Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 (a) make it his policy to abolish no-fault evictions and (b) take further steps to prevent homelessness as a result of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the economy.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government remains committed to abolishing Section 21 through a Renters’ Reform Bill, which will enhance renters’ security. However, our collective efforts are currently focused on responding to the coronavirus outbreak.
Repealing Section 21 represents the largest change to renting in 30 years and it is only right that the reforms are taken forward in a considered manner. The Government’s consultation ‘A New Deal for Renting: Resetting the Balance of Rights and Responsibilities Between Landlords and Tenants’ sought views on the best way to provide tenants with greater security, but also ensure that landlords are able to recover their properties where they have valid reasons to do so. This balance is vital to ensuring the future supply of good quality housing in the rented sector. We will bring forward a Renters Reform Bill to implement the reforms at the appropriate time, once the urgencies of responding to the pandemic have passed.
We’ve taken unprecedented action to prevent people getting into financial hardship by helping businesses to pay salaries, with the furlough scheme, and boosted the welfare safety net by billions of pounds. Local housing allowance rates (LHA) have been increased to the 30th percentile of local market rents in each area, which will be retained next year, even in areas where rents have gone down. Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available to those who require additional support, and the Government will make available £140 million in DHP funding for 2021-22.
To further tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, the Government will be spending over £750 million next year, further demonstrating the Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping and fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act. This includes the £310 million Homelessness Prevention Grant, an increase of £47 million compared to this year. This funding will help local authorities to manage homelessness pressures and enable investment in homelessness prevention.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 allocate funding in Budget 2021 to local authorities to cover costs and funding shortfalls incurred as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Luke Hall
The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic. According to our monthly financial monitoring returns estimated expenditure pressures for the financial year are £7.3 billion. Furthermore, the Chancellor already took action at the Spending Review to provide local authorities with over £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22, taking total COVID support to over £11 billion.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many people were placed in emergency housing as a result of a risk of homelessness between March and August 2020.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government publishes management information about the support for rough sleepers and those at risk of rough sleeping during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest data was published on 3 June and shows 14,610 people were provided emergency accommodation at May 2020. This data can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-rough-sleeper-accommodation-survey-data-may-2020.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many people in Wansbeck constituency were placed in emergency housing as a result of a risk of homelessness between March and August 2020.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Nationally nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown period. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.??On 3 June, the Government published the management information that supports this announcement.
This management information has been collected from over 300 local authorities nationally. We are continuing to work with local authorities to understand the work they are doing to help the most vulnerable in our society. Data is collected on an ongoing basis and we are currently working closely with local authorities to ensure that the data we hold is robust.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many people are on the waiting list nationally for social housing.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
Data on the number of households on social housing waiting lists is published in MHCLG's Live Table 600, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-rents-lettings-and-tenancies
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many people are on the waiting list for social housing in Wansbeck constituency.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Department does not collect waiting list data at constituency level. Data for Northumberland County Council can be found in MHCLG's Live Table 600, which is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-rents-lettings-and-tenancies.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to repeal section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government has established an unprecedented package of support to protect renters throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, including measures to prevent tenants being evicted for 12 months.
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 75319 on 24 July 2020.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to allocate additional funding to Northumberland county council to build more social houses.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We encourage councils to bid for funding from the Affordable Homes Programme to deliver affordable homes. The £9 billion Affordable Homes Programme runs to 2022 and will be extended by one year to save homes that would otherwise have been lost following site closures due to Covid-19. Building on this, we have just confirmed the details of £12.2 billion of additional investment. This includes a new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which will be delivered over 5 years from next year (2021-2026). This programme represents the highest single funding commitment to affordable housing in a decade.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he is putting in place to ensure that there is no increase in homelessness as a result of the reintroduction of late rent evictions.
Answered by Luke Hall
The Government has taken unprecedented action to support renters during the pandemic. On 5 June we announced that the suspension of evictions from social or private rented accommodation had been extended by a further two months. This means that no action to evict a tenant will proceed before 24 August 2020.
We are supporting those at risk of homelessness, with an injection of over £6.5 billion into the welfare system. This includes increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates for Universal Credit and Housing Benefit claimants so that they are set at the 30th percentile of market rents.
The Homelessness Reduction Act came into force in April 2018 and means more people are entitled to support than ever before. Local authorities and other public bodies must now work together to actively relieve people of their homelessness or prevent homelessness for people at risk, irrespective of whether they are a family or single person, the reason they are at risk, or if they have a local connection to the area. Acting earlier and for a broader range of people means more people will get the help they need before they face a homelessness crisis.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 prioritise the building of additional homes and additional homes that people on low incomes can afford to rent.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
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 approximately 250,000 new affordable homes in a wide range of tenures, including Social Rent.
Building on this, we announced at Budget 2020 that we are investing £12 billion to build affordable homes between 2021/22 and 2025/26 and that this will deliver up to 180,000 affordable homes. This will be the biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade.
A mix of different tenures is vital to meet the needs of a wide range of people, and allow the sector to build the right homes in the right places. Alongside affordable home ownership to help those struggling to purchase their first home, our programme also offers affordable rent and social rent homes.
We will announce full details of the homes the programme will deliver in due course.