Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether Warrington Borough Council will be eligible to bid for funding from the Stronger Towns Fund.
Answered by Jake Berry
The Stronger Towns Fund prospectus will be published before Summer recess. This will outline the process for how towns can come forward, and will set out the process of the £600 million competitive component of the fund. It will also detail the role of local partners, relevant definitions and eligibility criteria.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make an estimate of the value of funding from the Stronger Towns Fund that will be allocated to Cheshire and Warrington.
Answered by Jake Berry
The competitive element of the Stronger Towns Fund will be open to all towns. The allocation component has been provisionally allocated through a needs-based formula. The North West region has been provisionally allocated £281 million of the £1 billion component of the Stronger Towns Fund.
The Stronger Towns Fund prospectus will be published before Summer recess, which will detail the role of local partners, relevant definitions and eligibility criteria.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many children are living in temporary accommodation in each local authority in the North West.
Answered by Nigel Adams
Temporary accommodation ensures that no child or household are left without a roof over their head and are getting the help they need.
MHCLG publishes regular statistics on temporary accommodation, rough sleeping, statutory homelessness and homelessness prevention and relief in England. These are published at a local authority level. The latest statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/homelessness-statistics.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will issue guidance to providers of social housing on how they should deal with and respond to enquiries from hon. Members.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
As public authorities, local authority providers of social housing are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and we would expect them to respond promptly to all enquiries from Hon. Members.
Housing associations are private sector bodies. They are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It would be inappropriate to single this sector out for instructions on how to respond to enquiries from Hon. Members. However as responsible companies with a social purpose we would expect them to deal promptly to such enquiries.
The Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard within the regulatory framework, requires registered providers to offer a range of ways for tenants to express a complaint and set out clear service standards for responding to complaints, and details of what to do if they are unhappy with the outcome of a complaint. This includes a requirement to deal appropriately with complaints made by advocates - such as Hon. Members acting on behalf of their constituents. Once a tenant has exhausted a registered provider's complaint procedure, the Localism Act 2011 provides for them to escalate the complaint to the housing ombudsman by a designated person. The definition of a designated person includes Hon. Members
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information his Department holds on the number of new houses sold as leasehold properties in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Information on the number of transactions on new build houses where the property was sold as leaseholds is available through Land Registry Price Paid data. This data is available from 1995 onwards.
This information can be accessed here: https://data.gov.uk/dataset/land-registry-monthly-price-paid-data
The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently concluded a public consultation, Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market, which sought views on a range of proposed measures to help tackle abuse of the leasehold system including the sale of new build leasehold houses. The responses are being analysed and Government will publish an official response in due course.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with house-builders on sales of (a) leasehold houses and (b) freeholds to other companies after purchases are completed.
Answered by Lord Sharma
My Rt Hon Friend, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, met with the Home Builders Federation on 12 September to discuss ending the development of new build leasehold houses and the 'Tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market' consultation, which referred to developers selling on freehold interests to third parties after a lease has been purchased.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to advise homebuyers of the potential risks of buying leasehold properties; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government’s consultation, Tackling Unfair Practices in the Leasehold Market, considered a number of issues within the leasehold sector including the sale of new built leasehold houses, and onerous ground rents. The consultation also sought views on what further areas of leasehold reform should be prioritised and why. The public consultation, which closed on 19 September, received around 6,000 replies. We are carefully analysing the responses, and will issue the Government response in due course.
On the 22 October, the Government launched a call for evidence to improve the homebuying and selling process, in order to make it cheaper, faster and less stressful. This will seek views on how to better enable consumers to make an informed choice around the type of property bought and its tenure.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the proportion of the £300 million in discretionary rate relief for businesses which will be allocated to Warrington.
Answered by Marcus Jones
My Department is currently consulting on the £300 million discretionary relief scheme. As part of the consultation the Government published details of the provisional allocations by local authority.
Details of the consultation and allocations are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/discretionary-business-rates-relief-scheme
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to page 3 of the Spring Budget 2017, how much of the additional £2 billion of additional social care funding he plans to allocate to Warrington.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Department published the allocations for the additional funding for adult social care announced at the Spring Budget 2017 online on 9 March, together with an Explanatory Note.
This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-allocations-of-the-additional-funding-for-adult-social-care.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the average weekly rent in (a) social and (b) private sector rented housing in Warrington; and what proportion of the average weekly income in the borough each of those figures represent.
Answered by Lord Barwell
In 2010-11 there was a large scale voluntary transfer of local authority owned social housing to private registered providers in Warrington. Average rents for private registered providers in Warrington are available in live table 704:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-rents-lettings-and-tenancies
The Valuation Office Agency private rental market statistics provides average private monthly rents by local authority in England available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/private-rental-market-statistics-may-2016
Estimates of average incomes are produce by the Office for National Statistics and are available in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings available here: