all new homes will be required to meet the accessible and adaptable standard following the consultation on raising accessibility standards for new homes.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Evidence gathered by the consultation on raising accessibility standards for new homes will help Government consider whether to mandate a higher baseline accessibility standard or to reconsider the way existing optional standards are used. We are currently analysing responses and will be publishing a Government response.
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 the Government is taking to prioritise accessible housing for older and disabled people during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Our reforms on housing for older and disabled people progress despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
By law, local authorities must ensure that reasonable preference for social housing is given to people who need to move on medical and welfare grounds, and this will include older and disabled people. In our Social Housing White Paper we said that we will look at how we can improve access to suitable homes for disabled people.
We have recently consulted on how to raise accessible housing standards and we are also significantly reforming the planning system to put a much greater emphasis on design and quality.
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 the Spending Review 2020, what his policy is on (a) funding for local councils, (b) grants and (c) council tax principles for the 2021-22 financial year prior to the 2021-22 Local Government Funding settlement in December 2020.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Spending Review 2020 confirmed that Core Spending Power is forecast to rise by 4.5 per cent in cash terms- a real terms increase. This package means local authorities will be able to access an estimated additional £2.2 billion to support Adult and Children’s Social Care and to maintain universal services.
Within their Core Spending Power, councils will have access to an additional £1 billion for social care next year, made up of a £300 million increase to the social care grant and 3 per cent Adult Social Care precept. The additional £1 billion of grant funding announced at SR19 for Adult and Children’s Social Care will be continuing, along with all other existing social care funding including the improved Better Care Fund.
Complementing this is an unprecedented package of support for local authorities to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, including measures worth an estimated circa £3 billion of additional support for Covid-19 pressures next year, along with extending the current Sales, Fees and Charges scheme (which refunds 75 per cent of eligible income loss beyond a 5 per cent threshold) into the first three months of 2021-22.
This is on top of the support committed this financial year, including over £7.2 billion for local authorities, even before the extension of the Contain Outbreak Management Fund for those authorities under the highest level of restriction – potentially worth over £200 million a month – announced as part of the Covid-19 Winter Plan. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of Covid-19 to over £10 billion.
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 his 21 November 2020 announcement entitled Government steps in to help homeowners caught up in EWS1 process, what his timeframe is for issuing additional guidance on indemnity insurance.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
My Department has been engaging with the insurance industry to investigate commercial and Government solutions that improve the availability of professional indemnity insurance solutions (PII) for key building safety professionals, including those working on the EWS1 process. This is a highly technical area with complex market dynamics; however, discussions have been positive and a number of options are being investigated.
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 his 21 November 2020 announcement entitled Government steps in to help homeowners caught up in EWS1 process, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of leaseholders and homeowners who will continue to need an EWS1 certificate to sell their home.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The EWS1 process is not a Government form or regulatory requirement, and the Department does not hold data on its use. It was designed by industry to aid the valuations of buildings over 18 metres. Whether an EWS1 is needed is determined by lenders and the professionals valuing a building - not all lenders ask for an EWS1.
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 his 21 November 2020 announcement entitled Government steps in to help homeowners caught up in EWS1 process, what recent estimate he has made of the number of buildings awaiting a survey; and what his timeframe is for resolving that backlog.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The EWS1 process is not a Government form or regulatory requirement, and the Department does not hold data on its use. Government has announced the provision of £700,000 funding to train more assessors. This will help speed up valuations where EWS1 forms are justified.
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 he has made of the potential effect of the Planning White Paper’s proposals to end the statutory requirement to advertise planning notices in local newspapers on the income generated by those local publications.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Planning for the Future Consultation was published on 6 August and sets out proposals for comprehensive reform to the English planning system. This package proposes significant changes to both the focus and processes of planning – to secure better outcomes in terms of land for homes, beauty and environmental quality, as well as processes which give greater certainty and speed for communities, councils and developers. At the heart of these reforms is a need to make the planning system simpler, quicker and more accessible for local people.
The use of digital tools is important to be able to standardise and improve the user interface where local people seek to engage in the planning system. It is not a replacement for engagement but is a tool to make this engagement more transparent and more accessible to all parts of communities across England. This is particularly the case for publicity of planning applications where we want to see greater digital coverage, and we will be exploring the best way of doing that as we develop our proposals over the next year. In doing so, we recognise the importance of local newspapers to communities and that there will continue to be a need to reach out to people who cannot digitally access information.
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 he has made of the potential effect of ending the statutory requirement to advertise planning notices in local newspapers on the transparency of the planning system; and what steps he is taking to ensure people who are not digitally literate are informed of planning applications which will affect them.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The planning reforms set out in the Planning for the Future White paper will make it simpler, quicker and more accessible for local people to engage with the planning system. The use of digital tools is important to be able to standardise and improve the user interface where local people seek to engage in the planning system.
This is a tool to make community engagement more transparent and more accessible to all communities across England. This is particularly the case for publicity of planning applications where we want to see greater digital coverage, and we will be exploring the best way of doing that as we develop our proposals over the next year. In doing so, we recognise the importance of local newspapers to communities and that there will continue to be a need to reach out to people who cannot digitally access information.
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 the level of funding provided to local authorities to perform their duties under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 in light of the (a) health and (b) economic conditions resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
In January 2020, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government announced £263?million in funding to local authorities to support them to deliver services to tackle homelessness in 2020/21. At the time, this was is an increase in overall funding for homelessness of £23 million on the previous financial year.
In total, following the onset of the pandemic, the Government is now spending over £700 million pounds to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping this year alone.
We have given councils an unprecedented £7.2 billion package of support. This includes £4.6 billion in un-ringfenced funding, £1.1 billion from the Infection Control Fund, £300 million to support Test and Trace, as well as funding allocated to councils from the new Local Alert Level system and a number of grants to support communities and vulnerable people.